ON THIS DAY
January 4, 2016
IT’S DAY 4 OF 2016
THE father of communism Karl Marx named all 4 of his daughters Jenny — which was also the name of his wife. THE French and British engineers building the Channel Tunnel met in the middle just 4mm off target when the UK was finally linked to Europe in 1990. THE cross upon which Jesus was crucified was reputedly made from 4 different types of wood — cypress, cedar, palm and olive. THE first 4 foods rationed during World War II were butter, sugar, bacon and ham. ELECTED MPs were first given a salary in 1911 — £400 (equivalent to £32,900 now). Today, they earn £74,000.
THERE ARE 362 DAYS LEFT
IN 2009, Julian Pryke, a fishmonger from Greenwich, South London, successfully cut and gutted 362 mackerel in just one hour, a record he achieved while sitting in a bath. THE first people to row across the Pacific were Britons John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook, in 1971. They reached Australia 362 days after setting off from San Francisco, fortified en route with Spam and Horlicks. THE bill for the U.S. Navy’s futuristic new ‘supership’ USS Milwaukee, launched last year, came to $362 million. Designed to be difficult to detect on radar, the ship was there for all to see when it had to be towed back to port just 20 days after coming into service, having suffered engine failure.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CrAIG rEvEL HOrWOOD, 51 (right). Born in Ballarat, Australia, the dancer and choreographer is best known as the Mr Nasty of the four judges on Strictly Come Dancing. In his younger years he was a drag queen called Lavish and has admitted to having a sugar-daddy lover. rICK STEIN, 69. The restaurateur and chef is also a handy plumber who fitted all the equipment in his first Seafood restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ISAAC NEWTON (1643-1727). The physicist who discovered gravity. His college notebooks contained a coded list of his childhood sins, which included punching his sister, threatening to burn down his stepfather’s house and making pies on a Sunday. LOUIS BrAILLE (1809-1852). The French educator, who lost his sight in an accident aged three, invented a system for reading and writing for use by the blind. He got the idea after coming across a failed writing system created by the military so soldiers could communicate in the dark. JACOB GrIMM (17851863). Born in Hanau, Germany, he and his brother Wilhelm collected popular stories, including Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella and Little red riding Hood (right), which were published as Grimms’ Fairy Tales. They also worked on compiling a German dictionary and Jacob later became librarian for Napoleon’s brother, Jerome, king of Westpalia.
ON JANUARY 4 . . .
IN 1936, Billboard magazine in New York published the first pop music sales chart, 16 years before one was published in the UK. IN 1992, jockey Frankie Dettori rode in Hong Kong, and was immediately cautioned by the stewards for chewing gum. IN 1967, Donald Campbell was killed on Coniston Water, trying to break the world waterspeed record in his Bluebird K7.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT’S round, aggressive and very bad tempered? A vicious circle.