ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 16 OF 2016
COffee chain Starbucks’ original logo showed a Norse siren with bare breasts. After 16 years, the image was altered to preserve the mermaid’s modesty. JACk CORNWeLL, 16, won a posthumous Victoria Cross on May 31, 1916, at the Battle of Jutland. He served aboard HMS Chester as Boy 1st Class, when the gun turret in which he was a sight setter was hit. even though mortally wounded, Cornwell stayed in position waiting for futher orders. Desperate to follow his brother and father into the Navy, he’d lied about his age to sign up aged just 15. THeRe are 16 goose feathers in a traditional badminton shuttlecock — and supposedly they should all come from the same side wing to ensure correct flight. Shuttlecocks can reach speeds of up to 206mph.
THERE ARE 350 DAYS LEFT
OVeR 350 million Rubik’s Cubes have been bought since Hungarian architect erno Rubik created the first one in 1974. THe first computer hard disk drive was the IBM Model 350, launched in 1956. It weighed over a ton, measured 5ft by 6ft, and could store just 5MB of data — or about 500 emails.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
kATe MOSS, 42. The Croydon-born supermodel, whose career began at 14 when she was spotted at New York’s Jfk airport, is now worth £55 million. Criticised for declaring ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, Moss (right) drinks 10-15 cups of tea a day and recommends a Bloody Mary as a hangover cure. JAMeS MAY, 53. The Bristol-born former Top Gear presenter. With Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, he signed a contract said to be worth £160million to do a new online show. In 1992 he was sacked from Autocar Magazine after lining up the first letter of each car review to spell: ‘So you think this is good, yeah? You should try making the thing up. It’s a real pain in the a**e’. SADe, 57. The lead singer of the eponymous band behind hit songs Smooth Operator and Your Love Is king, was born Helen folasade Adu in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and an english mother. She moved to essex aged four after her parents separated. Her name ‘folasade’ means ‘crown of honour’ but was shortened to Sade.
BORN ON THIS DAY
DIAN fOSSeY (1932-1985). The American zoologist spent 18 years studying gorillas in the African mountains and was murdered on Boxing Day aged 53 in Rwanda. Her killing remains unsolved. ROBeRT SeRVICe (1874-1958). The Preston-born Scottish-Canadian writer whose poems and tales of the klondike Gold Rush gained him a reputation as being a ‘poet of the people’. During World War I, he spotted his obituary in a newspaper. He chose not to correct it because ‘they said such beautiful things about me’. eRIC LIDDeLL (19021945). The Scottish athlete, born in China, won the 400m in the 1924 Paris Olympics. The following year, he returned to China as a missionary teacher but died in a Japanese internment camp. He refused an opportunity to leave, and instead gave his place to a pregnant woman. Liddell (above) was depicted in the film Chariots Of fire.
ON JANUARY 16th...
IN 1920, prohibition of alcohol became law in the U.S. — a ban that lasted for 13 years. IN 1990, Operation Desert Storm — to rescue kuwait from Iraqi occupation — began.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Rome wasn’t built in a day. But I wasn’t on that particular job. Football manager Brian Clough (1935-2004)
JOKES OF THE DAY
STATISTICALLY, six out of every seven dwarfs are not Happy.