May 7, 2016 ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 128 OF 2016
THE world’s first contact lens was created 128 years ago by Dr Adolf eugen Frick at his clinic in Zurich, though some scholars credit Leonardo da Vinci with the idea in 1508.
IN 1854, Sir John Franklin and his crew of 128 men on HMS erebus and HMS Terror disappeared as they searched for the elusive Northwest Passage across the Canadian Arctic, creating one of the world’s greatest naval mysteries. In 2014, erebus was found, but Terror is still missing.
SCIENTISTS spent two years studying 128 runners in ultramarathons (races longer than a marathon) to determine which was the best method for preventing blisters. The answer? A single strip of surgical tape placed over ‘at risk’ areas.
THERE ARE 238 DAYS LEFT
THE film Gone With The Wind, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh (right, as Scarlett O’Hara), took 238 minutes to watch, including the overture, inter-mission and exit music, when released in December 1939 — 17 minutes longer than today’s DVD.
OTIS REDDING’S (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay became the U.S. music chart’s 238th Number One, three months after he died in December 1967 — the first posthumous chart-topper.
THE Guinness world record for the largest cowboy boots ever made was awarded for a pair measuring 2.5 metres tall and 2.38 metres long – they were made from five cows’ worth of leather.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
RICHARD O’SULLIVAN, 72. The Londonborn comedy actor was best known for his roles as Robin Tripp in Seventies sitcoms Man About The House and Robin’s Nest, and dated his co-stars Sally Thomsett and Tessa Wyatt. He was eight when he made his screen debut in The Stranger’s Hand.
BORN ON THIS DAY
EVA PERON (1919-1952, pictured). The charismatic second wife of Argentine President Juan Peron, nicknamed ‘evita’. After her death, and the fall of her husband’s government in 1955, her embalmed body was removed by the military and buried in Italy under a false name. Peron had the body exhumed and kept it in his dining room in Spain, where he lived in exile. evita was reburied in Buenos Aires in 1976.
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897). The German composer and pianist, born in Hamburg, began writing music at 11. Later in life, he destroyed most of his earlier works as they no longer met his high standards.
EDWIN H. LAND (1909-1991). The U.S. inventor introduced the world to the first instant camera, the Polaroid, in 1948. The inspiration for his idea came after his young daughter asked him why they couldn’t see the pictures from the camera as soon as they were taken.
ON MAY 7 . . .
IN 1934, the world’s largest pearl, weighing 14lb and known as the Pearl of Allah, was discovered in the Philippines. Its most recent valuation is $75 million (£51 million).
IN 1968, songwriter and session musician Reginald Kenneth Dwight began a solo career as elton John.
IN 1988, the U.S. city of Boston held the world’s first convention for people who said they had been abducted by aliens.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Timing, perseverance and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success. Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter)
JOKE OF THE DAY
‘I HAVE a really nice stepladder. Sadly, I never knew my real ladder.’