ON THIS DAY
August 13, 2016
IT’S DAY 226
POP superstar Prince left behind a £226million fortune when he died earlier this year. Around 700 people have since claimed to be half-siblings of the star. THE alleged ‘London Monster’ was arrested 226 years ago after a series of attacks on women who were pricked or stabbed — non-fatally — with a knife, pin or needle in the buttocks. After two trials, Rhynwick Williams, 23, was sentenced to six years in prison. However, historians have questioned whether he was the culprit.
THERE ARE 140 DAYS LEFT
Your kidneys clean your blood 40 times a day through 140 miles of tubes and a million filters. They produce 1.5 litres of urine a day to rid the body of toxins and waste matter. GEORGE the Lobster — believed to be 140 years old — got his 15 minutes of fame when he was captured off Newfoundland in 2008 and sold to a restaurant. An animal rights group lobbied for the crustacean’s freedom and he was released back into the ocean. THE Bass Brewery’s red triangle logo became the first registered trademark symbol 140 years ago. A year later, the company become the largest brewery in the world. It still makes one of the most popular premium canned ales in the uK.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MARIE HELvIN, 64. The u.S. model who was married to photographer David Bailey. She is terrified of electricity: ‘I put on rubber gloves, stand on a rubber mat and take off all my jewellery before I plug something in.’ She attributes her fear to her grandfather being electrocuted. PHIL TAYLOR, 56. Nicknamed ‘The Power’, he is considered by many to be the best darts player of all time, having won 83 major titles and a record 16 World Championships. Born in Stoke-on-Trent, Taylor made ceramic toilet roll handles before taking up darts at 26, when his family moved next door to darts legend Eric Bristow’s pub.
BORN ON THIS DAY
BERNARD MANNING (1930-2007). The Manchester-born comedian. Serving in the Army at 16, he was one of the armed guards keeping an eye on the Nazi hierarchy in Spandau prison in Berlin — ‘standing over the likes of Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer with a Bren gun’. Four months before his death at 76, Manning wrote his own obituary to be published in the Mail. ‘Well, at least I won’t be seeing any of the po-faced, politically correct brigade where I’m going,’ he wrote. JOHN LOGIE BAIRD (1888-1946). The inventor of the television hadn’t always been so successful. As a boy, he installed a system of electric lighting in his house that entangled passing traffic in the wires. He was forced to resign from his post as an engineer at an electrical company in Glasgow when he blacked out half of the city following a failed attempt to manufacture diamonds from coal dust.
ON AUGUST 13TH...
IN 1913, Sheffield’s Harry Brearley began the first uK production of stainless steel. IN 1964, the last two executions in Britain took place when murderers Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen were hanged in Manchester and Liverpool. IN 1966, China announced a ‘new leap forward’ that would lead to the Cultural Revolution and the purging of Chairman Mao’s rivals, along with all those ‘who have followed the path of capitalism’.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The thing I lose patience with the most is the clock. Its hands move too fast.
Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHERE do generals keep their armies? Up their sleevies.