Britain, oddly interesting facts

[Gob]

1. Gyldenbollockes was an actual surname in medieval England.

2. Sir Bruce Forsyth is four and a half months older than sliced bread.

3. The first fatal car accident in the UK was caused by a driver going at four miles per hour.

4. The Queen took her favourite corgi on her honeymoon.

5. A series of riots that lasted three months in 1809 were caused by the Covent Garden theatre putting its ticket prices up.

6. The 11 days between September 3 and September 13 1752 were the least eventful in British history – because they never happened. Thanks to the move from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, the date skipped straight from Wednesday 2 to Thursday 14.

7. In the 14th century, Sussex priest William of Shoreham advised baptising babies in cider instead of water.

8. The oldest condoms ever found were from Dudley Castle in the 1640s, and were made from animal and fish intestines.

9. Lieutenant Colonel “Mad” Jack Churchill is only British soldier in WWII known to have killed an enemy soldier with a longbow. He insisted on going into battle armed with both a medieval bow and a claymore sword.

10. In 2009, a search of Loch Ness for the Loch Ness monster instead discovered thousands of lost golf balls.

11. The village of Lost in Aberdeenshire has its road sign welded to the post because it kept getting stolen.

12. According to PornHub, the word most commonly used by people in the UK when searching for porn is “British”.

13. Nineteenth-century biologist Sir John Lubbock experimented on ants by getting them drunk. He discovered that sober ants would carry drunk ants from the same colony as them back to their nest, but would throw drunk strangers into water.

14. In World War II, British soldiers got a ration of three sheets of toilet paper a day. Americans got 22.

15. The last English woman convicted under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was convicted in 1944.

16. The equals sign was invented by Welshman Robert Recorde in 1557, because he thought writing “is equal to” over and over again was “tedious”.

17. Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, was an Olympic-standard marathon runner – when he had meetings in London, he would sometimes run the 40-plus miles there from Bletchley Park.
18. Everyone on Palmerston Island in the middle of the Pacific speaks with a Gloucestershire accent.

19. During World War II, the crew of the British submarine HMS Trident kept a fully grown reindeer called Pollyanna aboard their vessel for six weeks (it was a gift from the Russians).

20. Charles Darwin let his children use the original manuscript for On the Origin of Species as drawing paper.

21. J.M. Barrie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, P.G. Wodehouse, and A.A. Milne all played for the same cricket team. The team was rubbish.

22. Speaking of which, Doyle was once set on fire by a cricket ball while batting at Lord’s. (It hit a box of matches in his pocket, igniting them.)

23. When England’s first escalator was installed in Harrod’s in 1898, smelling salts and brandy were offered to customers at the top in case they had been made faint by the ride.

24. When the London Underground’s first escalator opened in 1911, a one-legged engineer called Bumper Harris rode it to reassure passengers that it was safe.

25. In 1816, The Times warned its readers that the waltz was an “indecent foreign dance” and a “fatal contagion” that should be “confined to prostitutes and adultresses”.

26. On average, Brits consume almost 4.3 pounds of tea per person every year. That’s actually slightly behind the Irish, who get through 4.8 pounds.

27. One in four potatoes in Britain end up as chips, according to the Potato Council.

28. A massive beer flood killed at least seven people in London in 1814 when a vat burst at a brewery in Tottenham Court Road, sending a 15-foot wave of beer through the neighbourhood.

[Lord Jim]

9. Lieutenant Colonel “Mad” Jack Churchill is only British soldier in WWII known to have killed an enemy soldier with a longbow. He insisted on going into battle armed with both amedieval bow and a claymore sword

Well, that would certainly explain why his nickname was "Mad"....

A little known asterisk to this event is that shortly after he became the only known British soldier in WW II to kill an enemy with a longbow, he was machine gunned to death by a squad of Jerrys who were somewhat more modernly equipped...

ETA:

Well, isn't that just like a Limey...

Brings a medieval longbow and a claymore sword to a machine gun fight...

[MajGenl.Meade]

The 11 days between September 3 and September 13 1752 were the least eventful in British history – because they never happened. Thanks to the move from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, the date skipped straight from Wednesday 2 to Thursday 14

.

Shorely shome mishtake? There are only 9 days between September 3 and September 13. There are 11 days between September 2 and September 14 though.

[Crackpot]

I noticed that it didn't look right but I was sure you or scooter would point it out and save me the energy of figuring out just how it was wrong.

[MajGenl.Meade]

We live to serve

[Bicycle Bill]

With regard to #4, "Great Gram-gram said, 'Lie back, grit your teeth, and think of England'
..... and then after that, Susan, we can have some fun!"   (Susan was the name of the dog)

-"BB"-

[datsunaholic]

A little known asterisk to this event is that shortly after he became the only known British soldier in WW II to kill an enemy with a longbow, he was machine gunned to death by a squad of Jerrys who were somewhat more modernly equipped...

Actually, no. He died in 1996 at the age of 89.

The actual other fact was in addition to the longbow and Scottish Broadsword, he also carried bagpipes into battle. Yup.

But it doesn't stop there. In civilian life, while riding the train home he would throw his briefcase out the train window almost every day. Turns out he lived by the tracks and was throwing the briefcase into his own garden so he wouldn't have to carry it when walking from the station.

[Lord Jim]

he also carried bagpipes into battle.

Well that explains why he was able to live so long...

As soon as the Bosch heard that, they scattered and ran into the night...

[Gob]

"A gentleman is someone who knows how to play bagpipes, but doesn't."

[oldr_n_wsr]

8. The oldest condoms ever found were from Dudley Castle in the 1640s, and were made from animal and fish intestines.

And thus the invention of the sausage.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Not to mention the cod piece

[Bicycle Bill]

Not to mention the cod piece

There was one knight who never did wear a codpiece.
It made it difficult for him to get scrod.

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

I heard he was only interested in hallebutt

[Bicycle Bill]

9. Lieutenant Colonel “Mad” Jack Churchill is only British soldier in WWII known to have killed an enemy soldier with a longbow. He insisted on going into battle armed with both amedieval bow and a claymore sword

Well, that would certainly explain why his nickname was "Mad"....

A little known asterisk to this event is that shortly after he became the only known British soldier in WW II to kill an enemy with a longbow, he was machine gunned to death by a squad of Jerrys who were somewhat more modernly equipped...

ETA:

Well, isn't that just like a Limey...

Brings a medieval longbow and a claymore sword to a machine gun fight...

Sometimes, however, there's no school like the old school.....
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15743

-"BB"-

[Jarlaxle]

9. Lieutenant Colonel “Mad” Jack Churchill is only British soldier in WWII known to have killed an enemy soldier with a longbow. He insisted on going into battle armed with both amedieval bow and a claymore sword

Well, that would certainly explain why his nickname was "Mad"....

A little known asterisk to this event is that shortly after he became the only known British soldier in WW II to kill an enemy with a longbow, he was machine gunned to death by a squad of Jerrys who were somewhat more modernly equipped...

ETA:

Well, isn't that just like a Limey...

Brings a medieval longbow and a claymore sword to a machine gun fight...

Actually, he lived to be 89 years old.