Every weekend Spectator Life brings you doses of topical trivia – facts, figures and anecdotes inspired by the current week’s dates in history.
23 January
In 1571, the Royal Exchange opened in London. The building (or rather its Victorian replacement) still bears a golden grasshopper, the emblem of the Exchange’s founder Thomas Gresham. He chose this to commemorate one of his ancestors, who as an illegitimate baby was abandoned in a Norfolk field. A local family, the Greshams, were out walking, and only found the baby because their young son chased a grasshopper into the field. They adopted the infant, calling him Roger. Thomas Gresham knew that without that grasshopper he would never have existed.
24 January
Luis Suarez (born 1987). The Uruguayan is as famous for biting opponents as he is for scoring goals.
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