Something in the air A US fighter plane shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon which had drifted across Canada and the US. Balloons have a long history in military operations, being deployed widely in the American Civil War and in the Siege of Paris in 1870, when they were used to get messages out of
The final countdown The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its ‘Doomsday Clock’ from 100 seconds to midnight to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it has ever been to our apparent annihilation. How close was it during other periods of history? Cuban missile crisis, 1962 The standoff between the US and the Soviet Union
Preserve us The British Museum said it would stop referring to ‘mummies’ and call them ‘mummified persons’ instead, out of respect to their dignity. How did they come to be called mummies in the first place? – The term has been traced back to 1615, and derived from the Latin Mumia, and the Arabic Mumiya,
Duke out Will the Duke and Duchess of Sussex be invited to Charles III’s coronation? The royal family faced a similarly tricky decision over the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII, at Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. Documents released by the National Archives in 2007 reveal that the matter was handled by the Prime
Wicked stepmothers Prince Harry said that he was worried Camilla would become his ‘wicked stepmother’. But she would have to be rotten indeed to match the English monarchy’s original wicked stepmother, Aelfthryth, who married King Edgar in 965. Upon Edgar’s death the succession should have passed to his elder son, Edward, but Aelfthryth had other
Tusk force A new year firework display in Scarborough was cancelled for fear of disturbing a walrus which was resting on the seafront. How unusual is it to see a walrus in Britain? – There have been 27 recorded sightings in UK waters in the past 130 years, the most recent in Seahouses Harbour, Northumberland,
Bank on it One event in 2023 which the government and Bank of England will not want to draw attention to is the 100th anniversary of the peak of the Weimar inflation. – The value of the German mark had already been plummeting in the early 1920s as the German government printed money to pay
Final countdown Could fewer people watch the 2022 World Cup final in the flesh than watched the inaugural 1930 contest? The first World Cup final, won 4-2 by Uruguay, was held in the Estadio Centario in Montevideo on 30 July 1930. The stadium officially held 93,000 people. That is more than the present Wembley stadium
Not Wellcome The Wellcome Collection closed its own Medicine Man exhibition on the history of medicine, complaining that it was racist. Some of the treasures it displayed: – Wax and cloth head of Elizabeth I, half of which shows a face and the other half a decomposing skull being consumed by insects. – Pair of bellows used
Cornish pasting Malcolm Bell, the chief executive of VisitCornwall, complained in an online interview about ‘emmets’ – an emmet being a derogatory word for an outsider, derived from a local dialect word for ‘ants’. Some more insults in Cornish dialect: Bimper, a peeping Tom; Dobeck, a fool; Gocki, stupid; Piggy-whidden, a weakling; Squallyass, a crybaby;
Billion-dollar losers Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of FTX, saw his wealth plummet from $16 bn to zero when the company collapsed. Other big fortunes lost: – Masayoshi Son, founder of Softbank, lost paper wealth of around $70 bn (in today’s money) during the dotcom crash of 2000-2. The company later floated and now he
Carbon dating Did burning fossil fuels begin with the industrial revolution, or is there someone else from whom we could claim reparations for carbon emissions? — Artefacts made from coal and dated to 4000 bc have been uncovered in the Shenyang province of north-eastern China, with a formalised industry using coal for copper-smelting in operation
Talking gobblers Has Elon Musk picked up a turkey in Twitter? – Musk paid $54.2 per share. The share price reached $41.57 on its first day of trading in 2013. It slumped to $14.62 in April 2016 and peaked at $77.06 in February 2021. In the first quarter of 2022, it claimed 229 million active
Prime numbers At 42, Rishi Sunak is Britain’s youngest PM since Lord Liverpool took office the day after his 42nd birthday in June 1812. He replaced Spencer Perceval, the only British prime minister to be assassinated. Much is made of Sunak’s wealth, but he hasn’t enjoyed the privilege Lord Liverpool did (his father was an
Out to grass If Liz Truss is forced out of office (and doesn’t also resign her parliamentary seat as Tony Blair did on resigning as prime minister), there will be three ex-PMs sitting on the backbenches of the Commons. When was the last time this happened? — Between Jim Callaghan’s defeat in the 1979 general
Dying of heat The former government chief scientific adviser Sir David King predicted that the heatwave in mid-July could cause up to 10,000 excess deaths. Was he right? — The ONS says there were 2,227 excess deaths from 10 to 25 July: that is compared with the five-year average (which excludes the Covid year of
Out of office Could Liz Truss end up being Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister? She would have to remain in office until 2 January to outlast George Canning, who was PM from 12 April 1827 until his death on 8 August of that year. Like Truss, Canning had served as foreign secretary, where he was credited
Fit for a king King Charles III, it has been reported, is reluctant to move into Buckingham Palace. Who was the first monarch to live there? – The core of what is now the palace was built as a townhouse, Buckingham House, for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 and purchased by George III as
The namesakes Some of history’s other Charles IIIs: – Charles III, King of Naples (1382-86): forced Pope Urban VI into exile, then moved to Hungary, whose throne he had assumed through marriage. Was assassinated. – Charles III, King of Navarre (1387-1425): made peace with France. – Charles III, Duke of Savoy (1504-53): lost when France
Sovereign’s states When she died, Elizabeth II was Queen of 14 nations other than the UK: Antigua and Barbuda; Australia; the Bahamas; Belize; Canada; Grenada; Jamaica; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; St Kitts and Nevis; St Lucia; St Vincent and the Grenadines; the Solomon Islands; Tuvalu. – There are a further 18 countries of which
