Seventeenth-century butchers could be fined for killing bulls without baiting them first. Baiting was thought to improve the quality of the meat.
Fact of the Day
Quote of the Day
"I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
"
~ Charlie Chaplin
On This Day
1536 Anne Boleyn was executed for adultery, incest and treason.
1649 A little over three months after the execution of Charles I, the Rump Parliament adopted the Act Declaring and Constituting the People of England to be a Commonwealth and Free-State, making 'England, and of all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging' a republic, 'without any King or House of Lords'.
1849 Irish labourer William Hamilton aimed some gunpowder (but no shot) at Queen Victoria. He was sentenced to 7 years transportation.
1898 William Gladstone, one of the defining politicians of the Victorian age and four-time prime minister, died aged 88.
1935 T.E. Lawrence - the famous Lawrence of Arabia - died of injuries he had sustained on his motorbike after he swerved to avoid two boys in the road.
1962 Marilyn Monroe famously sang 'Happy Birthday' to US President JFK - 10 days early.