ON THIS DAY

• 30 – Allegedly the date of the flagellation and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth
• 1739 – English highwayman, Dick Turpin, is hanged
• 1795 – France adopts the metric system
• 1827 – John Walker sells the first match (not to be confused with the Whiskey Walker)
• 1891 – Circus impresario, PT Barnum dies
• 1906 – Mount Vesuvius erupts, killing over 100 people
• 1933 – Prohibition is repealed in the USA
• 1939 – Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons dies (the first PM to die in office and six years prior to John Curtin)
• 1947 – Automobile manufacturer, Henry Ford, departs for that great car yard in the sky
• 1969 – Dual F1 world champion, Jim Clark, is killed in a crash in Germany
• 2003 – US troops capture Baghdad (Saddam Hussein’s regime falls two days later)

Birthdays

William Keith ‘Corn Flakes’ Kellogg (1860), black singer Billie Holiday (1915), Andrew ‘Manuel’ Sachs from Fawlty Towers (1930), Wayne ‘Trapper John’ Rogers (1933), Sir David Frost (1939), Jackie Chan (1947), Russell Crowe (1964), Duncan Armstrong (1968).

Quotes

“There’s a sucker born every minute”
- PT Barnum

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it”

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right”
- Henry Ford