Tidbits #1 - Curious History

A decade ago, I was commissioned to write a short series of  features for the Sunday Mirror online called Weekend Wonders. I was working for QI at the time but The Telegraph had the official QI factoid column. So it couldn't be officially associated with the show even though they were 'quite interesting' type facts.

Anyway, as ten years have now passed by, I reckon I can republish them here on my blog (they're no longer on the Mirror site) along with the cartoons I did to accompany them. So here's the first - which I have updated to bring it into 2023.

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Curious History 

When I watched cowboy films as a child it never occurred to me that the ‘Wild West’ happened during the Victorian era. But it did, of course. The most commonly worn hat in America at that time wasn’t the Stetson; it was the Bowler. 

A photo taken at Fort Worth in 1892. It's the so-called Wild Bunch - (left to right) Harry A Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid), Ben Kilpatrick (the Tall Texan), Robert Leroy Parker (Butch Cassidy), Harvey Logan (Kid Curry), and Will Carver. Can you be 'wild' in a Bowler Hat?

William H Bonney, AKA 'Billy the Kid', was killed in 1881. That's the same year that the first Boer War ended, the first ever electric street lights were switched on in Godalming, Surrey, and Pablo Picasso was born. Interestingly, Picasso died in the same year that Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon (1973). 

It’s curious how historical events that are unrelated to each other seem ‘wrong’ when placed side by side. For example, we think of the guillotine as something from long ago but the last time it was used to execute someone in France was in the same year that Star Wars came out – 1977. The last public execution by guillotine was in 1939 and was witnessed by movie star Christopher Lee (1922-2015), who was 17 at the time ... and would later appear in the Star Wars prequel trilogy as Count Dooku.. 

Incidentally, Lee still holds the world record for the most appearances of a male actor in films and TV with nearly 400 credits. He also held the record of being the oldest voice actor used for a videogame, and - because he was a skilled swordsman - he also held the record for most films with a swordfight by an actor. He fought with foils, swords, a billiard cue (on one occasion) and, of course, a light sabre.

Oh, and he sang on several orchestral heavy metal albums.

What a guy. 

There are many more examples of these curious historical juxtapositions. The last claimed sighting of a Dodo was reported in 1688, just a year after Newton published his Three Laws of Motion.

The building of the great pyramids of Egypt began when there were still woolly mammoths strolling about Siberia. 

And, despite many Americans visiting the UK to soak up the history, the Brooklyn Bridge (1883) is actually 11 years older than London’s Tower Bridge (1894). 

But perhaps my favourite such fact is that Sir Bruce Forsyth was born in 1928, a whole year before Ann Frank ...  and the same year that sliced bread was invented.

Oh, and Brucie had the world’s longest TV career; his first appearance was in 1939 (the year that WW2 began and Batman first appeared in a comic) while his final appearance was in 2017.

Didn't he do well?