THE ULTIMATE
On this day, May 1st 1769, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington was born in Dublin, a member of an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family.
Wellesley served as Prime Minister twice, heading Tory Party governments. He is more famous, though, for having defeated the French Emperor, Napoleon, at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 - bringing the Napoleonic Wars to an end. He fought in 60 battles in his military career, in places as far afield as India, Spain and Portugal, France and Northern Europe including Denmark and the Netherlands / Belgium. He met Britain's other leading military hero of the time, Admiral Nelson, just once, in September 1805, in the waiting room to the Secretary of War's Office. Nelson was already famous, Wellington yet to be. Wellington recalled that Nelson started the conversation in a vain and silly manner, but when he came back after enquiring who the young General was, Nelson's approach changed and the two engaged as equals. Nelson was to fight and die in the Battle of Trafalgar only weeks later. Another coincidence is that Wellington when sailing back from India to Britain, stopped on the island of St. Helena and stayed in the same building that Napoleon would be exiled to!
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On this day, April 26th 1918, Olympic athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen was born in the Netherlands.
Fanny became the first female athlete to win 4 Olympic Gold medals in a single Olympic Games at the 1948 Olympics in London - being the most successful athlete at the event. Gold - 100m Gold - 200m Gold - 80m Hurdles Gold - 4 X 100m relay Twice she almost failed to start, prior to the 200m final she broke down, homesickness, pressure of competing, and attacks that as a woman and mother that she shouldn't be competing. Whilst, before the relay she had gone to buy a raincoat, only just making the start. At the time she was 30 years old, mother of two, and it was revealed after the event she was also pregnant. She had also participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Although, Fanny specialised in track events at the Olympics due to restrictions as to how many events she could enter, she also particpated in the long jump and high jump, setting world records in these as well! The media nicknamed her 'The Flying Housewife', 'The Flying Dutchmam' and 'Amazing Fanny'. In 1999 the IAAF voted her the 'Female Athlete of the Century'. On 25th April 1990, the Space Shuttle, launched on the 24th, placed its payload the Hubble Space Telecope into low Earth orbit.
The Hubble Space Telescope sits in low Earth orbit around 600 km above the Earth's surface, and thus is above the clouds that obscure the views of space of Earth based telescopes, and it is near enough to Earth to be serviced by astronauts - this has occurred five times, including correcting a fault in its mirrors discovered within weeks of it becoming operational. Over the 30 years of its operation Hubble has transmitted incredible images across from across depth, breadth of space and time. NASA has released a new image and visualised fly through of an image called 'cosmic reef' for Hubble's 30th Anniversary. This can be seen at www.hubblesite.org as well as available links to a lecture on the Hubble for the 30th Anniversary. A 6 year-old Italian boy will see an Italian football team wear is football kit design next season!
Serie B team Pescara Calcio chose Luigi D'Agostino's rainbow and dolphin tossing a football themed design, from the designs sent in by young fans in a competition aimed at easing the boredom during the Covid-19 lockdown in Italy. The design is indpired by the club's mascot of a dolphin, and Itaian sportswear firm Errea will make the kit for next season. See Luigi's bright and positive design and the new Pescara Calcio kit via the BBC at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52368010 On this day, 18th April 1955, Albert Einstein the German born physicist died.
Einstein is considered the most famous scientist winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921, and his Theory of Relativity is a key aspect of modern Physics. His formula 'E=MC squared' is probably the most famous equation in the world. He became a Swiss citizen, and also a US citizen after the Nazi takeover of Germany, knowing that his Jewish background meant he couldn't return to Germany in that era. His fame is in part due to his academic brilliance, with him being seeing as the archetypal genius, as well as his instantly recognisable looks with his seemingly electrically charged white hair of his later years. His theories including the warping of space and time, and the impact of gravitational waves and black holes. He was influential in getting the US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to develop nuclear weapons, for fear Nazi Germany was already on that path. An act that deeply troubled him later, due to his pacifist views, but he was glad the Nazis didn't manage to gain them. He loved the freedom of the USA, but was critical of the racism in US society that he saw being passed on from one generation to the next and said he would refuse to keep quiet about it. On the 15th April 1452 Leonardo Da Vinci was born. Da Vinci is seen as the foremost Renaissance painter with his works including the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, being amongst, if not, the most well known paintings of all time. He is also known for his anatomical drawings and designs for inventions such as flying machines. On 15th April 1865 Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US President, died having been shot the previous day at at Ford's Theatre, Washington DC, by John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln became the first US President to be shot whilst in office. He had led the United States in the American Civil War against the Southern Confederacy, a split caused by divisions over whether states could allow slavery. Following victory in the Civil War, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the United States. This action, along with moves towards allowing African Americans full voting rights led to Booth's assassination of the President, often seen as the Great Emancipator.
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