Regarded as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists to have lived, Stephen Hawking revolutionised the way we look at the cosmos and inspired a generation through his book, A Brief History of Time, which explored the origins and structure of the universe from the Big Bang to black holes. On this day, 14 March,…
If you browsed through a copy of America’s Social Register you’d find it hard to discover a figure more entwined with the establishment than Richard Evelyn Byrd, a naval officer born in Winchester, Virginia, on 25 October 1888. The son of Esther Bolling and Richard Evelyn Byrd Sr, Byrd was a descendant of one of…
I don’t need a calculator, abacus or two hands to add up how many comedians I’ve watched live during my lifetime… I can count to five quite comfortably without the help of those devices. Four from the list have been in Cardiff during the last decade and include a very miffed Micky Flanagan at St…
Not since the intense rivalry between the Americans and Soviets during the Cold War has chess enjoyed such prominence in popular culture. During the periods of house arrest endured by the Netflix-watching world over the past 12 months, The Queen’s Gambit has catapulted the game back into the limelight, with the character of prodigy Beth…
Six days after screening the final cut of his last movie, Eyes Wide Shut, for family and stars of the film, one of the movie industry’s most acclaimed directors died in his sleep after suffering a heart attack. It was 22 years ago today, on 7 March 1999, that the curtain came down on the…
There can be few Welshmen down the centuries who have suffered a more tragic end than racing driver Tom Pryce. A wet-track specialist, Pryce was firmly on the road to a successful Formula One career when a series of freak occurrences on this day, 5 March, 44 years ago led to the 27-year-old’s tragic demise…
The fastest time taken to run a mile was recorded on 7 July 1999 in Rome by Moroccan middle-distance runner Hicham El Guerrouj. Considered by many to be the greatest middle-distance runner of all time, El Guerrouj set the mark at 3:43.13… an incredible 16 seconds faster than the mile had been covered 45 years…
It’s now 114 years since a history-changing association began between English archaeologist Howard Carter and his paymaster Lord Carnarvon. Initially Lord Carnarvon hired Carter to supervise the excavation of nobles’ tombs in Deir el-Bahri, near Thebes, but attentions soon turned to the Valley of the Kings when Lord Carnarvon was granted a concession to dig…
Today I learned three things about American actor Jackie Coogan… the fourth I already knew. I discovered he was one of the first child stars in the history of Hollywood cinema and that he gave his name to a law to protect child performers from exploitation, particularly by their parents. The third thing I found…
The oldest player ever to win the Fifa World Cup turns 79 today, but surprisingly it’s almost 40 years ago that he achieved that status. At the 1982 World Cup in Spain goalkeeper Dino Zoff captained Italy to victory in the tournament at the age of 40 years, four months and 13 days… but to…
