16 August

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 16 August:

1. Jimmy the tiny Marmoset died on this date in 1937. His gravestone on the Oxford Road, Henley on Thames, reads “There isn't enough darkness in the world to quench the light of one small candle.”
2. In 1999, a hunter in Bad Urach, Germany, was shot dead by his Dog. He left a loaded gun in his car with its barrel pointing out of the window. His dog was in the car, too, and it trod on the trigger.
3. In 1966, The Monkees' first single, Last Train to Clarksville, was released.
4. In 1934, American explorer Charles Beebe and engineer Otis Barton made a record-breaking dive to 923m/3028 ft in their bathysphere (a spherical diving vessel) near Bermuda.
5. In 1995, an Air France Concorde set new round the world flight record: 31 hours 27 minutes with a top speed of 1,300 mph.
6. In 1991, 22 English Football teams left the First Division to form the Premier Division.
7. In 1996, Valerie Prate, a New Zealand hairdresser, was accused of gender discrimination because her pensioners' special haircuts were priced at $5 for men and $15 for women. She justified the pricing by saying: “My old men are bald headed with just a fringe around the back. You can’t charge them much, can you?”
8. In 1997, Aida Nur el-Din, an Egyptian hospital matron, confessed to killing at least 18 patients so she could get a good night’s sleep.
9. In 1996, at the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago, Illinois, a three year old boy fell into the Gorilla pen and lay unconscious. A gorilla named Binti-Jua picked the boy up and protected him until rescuers arrived.
10. The oldest and youngest records for wing walking on this date in 1999 when Leslie Seales, aged 85 and with only one leg, and his granddaughter Amber Rimell, 16, were strapped to 1940s Stearmen biplanes at Goodwood airfield near Chichester.

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