14 July

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 14 July:

1. In 1789, the French prison fortress Bastille was stormed by an angry mob of 20,000, who freed its prisoners, decapitated the warden, and killed the Mayor of Paris. 14 July is now a French National holiday.
2. Staying in France, in 1993, a 23-year-old factory worker in Marseilles was crushed to death when a bin filled with 5,000 pounds of Marshmallows fell on him.
3. In 1977, a man hit by a car in New York wasn’t hurt, but a well meaning bystander encouraged him to lie in front of the car and pretend to be injured in order to collect insurance money. The man did so, whereupon the car rolled forward, and crushed him to death.
4. In 1997, a paramedic in Egypt collapsed and died of shock when a man who had been pronounced dead opened the lid of his coffin and started shouting for help.
5. In 2000, the first ten contestants entered the “Big Brother House” in East London in an attempt to win £70,000. They spent up to 9 weeks in the house, constantly watched by cameras and viewed by millions on TV and the Internet.
6. Mademoiselle Vaucher became the first woman to reach the summit of the Matterhorn on this date in 1965.
7. In 2011 a rainbow toad, thought to have become extinct since none had been sighted since 1924, was discovered in Borneo and photographed for the first time.
8. In 1990, the largest cherry pie, which weighed in at 37,740lb and 10oz and had a diameter of 20' was created in Oliver, B.C., Canada.
9. In 1868, the patent for a tape measure was issued to A.J. Fellowes of New Haven, Connecticut.
10. In 1990, 88 tourists went on a trip to the small uninhabited island of Eynhallow, off Rousay in the Orkneys. However, according to the ferry crew, only 86 returned. A thorough search of the island by police, coastguards and a Helicopter failed to find the missing people. The island was regarded thereafter as a spooky ‘vanishing isle’.

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