22 July

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 22 July:

1. On this date in 1934, bank robber John Dillinger, 31, ‘public enemy No. 1’ met his end. FBI agents received a tip-off from Dillinger’s e-girlfriend, that he was going to see a Clark Gable film at a cinema in Chicago. Agents shot him dead when he appeared to reach for a gun at the theatre.
2. The biggest wedding in history was staged on this date in 1982 when the Reverend Sun Myung Moon married 2,200 couples in New York.
3. According to legend, a Pied Piper rid the German town of Hamelin of Rats. When the town refused to pay him, he mesmerised their children with his tunes. They followed him out of town never to be seen again. Historians say that the legend is based on real events which took place in 1284, when young men left Hamelin to find work elsewhere.
4. Staying in Hamelin, in 1724, a naked, feral boy aged about twelve was captured in the woods near the town. He was sent to Hertfordshire, England where he lived until he was about 72. He was called Peter the Wild Boy (or Wild Peter) and wore a brass collar with his name inscribed on it.
5. In 1969 Apollo XI astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, reunited aboard the command module, started their journey home after the first manned mission to the moon.
6. In 2012, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France.
7. In 2015 the finals of the robot football World Cup were held. China defeated the Netherlands in the finals of the middle-weight non-humanoid league, but lost to Japan in the final of the small humanoid class.
8. Wireless telegraphy was first used to aid police forces on this date in 1910. The captain of the liner Montrose alerted detectives by Radio to the fact that Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen and his mistress were on board.
9. In 1930, the first officially recorded sighting of the famous Loch Ness monster took place in Scotland.
10. In 1996, an Australian guide to health and safety at work was published, which included a warning not to “place any part of one’s body in the mouth of a Crocodile.”

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