19 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 19 October: 

1. In 1992, Salvatore Chirilino picked a four leaf clover on a cliff-top in Italy – then plunged 150ft to his death. "He slipped on the wet grass", said his wife, "and went over the side". A police spokesman added: "It's just not lucky for everyone".
2. This has been a good date for pioneering weddings. In 1874 Mary Walsh and Charles Colson became the first couple to be married in a balloon over Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1997, Stripper and former parliamentary candidate Hsu Shao-tan and Wu Jung-chang had the first nude wedding in Taiwan; and in 2012, Josefin Sockertopp and Sonnie Gustavsson tied the knot at the Star Trek Convention at London's Excel Centre. The couple wore Klingon costumes and vowed to unite against all their opponents. It was the UK's first Klingon wedding.
3. In 1747, the Earl of Sandwich described the proper etiquette for eating his invention: "with a civilized swallow and not a barbarous bolt."
4. Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance march was first performed in Liverpool on this date in 1901.
5. In 1975, the longest segmented worm was found in Britain. It was a king rag worm and was 44in long.
6. In 1901, an airship flew around the Eiffel Tower in an attempt to win the Deutsch Prize valued at around £1,000, for flying from St Cloud to the tower in 30 minutes. Albert de Santos, a young Brazilian, made the trip in the permitted 30 minutes, but took 30 seconds too long to climb out of the gondola and was penalised. The public protested and the judges awarded him the prize anyway.
7. Bertha von Suttner became the first woman Nobel Peace laureate on this date in 1905.
8. In 2000 Florida man Forest "Woody" Tucker, aged 80, robbed a bank armed with a walking stick.
9. In 1967, Roger Patterson spotted a huge apelike creature in California woodlands. He shot 24 feet of film of it on his home movie camera. The film is now considered to be the best evidence that Bigfoot exists.
10. In 2003, David Blaine ended his 44 day endurance stunt of being sealed inside a transparent case suspended 30 feet in the air over Potters Fields Park, London.

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