William Pitt the Younger was born on this date in 1759. 10 facts about him:
William Pitt the Younger was Britain's youngest ever Prime Minister, entering office at the age of 24.
He is known as "Pitt the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, another prime minister who is referred to as "William Pitt the Elder".
Pitt the Younger was believed by many to be a placeholder leader until someone more suitable (presumably older) could be found. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Pitt would serve as Prime Minster for a total of 18 years, 343 days, making him the second-longest serving Prime Minister in history after Robert Walpole.
He was also the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as we know it today, following the Acts of Union in 1800 and the last Prime Minister of Great Britain as it was before.
He was home schooled by the Reverend Edward Wilson due to ill health in childhood. He wasn’t yet 14 years old when he was admitted to Cambridge University where he studied political philosophy, classics, mathematics, trigonometry, chemistry and history.
He once fought a duel against an MP called George Tierney. The duel took place on 27 May 1798 on Putney Heath, and according to a letter Pitt wrote to his mother afterwards, “The business concluded without anything unpleasant to either Party.”
He stood for Parliament representing the Cambridge University constituency in 1780 but didn’t win the seat. He entered Parliament a year later as MP for the parliamentary borough of Appleby, a constituency considered to be a ‘rotten borough’. Rotten boroughs had small populations meaning their MPs had more influence in Parliament than the number of people they represented would warrant. Plus in those days it was easy to influence the way people voted in those constituencies. Pitt would later decry the use of rotten boroughs to gain power in government.
Like his father before him, he tried to end the American War of Independence, pushing for peace with the colonies. When the war ended, Pitt is known for reducing the resulting national debt using a new income tax and cracking down on smuggling. He reduced the debt from £243 million to £170 million.
He had a liking for port wine and as a result was known as a "three-bottle man".
He was only 46 when he died, probably of peptic ulceration of his stomach or duodenum.
New!!!
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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