Carbon dating Did burning fossil fuels begin with the industrial revolution, or is there someone else from whom we could claim reparations for carbon emissions? — Artefacts made from coal and dated to 4000 bc have been uncovered in the Shenyang province of north-eastern China, with a formalised industry using coal for copper-smelting in operation
Talking gobblers Has Elon Musk picked up a turkey in Twitter? – Musk paid $54.2 per share. The share price reached $41.57 on its first day of trading in 2013. It slumped to $14.62 in April 2016 and peaked at $77.06 in February 2021. In the first quarter of 2022, it claimed 229 million active
Prime numbers At 42, Rishi Sunak is Britain’s youngest PM since Lord Liverpool took office the day after his 42nd birthday in June 1812. He replaced Spencer Perceval, the only British prime minister to be assassinated. Much is made of Sunak’s wealth, but he hasn’t enjoyed the privilege Lord Liverpool did (his father was an
Out to grass If Liz Truss is forced out of office (and doesn’t also resign her parliamentary seat as Tony Blair did on resigning as prime minister), there will be three ex-PMs sitting on the backbenches of the Commons. When was the last time this happened? — Between Jim Callaghan’s defeat in the 1979 general
Dying of heat The former government chief scientific adviser Sir David King predicted that the heatwave in mid-July could cause up to 10,000 excess deaths. Was he right? — The ONS says there were 2,227 excess deaths from 10 to 25 July: that is compared with the five-year average (which excludes the Covid year of
Out of office Could Liz Truss end up being Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister? She would have to remain in office until 2 January to outlast George Canning, who was PM from 12 April 1827 until his death on 8 August of that year. Like Truss, Canning had served as foreign secretary, where he was credited
Fit for a king King Charles III, it has been reported, is reluctant to move into Buckingham Palace. Who was the first monarch to live there? – The core of what is now the palace was built as a townhouse, Buckingham House, for the Duke of Buckingham in 1703 and purchased by George III as
The namesakes Some of history’s other Charles IIIs: – Charles III, King of Naples (1382-86): forced Pope Urban VI into exile, then moved to Hungary, whose throne he had assumed through marriage. Was assassinated. – Charles III, King of Navarre (1387-1425): made peace with France. – Charles III, Duke of Savoy (1504-53): lost when France
Sovereign’s states When she died, Elizabeth II was Queen of 14 nations other than the UK: Antigua and Barbuda; Australia; the Bahamas; Belize; Canada; Grenada; Jamaica; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; St Kitts and Nevis; St Lucia; St Vincent and the Grenadines; the Solomon Islands; Tuvalu. – There are a further 18 countries of which
In they come, out they go Liz Truss is the 15th prime minister to have served under Queen Elizabeth II, and her appointment was the 15th time the Queen has overseen a change of prime minister during her reign (Winston Churchill was already PM when she became Queen but Harold Wilson served twice). It would
Of mice and Moon What did Nasa achieve last time it visited the Moon? Apollo 17, in December 1972, involved putting two astronauts, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, there for 75 hours. They used a lunar roving vehicle to collect 254lb of rock and dust samples from areas up to 4.7 miles from the landing
Finnish lines Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said she had taken a test for illegal drugs after being filmed at a party at which some people were shouting ‘flour’ – Finnish slang for cocaine. What’s Helsinki’s nightlife like? — The Hostelworld website identifies a Helsinki venue, Kaiku, as one of its 20 top clubs in
Testing, testing When were A levels first sat? They can be traced back to the Oxford Local, an external examination for schools instigated by Oxford University in 1858. Out of 401 candidates only 150 passed, with the Educational Times complaining that the questions were more searching than those on Oxford’s BA exam two decades earlier.
Tracing paper FBI agents raided Donald Trump’s estate in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, in search of papers he is accused of removing illegally from the White House. What are the rules? — The Presidential Records Act, passed in 1978 in the wake of Watergate, makes clear that documents relating to a president’s time in office are public
An idea past its sell-by date Waitrose has announced the removal of ‘best before’ dates from many food products. – The idea of printing dates began with Marks & Spencer in the 1950s, but only for use in the stockroom. They first appeared in the company’s shops in 1970 and were named ‘sell-by’ dates from
The longest heatwave How did the recent heatwave compare with that of 1976? That year, the temperature peaked at 35.9˚C at Cheltenham on 3 July. This did not even break the UK temperature record at the time – 36.7˚C recorded in Northamptonshire on 9 August 1911. No recording from 1976 currently features on the list
Hot topic Last week’s Barometer detailed past UK temperature records. Those were broken by this week’s heatwave. On Monday a new Welsh record was set when temperatures hit 35.3˚C in Gogerddan and on Tuesday England measured a new high of 40.3˚C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire. Source: Met Office Inn crowd The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
Hot hot hot The Met Office said temperatures may hit 40˚C on Sunday, which would be the highest ever recorded in the UK. The current record of 38.7˚C was in Cambridge Botanic Garden on 25 July 2019. The lowest ever temperature of -27.2˚C was recorded in Braemar, Aberdeenshire twice: once on 11 February 1895 and
Blooming huge Botanists discovered the largest species of giant water lily at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with leaves more than 10ft wide. The plant with the largest leaves is the Raffia regalis, a palm whose foliage can grow up to 82ft long and 10ft wide. The largest living organism is a colony of identical
Striking differences This summer’s strikes are unlikely to erupt as badly as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 in the US, which still stands out as one of the most violent in history. It began when workers on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad refused to accept a 10% pay cut, their second in a year.
