Portal:United Kingdom/Did you know/March 2009


 * ... that Sir Charles Knowles claimed that the theories on naval tactics expressed in his 1777 book were reflected in Lord Howe's victory in 1794 (pictured)?
 * ... that in 1945, footballer Doug McGibbon scored six goals in one match, one of which was timed at under five seconds from the second half kick-off?
 * ... that novelist Charlotte Turner Smith condemned her father for forcing her to marry and turning her into a "legal prostitute"?
 * ... that Herbert Spencer, secretary of the Derby Philosophical Society, first suggested the term "survival of the fittest" after reading Charles Darwin's idea of evolution?
 * ... that when Prince Philip first saw the stumpery at Highgrove House he asked his son, Charles, "when are you going to set fire to this lot?"?
 * ... that English barrister Joseph Keble went to the Court of King's Bench every day from 1661 to 1710, but was never known to have a brief for a client?
 * ... that on Stac an Armin, the highest stack in Scotland, the last great auk in the British Isles was clubbed to death in 1840 because it was thought to be a witch?
 * ... that Dr Charles White, co-founder of the Manchester Royal Infirmary, kept the mummified body of one of his patients in a room of his house for 55 years?