April 11 of that year has been identified by experts as the most boring of the 20th century – a day when nothing of note happened. After feeding 300million facts into a new computer search engine they have announced there were no key news events or births and deaths of famous people. The best the machine could muster for the day was the fact that Belgium had its fourth post-war general election and a Turkish academic who taught electronics was born. Journeyman footballer Jack Shufflebotham, who played a handful of games for Oldham Athletic and Notts County, died, aged 69, and plans for a coup d’etat in Yanaon, a French colony in India, are believed to have been agreed. But it could all have been so different for April 11. History notes that Bill Haley and the Comets recorded Rock Around The Clock the next day. It is not the first time a particular day has been singled out for its lack of moment. According to BBC Radio, April 18, 1930, was the dullest day of the 20th century after an announcer informed the nation at the 6.30pm bulletin: ‘There is no news.’ But the experts claim this date fell in the midst of the Great Depression and witnessed the death of Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti, the first Cardinal to be born in Latin America. There was also the birth of Clive Revill, the New Zealand-born actor best known for his Shakespearean performances on the London stage. William Tunstall-Pedoe, founder of the new search engine True Knowledge, which is based in Cambridge, said: ‘When the results came back, the winner was April 11, 1954 – a Sunday. ‘Nobody significant died that day, no major events apparently occurred and, although a typical day in the 20th century has many notable people being born, for some reason that day had only one who might make that claim – Abdullah Atalar, a Turkish academic. ‘The irony is, though, that – having done the calculation – the day is interesting for being exceptionally boring. ‘Unless, that is, you are Abdullah Atalar.’ True Knowledge, which provides a direct answer to a question instead of providing a list of links like other sites such as Google, was launched online in February this year. The system can store hundreds of millions of facts about people, places, events and businesses.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 09:52:49 +0000
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