Facts - Fame by Chance


*Facts from Fame by Chance* Just a fraction of what's to discovered in the new book from Donough O'Brien

	The battlefield of Agincourt is called Azincourt by the French.


	In 1839 Captain Martin Becher was the first and most famous loser of the Grand National, giving his name to its most notorious and dangerous jump.



	The defenders of the Alamo had been specifically ordered by Sam Houston to evacuate it. They disobeyed.


	The monument above the Alma Underpass in Paris where Princess Diana died has nothing to do with her.



	Mary Quant’s miniskirts were so small that, rated as children’s clothes, they avoided purchase tax .

	‘Big Ben’ is the bell, not the clock tower, and was accidentally cracked after two months, providing its distinctive tone.


		Designer Louis Réard named his two-piece after the atomic tests in 1946 at Bikini Atoll because he thought it was ‘so explosive’.

	Singapore’s guns were ‘not pointing the wrong way’


	Sadly, Stradivarius lost his secret of the varnish which made his violins sound so mellow.


	Nokia is a real place, a sawmill deep in Finland’s forests


	The leaning Tower of Pisa once leaned the other way.
	The leaning Tower of Pisa once leaned the other way.

	• The first moon landing did not take place at the ‘Sea of Tranquility’