1. The last public execution by guillotine was on 17 June 1939. Eugen Weidman was executed before a large crowd in Versailles, France. There was a non-public one in 1977. France abolished capital punishment in 1981.
2. You gotta love the last moments of Citizen Kane where we realise ‘Rosebud’ refers to the sled Kane owned as a young boy; it symbolises his lost innocence and ultimate disappointment with life.
3. The Revelation of Saint John the Devine is the last canonical book of the New Testament. It reads: 22:21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
4. In September, 1978, Janet Parker, an English medical photographer, was exposed to smallpox in a laboratory accident. She died. On May 8, 1980, the World health Organization declared smallpox eradicated. There are still some samples in laboratories.
When scientists destroy the samples, the smallpox virus will become the first life form intentionally eliminated from the earth.
5. The last moments of the Challenger space flight occurred 73 seconds after lift-off.
A faulty o-ring seal set off events that meant Challenger was thrown sideways into the Mach 1.8 wind stream.
The seven crew members may have survived the resulting spacecraft disintegration but were killed when the cockpit hit the water at 320 kilometres per hour (yup, that'll do it).
6. The last known wild Tasmanian Tiger was shot in 1930 by farmer, Wilf Batty, in Mawbanna.
The world's last Tasmanian Tiger, Benjamin, died at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania, on 7 September 1936 after being locked out of it's shelter on a day when Tasmania experienced extreme weather conditions, extreme heat during the day and freezing temperatures at night.
In an Elvis-esque manner, Tasminian Tiger sightings are still a regular occurrence.
7. In a classic example of the triumph of hope over experience, Liz Taylor married her eighth and last husband, Lawrence Lee Fortensky in 1991. Larry was born on 17 January 1952 in California and not much else happened until he met Liz at the Betty Ford Clinic, marrying her at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. Not much else happened until they divorced in 1996.
8. Phoebe Harrius was convicted of coining false money, a crime of high treason and was the last person burned at the stake. The burning took place in front of Newgate Prison in England in 1786.
9. The Last Supper is the last meal Jesus had with his Apostles before being crucified; during the supper Jesus announced that one of his Apostles would betray him. It took place in The Room of the Last Supper on Mount Zion, just outside the Old City of Jerusalem.
The most famous depiction of the Last Supper is the mural by Leonardo da Vinci painted in the 15th century.
10. The last Die Hard movie is a delusional fantasy. We’ve seen Die Hard, Die Hard 2 (Die Harder), Die Hard with a Vengeance and Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4). Apparently they’re making Die Hard 5 – in which Bruce Willis probably attacks the bad guys with his Zimmer frame. I expect we can look forward to Die Hard 6 (Just die, already!), Die Hard 7 (Not dead yet but sucking mashed peas through dentures), Die Hard 8 (Ghost of John McClane) and Die Hard 9 (Dead in the water), a made for TV midday movie.
Image: Salvatore Vuono
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