When US President John F Kennedy met with Conservative British Prime Minister Harold McMillan in June 1963, Kennedy told MacMillan, as an aside, that if he didn’t have sex every day he got a blinding headache. On later recounting this to his private secretary, what did McMillan say in response?
Answer: ‘Gracious me, I’d rather have the headache.’
Source: Harold MacMillan by Alistair Horne; General Historical Tests
1185 – Byzantine emperor Andronikos I Komnenos is brutally put to death in Constantinople.
1309 – The First Siege of Gibraltar takes place as part of the Spanish Reconquista which sees the forces of the Kingdom of Castile against the Emirate of Granada, resulting in a Castilian victory.
1814 – In the Battle of North Point an American detachment halts the British land advance to Baltimore in the War of 1812.
1846 – English poet Elizabeth Barrett elopes with Robert Browning.
1848 – A new constitution marks the establishment of Switzerland as a federal state.
1857 – The SS Central America sinks about 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning 426 passengers and crew. The ship is carrying some 15 tons of gold from the California Gold Rush.
1910 – The first performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in Munich takes place, with a chorus of 852 singers and an orchestra of 171 players.
1915 – French soldiers rescue over 4,000 Armenian Genocide survivors stranded on Musa Dagh.
More at: History
A short, sharp hit of history in video format. Acclaimed Irish playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde was the toast of London society in the 1890s until things came decidedly unstuck through an association with a young British aristocrat, Lord Alfred Douglas, known as ‘Bosie’.
More Quick Shot Videos on HistoryWow's YouTube Channel: 
Last week’s answer:
Harriet Tubman (1820-1913)
More at: History
“I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.”
Russia's Empress Catherine the Great (1729-1796)
English social reformer, statistician and nurse. Nightingale came to public attention during the Crimean War (1853-1856), when she organised care for wounded soldiers. She is known as ‘the lady with the lamp’ due to her night-time rounds tending to the sick and wounded.
