History

Welcome to the most boring day in history (with apologies to fans of Belgian elections)

Don’t get too excited. In fact, don’t get excited at all. Today is April 11. And that is an important date, as revealed by this important research breakthrough made in 2011:

Computer programmer William Tunstall-Pedoe has calculated [April 11, 1954] to be the most objectively dull day since 1900.

On that day a general election was held in Belgium, a Turkish academic was born and an Oldham Athletic footballer called Jack Shufflebotham died. Apart from that nothing much happened.

Mr Tunstall-Pedoe’s computer programme, called True Knowledge, came to its lofty decision after being fed some 300 million facts about “people, places, business and events” that made the news.

The following day’s Daily Telegraph does rather support this with the second story being how hammocks were being replaced by canvas bunks on two aircraft carriers.

One other piece of William Tunstall-Pedoe’s work has caught my eye:

[His] anagram technology was used by Dan Brown for the Da Vinci Code.

He may, or may not, be grateful for me reminding people of that.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments and data you submit with them will be handled in line with the privacy and moderation policies.