Coronation Street

The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on December 9, 1960. It was expected to last just 13 weeks.

Within six months of its start in 1960, Coronation Street was the most-watched program in the UK.

Research in 1997 showed that the mortality rates of Coronation Street characters are worse than those of oil rig divers or bomb disposal men.  New characters in their twenties had a 10 per cent chance of being killed off within five years.

The first licensees with their names over the door of the Rovers Return pub were Jim and Nellie Corbishley (1902-18). NO, Corrie wasn't broadcast back then but the Corbishleys were mentioned by Roy Cropper at the Rovers' centenary party in August 2002. 

The Rovers Return Inn in Coronation Street takes its name from the Rover’s Return in Withy Grove, Manchester, which was demolished in 1958.

The most watched episode was on Christmas Day in 1987, when 26.65 million viewers tuned in to bid a fond farewell to Hilda Ogden. Jean Alexander, who had played Hilda since 1964, was the first soap performer to ever receive a Bafta nomination.

William Roache has played Ken Barlow in Coronation Street since it was first started in 1960 by Tony Warren.

Many famous faces started their careers in Weatherfield, including Gandhi Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley, who made an early screen appearance as Ron Jenkins in 1966-67. 

Prince Charles made an appearance in Coronation Street, for its 40th anniversary in 2000.

The video of the 1984 Queen single "I Want to Break Free" parodied the show's female characters.

The current location of the set – in Salford Quays, Greater Manchester - opened in 2013, having relocated from the Granada Studios complex in central Manchester, which had been Corrie's home from the very first broadcast is 1960.

Sources Daily Mail, Daily Express

Coronation

The basic English coronation service was devised by St Dunstan for the coronation of King Edgar in 973.

At the Coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, the guards stationed outside Westminster Abbey became alarmed by the noise of the jubilant crowd and set fire to nearby buildings as a supposed distraction, as recounted in the enthralling study by Ian Lloyd. The congregation quickly rushed outside, seizing the opportunity to engage in some looting.

King John was known for his impish behavior, treating his Coronation in 1199 with an unseemly levity by departing before its conclusion.

Following the traditional ceremony, a week-long celebration ensued, including jousting and a grand feast. Edward I spared no expense, ordering an incredible 60 oxen, two boars, 40 pigs, and a staggering 22,460 chickens, along with swans and peacocks for the festivities.

Edward II's closest confidant, Piers Gaveston, delighted in showering the monarch with kisses and repeated embraces while wearing more jewelry than the queen.

Edward V (abducted) and Edward VIII (abdicated) were the only English monarchs who never had coronations.

Wary of potential danger, Richard III employed a formidable force of 6,000 troops to ensure his safety. Henry VIII's banquet was equally noteworthy, as servants crawled under the table to assist the ladies in their personal needs. Queen Mary Tudor, who was notably displeased throughout her Coronation, rested her feet on two of her ladies, serving as an uncomplaining human footstool.

The lavish velvet and satin robes of the monarchs were a significant challenge to wear, with their trains so heavy they could scarcely be lifted from the ground. Charles I had a circus strongman stationed underneath his train to bear the weight on his head.

However, the greatest expense of all was incurred by Charles II of England  who had to have the regalia remade after Cromwell melted them down and sold them. The new Imperial State Crown boasted 890 diamonds, ten rubies, 20 emeralds, 549 pearls, and 18 sapphires, with a price tag of £1.8 million. He also wore stilettos to the ceremony. 

The coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French took place on Sunday December 2, 1804 at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (see below). It was was a sacred ceremony held in the great cathedral in the presence of the Pope Pius VII. Napoleon was vested in a long white satin tunic embroidered in gold thread and Josephine similarly wore a white satin empire style dress embroidered in gold thread.

At George III's Coronation, the Queen was accidentally locked out of the Abbey, leading to a lull in the ceremony. The congregation opened their picnic hampers, and the festivities continued with the sound of clinking glasses and rattling cutlery, as everyone enjoyed their meat pies.

In 1821 George IV excluded his unpopular wife Queen Caroline from his coronation.

At Queen Victoria's Coronation, which lasted a grueling five hours, the lords could be seen with their coronets askew, knocking back champagne.

As Queen Victoria was being crowned on June 28, 1838, the Archbishop of Canterbury forced the Coronation Ring on to the wrong finger. She didn't complain, but had to ice her bruised finger later.

Victoria had neglected to rehearse, causing several mishaps during the ceremony. The bishops frequently lost their place in the Order of Service and in the procession back to Buckingham Palace, Victoria was displeased by the "distressing oscillations" of the Gold State Coach.

During Edward VII's Coronation in 1902, the Archbishop placed the crown on the monarch's head backward, adding to the ceremony's already considerable eccentricities. Afterward, ushers discovered numerous jewels, including ropes of pearls, bracelets, and twenty gold balls knocked off coronets, left behind in the pews. During the procession, two young royal princes had a brawl in their carriage.

An emergency royal appendectomy led to the postponement of Edward VII’s coronation in 1901.

The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, was taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students on Christmas Day 1850. It later turned up in Scotland three and a half months later.

The first outside broadcast on UK television was the Coronation of George VI in 1937.

At George VI's Coronation, a dean fell down the steps while carrying the crown, causing a minor scandal. Despite these eccentricities, each Coronation remains an essential part of British history, a testament to the majesty and peculiarities of the monarchy.

Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was crowned in Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI in 1953. It was the first coronation to be televised and millions watched worldwide.

The Coronation of King Charles III took place on Saturday, May 6, 2023, at Westminster Abbey in London. Charles acceded to the throne on September 8, 2022, upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. The Coronation was a traditional ceremony, with many of the same elements as previous coronations. The King was anointed with holy oil, crowned with the St Edward's Crown, and invested with the other regalia of the realm. He swore an oath to uphold the law and the Church of England.

Coronation Chicken was first made for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.

 A “coronation spoon” has been used at every English coronation since 1349 to anoint the monarch with a secret mixture of oils.

On June 30, 1963, we witnessed the coronation of Pope Paul VI, marking the end of an era. This sacred ceremony turned out to be the final one of its kind, as later popes decided to do away with this tradition. It was a significant moment in history, filled with deep symbolism and religious importance. 

Only one of the 17 wives of Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic was allowed to attend his lavish coronation in 1977.

For weeks leading up to the coronation of a Thai king, officials collect water from more than 100 sources across the country. The water is then blessed before it is used to purify and anoint the monarch.

Sources Daily Express, Daily Mail, New York Times

Cornish Pasty

The Cornish Pasty originally evolved to meet the needs of tin mining, in Cornwall. These pasties contained meat and vegetables wrapped in pastry, sometimes one end contains jam or fruit as well thus giving the hard-working men a very practical lunch (or "croust”, as they called it) down in the dark and damp tunnels of the mine.

Cornish housewives would mark their husband's initials on the left-hand side of the pastry casing, in order to avoid confusion at lunchtime.

Henry VIII's queen, Jane Seymour, is known to have enjoyed a Cornish pasty on several occasions.

The earliest known reference to a ‘Cornish pasty’ was in 1877.

The largest-ever Cornish pasty weighed 1,900lb and was 15ft long. It was made in Bodmin, Cornwall in 2010.

The world's only Cornish Pasty museum can be found in the Mexican mountain town of Real De Monte, over 4500 miles away from Cornwall.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Corned Beef

Corned beef (preserving beef with "corns" or large grains of salt)  was developed in Europe in the 11th century. In the Irish text Aislinge meic Con Glinne there is a reference to “perpetual joints of corned beef”.

The word “hash” for a fried left-overs dish came into English in around 1677 from the old French word 'hacher', meaning to chop. Corned beef hash has its origins in being a particularly delicious combination of odds and ends.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Corn

Corn used to be a bitter fruit 19mm short – human manipulation changed it to the size and taste we are used to today.

Some early forms of corn were only edible as popcorn. The Aztecs were making popcorn from wild corn prior to making flour from corn.

Nepalese author Krishna Lal Adhikari was sentenced to nine years in prison on August 2, 1920 for publishing a book titled "Makaiko Kheti" ("The Cultivation of Maize"). Despite its seemingly innocuous agricultural subject, the book was interpreted by the Rana regime as a covert criticism of the government. The authorities saw the book's content as a metaphor for political dissent and thus a threat to their rule. Consequently, Adhikari was arrested and sentenced to prison, where he tragically died before completing his sentence. 

During The Great Depression, crop prices dropped so much some farm families burnt corn instead of coal in their stoves because corn was cheaper. Sometimes the countryside smelled like popcorn from all the corn burning in the kitchen stoves.

For nearly a century, Jimmy Red corn was used by bootleggers to make moonshine whiskey. The variety nearly went extinct in the early 2000s, but two remaining ears of corn were used to revive it.

Christopher Nolan grew an actual corn field for the movie Insterstellar, and actually turned a profit on it.

An ear of corn averages 800 kernels in 16 rows.

A pound of corn consists of about 1,300 kernels.

The corncob (ear) is actually part of the corn plant's flower.

An ear of corn almost always has an even number of rows (twelve, fourteen, or sixteen).

Contrary to popular belief, you do actually break down and absorb the nutrients in corn—you just don't digest the kernels.

About 70 per cent of Canadian corn is grown in Ontario.

40% of corn is used for ethanol to add to fuel; another 40% is used for livestock feed.

Corn has an incredibly long shelf life. Archaeologists have been able to pop 1,000-year-old popcorn.

The Indian word maiz means "sacred mother" or "giver over life". Some ancient tribes believed that corn is afraid to be cooked so a woman must warm it first with her breath.

Farmers grow corn on every continent except Antarctica.

6,726 boxes of cornflakes are produced from one acre of harvested corn.

Popcorn is the only type of corn that will pop.

Source windsorstar.com

Cork

Cork is made from the bark of a tree, Quercus suber, or the cork oak.These trees have thick, rugged bark from which cork is made.

In cork cultivation you don’t have to chop down a tree to make corks, you can harvest the bark without harming the tree, and repeat it again in another 7-10 years.

At the turn of the sixteenth century, The Italians sealed their wine bottles by topping the wine with olive oil, which filled the neck of the bottle. When a fresh bottle was used for serving drinks, the host would after pouring away the oil, fill his glass first before his guests in case there were any drops of oil left in the wine.

One day in around 1568 Alexander Nowell, the Dean of St Paul's in London, left a glass bottle of beer with a cork stopper behind on a fishing trip. When he returned a week later to retrieve it and opened the bottle, he found “no bottle, but a gun, so great was the sound.” However he found the contents had improved, and some claim this to be the original of bottled ale in England

Dom Pierre Pérignon, the inventor of champagne, used cork stoppers made of the outer bark of an oak tree, which previously had been used by Spaniards to seal their wineskins. They replaced the existing hemp-wrapped wooden stoppers.

The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Byrn of New York in 1860. Its design was derived from a similar device used by musketmen to remove stuck bullets from rifles.

During World War a famous inhabitant of the Cheshire Cheese pub just off Fleet Street in London was a parrot. On Armistice night it repeated some 400 times its trick of imitating the pop of a champagne cork, before collapsing from temporary exhaustion.

The mosaic Homage to Mediterranean Life was created from 229,764 wine corks.

An agraffe is the wire cage that keeps the cork in a bottle of champagne.

The pressure inside a champagne bottle can launch a cork at 50 miles per hour - fast enough to shatter glass.

You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

Corgi

The Cardigan Welsh Corgi originated as the Bronant Corgi of the Celts (corgi is Celtic for "dog") from Central Europe, who brought the dog into Wales in about 1200 BC.

According to folk legend, corgis are a gift from the woodland fairies; the breed's markings were left on its coat by fairy harnesses and saddles.

The word “corgi” comes from two Welsh words meaning “dwarf” and “dog”.

Some Welsh purists may insist that the plural of corgi is “corgwn”.

These Corgi dogs were used by Welsh farmers to herd cattle onto grazing pastures.

The Cardigan Welsh Corgi was bred to have short legs so they could run under cattle and avoid their dangerous kicks.

The Cardigan Welsh Corgi are also called yard-long dog because it is the same length from the tip of its nose to the end of its outstretched tail as a Welsh yard.

The Pembroke Welsh Corgi dog was brought to Wales by Flemish weavers in 1107.

Pembroke Corgi Image 

In 1933 the first Welsh Corgis were brought to the United States by American breeder Mrs. Lewis Roesler, for her Merriedip Kennels in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. She purchased a Pembroke bitch, Little Madam, at London's Paddington Station followed by a mate named, Captain William Lewis.

Princess Elizabeth was given her first corgi as an 18th-birthday gift on April 21, 1944. She named her Susan and adored her pet corgi so much that she took her on honeymoon.

Queen Elizabeth II is one of the longest-established Pembroke corgi breeders on the planet. For nearly 70 years, Windsor Castle was home to her corgi breeding program, which she shut down in 2015.  Everyone of them were descended from Susan.

The corgis eat chicken and rice cooked by chefs served by a butler on battered silver and porcelain dishes. The Queen feeds them one by one, in order of seniority,.

Footman Matthew King was demoted in 1999 for spiking the corgis’ food and water with whisky and gin as a prank.

Sometimes the Queen allows her pets to sleep in her room, but mostly they spend the night in their own room, next to the Page's Pantry, in wicker baskets raised slightly off the ground to avoid draughts.

In 2015, Queen Elizabeth II decided not to breed any more corgis, so she wouldn't leave them behind when she passed away. Her last corgi died in April of 2018.

Sources Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc,  Daily Mail