In 2010 we celebrate our twentieth birthday. To mark the start of our third decade, we've looked back over the last two for this year's calendar. Each month is represented by an event that happened in that month between 1990 and 2009.
See if you can guess what they are, and to make things a little easier we've added a clue. We'll reveal the answers here as the months unfold. If you can guess them all in advance, just let us know!
If you have not received a calendar and would like one, please call or email us.
January
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Clue: A famous museum started the new millenium with its own Y2K problem.
Solution: In the early hours of New Year's Day 2000 a thief broke into the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He got in through a skylight via scaffolding surrounding a next door building and then lowered himself by rope before throwing a smoke cannister into the Hindley Smith Gallery. The room filed with smoke causing chaos and obscuring the view of the security cameras. This gave him the opportunity to steal one painting: 'View of Auvers-sur-Oise,' by Cezanne.
He then melted into the night amongst the New Year revellers in the streets of Oxford.
The painting, worth approx. £4 million, has never been recovered and as there hasn't been a ransom demand or any evidence of it being offered for sale it is assumed it was stolen to order. |
February
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Clue: In 1990 the end of the long walk to freedom started here.
Solution: Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison and much of this was on on Robben Island. He was eventually released on 11th February 1990, although by then he had been moved to Victor Verster prison in the Western Cape. His extraordinary support for reconciliation and negotiation with the ruling National Party of South Africa led to the fall of apartheid in 1993. He has received over 250 awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. His autobiography, released in 1996, was titled 'Long Walk to Freedom'.
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March
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Clue: 2001 saw the tenth release of this non-PC big cat.
Solution: This is probably the toughest month to guess. The non-PC is Apple Macintosh and the tenth release is the OS X (pronounced O S ten) operating system. The first version of OS X was launched on March 24th 2001 and called Cheetah, hence the big cat reference. Please let us know if you got this one, we've yet to find anyone - even the most ardent Mac user solve it without plenty of prompting.
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April
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Clue: After 1993 the books became less important.
Solution:In March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee handed his boss a short document entitled Information Management: a Proposal and at Christmas of the following year, the Web was up and running on two computers. But perhaps the most important Web anniversary of all is 30 April 1993. That's the day that CERN put the Web in the public domain, thereby ensuring that the world would have a single system for accessing the Internet. The first ever website was http://info.cern.c and is still running today. |
May
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Clue: Last year they were in the dog house because of a duck house.
Solution:The daily Telegraph caused widespread public outrage as they published leaked expenses claims by members of Parliament. The first instalment was on 8th May 2008 and carried on for many weeks. Some of the more outrageous claims were for a second home 8 miles from the first house, two pornographic films, and perhaps the most comical, £1800 by Sir Peter Viggers for a duck island.
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June
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Clue: A bolt from the blue in 1997.
Solution:Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first of the seven Harry Potter books was released on 30th June 1997. The brand is today reported as being worth around £15 billion, earning author J K Rowling more than £500 million so far. The latest addition is a theme park called The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and is due to open on 18 June 2010 at Universal Orlando Resort, Florida.
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July
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Clue: In 1996 you might have thought you were seeing double.
Solution:Dolly the sheep was born on 5th July 1996 at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh. She was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. She lived until she was six and produced six lambs. She has been called The world's most famous sheep, and got the name Dolly as she was cloned from part of a mammary gland.
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August
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Clue: 2003 and Phew! What a Scorcher!
Solution:The 2003 UK heatwave began around August 3rd. Several weather records were broken including the the UK's highest temperature - 38.5°C (101.3F) at Brogdale orchards near Faversham in Kent on 10th August. This resulted in the inevitable 'Phew! What a scorcher' in The Guardian on Monday 11 August.
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September
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Clue: Strewth mate, howzat!
Solution: ?
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October
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Clue: In 1995 they tried to squeeze the truth out of him.
Solution: ?
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November
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Clue: That day trip to New York got a bit longer this year.
Solution: ?
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December
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Clue: 1991 and The Party came to an end.
Solution: ?
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