Fixed sums of money paid to someone each year, typically for the rest of their life.
Annuities
Fact of the Day
The eighteenth-century evangelical preacher George Whitefield considered it a badge of honour that, along with rotten fruit, he might be pelted by 'pieces of dead cats'.
Quote of the Day
"People in high or in distinguished life ought to have a greater circumspection in regard to their most trivial actions. For instance, I saw Mr [Alexander] Pope...to the best of my memory, he was picking his nose.
"
~ William Shenstone
On This Day
1092 Lincoln Cathedral, for 249 years supposedly the tallest building in the world, was consecrated. The diocese was the largest in England, stretching from the Thames to the Humber.
1215 King John, in an attempt to win Londoners to his side during his dispute with the barons, granted Londoners the right to elect their own mayor. It didn't do him any good: they opened the gates to the barons shortly afterwards.
1386 The Treaty of Windsor between England and Portugal was signed, ratifying the oldest European alliance still in force.
1662 The first recorded Punch and Judy show was performed in Covent Garden, London.
1671 Anglo-Irish officer and 'noted bravo and desperado', Thomas Blood, attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. He was caught but was pardoned by Charles I and given land in Ireland worth £500 a year.
1926 Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett announced they'd flown over North Pole, and became national heroes. However, this has since been called into question, thanks to testimony of friends and the discovery of Byrd's diary.
1941 British captured the German sub U-101 and thus the enigma machine with current codes. US film U-571 claimed it as a US victory.
1945 The Channel Islands were liberated after five years of Nazi occupation.
1955 West Germany joined NATO.
1994 Nelson Mandela was chosen by the African National Congress party to become South Africa's first black president after the end of apartheid.