London Trivia: The first Miss World

On 19 April 1951 Eric Morley, an executive with Mecca Ltd., held the first Miss World Beauty Contest, called the Festival Bikini Contest, to coincide with the Festival of Britain. Curiously although it was promoted as ‘Miss World’ only five girls were foreign, the other 25 contestants were British. Even so Miss Kiki Haakonson, a Stockholm policeman’s daughter, won. It’s the oldest running international beauty pageant. On 19 April 1012 Archbishop of Canterbury, Ælfheah, was killed by Viking raiders at Greenwich after they had held him captive for 7 months Formed to stop the Stuarts bankrupting the country one of the Bank of England’s first directors embezzled £29,000, it was never recovered In 1918 Philip Tilden designed a monumental tower to put atop Selfridge’s so tall and heavy if built it would have squashed the store flat On 19 April 1881 British Prime Minister, statesman and author Benjamin Disraeli died at 19 Curzon Street, Mayfair When the Victoria Embankment was constructed…