Here are some facts for this day. You are welcome to log your interesting, quirky or fun fact/s with your log.
On This Day - January 4th
World History
1967 - Donald Campbell, the man who broke the land and water speed records in the same year, is killed as he attempts another record.
Donald Malcolm Campbell was born on 23 March 1921 in Horley, Surrey, England. He became the only person to ever break both the world land speed and water speed records in the same year. He broke the land speed record in July 1964 on a Lake Eyre salt flat in northern South Australia, with a speed of 648.72 km per hour. After setting seven world water-speed records between 1955 and 1964, the culmination of his water speed records came on 31 December 1964 at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia, when he reached 444.71 km per hour in his jet-powered boat, Bluebird.
Campbell was killed three years later, on 4 January 1967. He was attempting to break his record yet again, this time on Lake Coniston, Cumbria. Just before his Bluebird K7 broke the record, travelling at over 483 km per hour, the boat's nose lifted and it was catapulted 15m into the air. Campbell was killed instantly as the boat hit the water and disintegrated. His body was not recovered from the wreckage at the bottom of the lake for another 34 years. Campbell remains the only person to have held both land and water speed records at the same time.