For some completely inexplicable reason (possibly he’s after a prize in the next Ig Noble Awards) someone has devoted time, effort and money to working out the most “boring” date in history.

April 11th, 1954.

Unless, of course, you count the most boring day happening, in which case something did happen.

On that day a general election was held in Belgium, a Turkish academic was born and an Oldham Athletic footballer called Jack Shufflebotham died. Apart from that nothing much happened.


Mr Tunstall-Pedoe’s computer programme, called True Knowledge, came to its lofty decision after being fed some 300 million facts about “people, places, business and events” that made the news.
Using complex algorithms, such as how much one piece of information was linked to others, True Knowledge determined that particular 1950s Sunday to be outstanding in its obscurity.


Cambridge University-educated Mr Tunstall-Pedoe said: “Nobody significant died that day, no major events apparently occurred and, although a typical day in the 20th century has many notable people being born, for some reason that day had only one who might make that claim – Abdullah Atalar, a Turkish academic.


“The irony is, though, that – having done the calculation – the day is interesting for being exceptionally boring. Unless, that is, you are Abdullah Atalar.

As TheEye isn’t Abdullah Atalar (or Jack Shufflebotham) this lad may have a reasonable point – considering that all the fun that day seems to have been in Belgium. There were elections and the Catholic Party lost its absolute majority in parliament resulting in an anti-clerical government of the Liberal Party (right of centre) and the Socialist Party causing the “Schoolstrijd” (School Struggle) in the Belgian educational system. Wow.