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| The famous white cliffs of Dover, England |
ON AUGUST 24, 1875, Matthew Webb set off on his historic quest to become the first person to swim the English Channel.
1. He completed the swim from Dover to near Calais 21 hours and 45 minutes later.
2. While he swam his daughter gave him brandy, roast beef sandwiches and Bovril from a boat.
3. Swimming from England to France is quicker than the other direction. The record for France to England is eight hours and five minutes.
4. The shortest distance across the Channel is 21 miles (18.2 nautical miles).
5. For more than 20 years the French have banned swimming from Calais to Dover as the swimmers are seen as a hazard to shipping.
6. The English Channel formed around 10,000 years ago when the last ice age ended.
7. Alison Streeter MBE has made a record 43 successful cross-Channel swims.
8. The spoil from the Channel Tunnel was left near Dover, adding some 90 acres to the area of the UK.
9. In 1802 the French engineer Albert Mathieu proposed a tunnel under the Channel for horsedrawn carriages with an artificial island midway.
10. The record for the fastest cross-Channel swim now stands at six hours, 55 minutes, set by Trent Grimsey (Australia) on September 8, 2012.
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