Courtesy of a plaque on my wall in room 45 at the Brook Hotel.
- “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicouokanoconiosis” claims to be the longest word in the English language with 45 letters. It refers to a lung disease caused by ultramicroscopic particles of volcano dust.
- The 45th King of England was James I who also was James IV of Scotland thus becoming the first British Monarch
- Harold Wilson defeated Alec Douglas-Home in the 1963 General Election to become Britain’s 45th Prime Minister.
- The element of atomic number 45 is rhodium (Rh) so named because some of it’s compounds are rose coloured.
- The 45th Pope was Leo I, one of the only three Popes to have earned the sobriquet ‘the Great’
This hotel has a thing for Prime Ministers as apparently it was once owned by Robert Peel – the founder of the UK police force and a Prime Minister for Britain.