Omar Sharif – actor and prolific bridge player

The globally acclaimed actor Omar Sharif, who acted in films like Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Mackenna’s Gold (1969), was quite a prolific bridge player. Omar Sharif was attracted to the card game of bridge when he was 21 years old. In 1964, he was the captain of the United Arab Republic team at the World Bridge Olympiad. With an aim to promote bridge, he formed the Omar Sharif Bridge Circus in 1968, which extensively toured America and Canada. He quit bridge in 2000.

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Telstar – the satellite that relayed the first transatlantic TV signals

In 1962 the satellite Telstar was developed by AT&T and it was placed in an orbit of 682 to 4,030 miles (i.e. 1,091 to 6,444 km) orbiting the earth in 2 hours 40 minutes. The first transatlantic television signals were transmitted through Telstar. With the launch of Telstar, wireless communications, such as voice, television, fax and data transfer were carried out between UK, Brazil, France, Italy and the US.

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