English Channel latter part of the 19th century when Captain Matthew Webb made the first observed and unassisted swim across the Strait of Dover, swimming from England to France on 24–25 August 1875 in 21 hours 45 minutes. In 1927, at a time when fewer than ten swimmers (including the first woman, Gertrude Ederle in 1926) had managed to emulate the feat and many dubious claims were being made, the Channel Swimming Association (CSA) was founded to authenticate and ratify swimmers' claims to have swum the Channel and to verify crossing times. The CSA was dissolved in 1999 and was succeeded by
The Man Who Was Thursday in Latin, and a title given to Jesus. (Usually a title given to the Virgin Mary.) "The Man Who Was Thursday" inspired the Irish Republican politician Michael Collins with the idea "if you didn't seem to be hiding nobody hunted you out". Martin Gardner edited "The Annotated Thursday", which provides a great deal of biographical and contextual information in the form of footnotes, along with the text of the book, original reviews from the time of the book's first publication and comments made by Chesterton on the book. A less thorough annotation was done for the edition of the novel