35 In 1963, two members of the Festival were prosecuted for indecency. At John Calder's Play of Happenings a nude model, Anna Kesseler, was wheeled across the organ gallery on a trolley - it received more coverage from a section of the press than any preceding Festival event. Calder and Kesseler found themselves in the dock shortly afterwards.
36 Each year, about 100 million people watch the Tattoo on TV.
37 The Edinburgh People's Theatre is the Fringe's longest running company, having put on a show every year since 1959. This year they will be presenting Stooshie at the Store, a pioneering work by Irene Beaver.
38 36 per cent of all shows at the Edinburgh Fringe are world premieres.
39 In 2000, a fatwa was issued against playwright Terence McNally, by the Shariah Court of the UK. His production of Corpus Christi, which depicts a gay Jesus, offended Christians, and, it seems, a few Muslims too.
40 The Fringe is known for its eccentric venues but, in 2003, it set new standards of weirdness, when shows were staged in a public toilet, a Ford Cortina, a lift, and up a step-ladder.
41 In 1959, a plane carrying costumes for Jerome Robbins' Ballets USA crashed on its way to Edinburgh. Officials eventually managed to persuade a dress shop, W Mutrie, to open very early and kit out the dancers so the show went on that night.
42 When Sean Connery cruises into town for this year's Film Festival, he can expect a good reception. When last there in 1996, to promote Dragonheart, locals and foreigners lined the streets to get a good look at the tanned uber-Scot.
43 The Edinburgh Mela festival, which celebrates multi-culturalism, is now in its 12th year. In 2005, over 60,000 people attended, eating 180,000 samosas between them.
44 The first performance at the Festival, on 24 August 1947, was L'orchestre des Concerts Colonne's Haydn "Surprise" Symphony No 94; Schumann's Symphony No 4; and Franck's Symphony in D Minor.
45 For the past three years, the Fringe has sold over a million tickets.
46 Rosselini's Paisa was the first film shown at the Film Festival.
47 Mick Jagger loved Albert Watson's photo of his face morphed with a leopard's at the 2005 arts festival and wanted to use it on a Stones album. But, by the time he phoned to buy it, Watson had sent the image to Rolling Stone magazine, which used it on their cover. Jagger was furious.
48 The Edinburgh Police delegate special "Shoplifting Squads" to counter crime during the August invasion.
49 When the Reduced Shakespeare Company first arrived in Edinburgh in 1987, their three-week run sold out in two days.
50 Frankfurt Opera's production of Prokoviev's The Fiery Angel was the talk of the worthies before the 1970 Festival, as its last act included an orgy, with half-naked nuns. Big-wigs, including the Lord Provost, flew to Frankfurt to see this filth before allowing it to be shown. But, having been wined and dined, least two of the panel fell asleep before the offending orgy. The Fiery Angel was given a seal of approval.
51 The 2006 Fringe will feature one massive new venue - the E4 Udderbelly - a 322-seater auditorium shaped like an upside-down cow.
52 In 2004, Dame Muriel Spark, then 86, made her only appearance at the Book Festival. Tickets for her talk sold out in less than two hours.
53 177 shows at the 2006 Fringe are free.
54 When Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu won Best Newcomer's Award for Amores Perros in 2000, he paid the ultimate tribute to his host city. His kids, he said, thought they were in Disneyland, because of the castle.
55 The first foreign regiment (apart from the English) to take part in the Tattoo was the Band of the Royal Netherlands Grenadiers in 1952. Since then 29 others have been involved.
56 Last year, the Film Festival ate itself, when a film about the Edinburgh premiered. Its name: Festival.
57 Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett first starred together in the hugely popular Beyond the Fringe revue show in 1960. Despite its name, the show was part of the main Festival.
58 70 per cent of visitors to the Tattoo are not Scottish.
59 In 1983, the late comic legend Malcolm Hardee became irritated with the noise of the avant-garde performer Eric Bogosian, whose show, was on next door to his own. He drove a tractor, naked, through a hole in the canvas separating them, right over Bogosian's stage.
60 Odd Man Out, which was a huge hit in the Film Festival's debut season in 1947, will close this year's festival.
