In 1954, a young British soldier named Arnold George Dorsey bent down to tie an undone bootlace, and in doing so, stepped out of the line that would lead to his death. Decades later, the man the world knows as Engelbert Humperdinck — 140 million records sold, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — reflected at ninety on that single, unhurried pause that separated him from an ambush that killed his fellow soldiers on a road to Nicosia. It is the kind of story that resists easy explanation, sitting at the uneasy border between providence and randomness, reminding us that history's great arcs are
Engelbert Humperdinck credits untied shoelace with saving his life during Army service
Multiple British soldiers were killed in an ambush en route to Nicosia, Cyprus during the 1954 deployment that Humperdinck narrowly avoided.