19 January

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 19 January:

Howard Hughes

1. 19 January 1809 is the birth date of Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote The Raven and invented the murder mystery genre with The Murders in the Rue Morgue. On his birthday in 1949 The Poe Toaster first appeared – a mysterious visitor dressed in Black wearing a fedora who left a half-filled bottle of Cognac and three red Roses on Poe's grave every year on his birthday. The significance of cognac is unknown as it does not feature in Poe's works. Some say the roses represent Poe himself and the two women who were most important to the poet during his life: his mother and his wife, both of whom are buried in the same cemetery. In 1993, the dark stranger left a note saying, “The torch will be passed”. Each year, a band of Poe devotees watches at a distance for the stranger to appear.
2. In 1985 Houston daredevil Karel Soucek was dropped in a barrel from the roof of the Astrodome. He was aiming for a Water tank on the field, but his barrel hit the edge of the tank. He suffered a fatal Skull fracture.
3. In 1825 Ezra Daggett and his nephew, Thomas Kensett of New York patented food storage in tin cans to preserve Salmon, Oysters and Lobsters.
4. The first casualties to result from an air raid over Britain occurred on this date in 1915 when a Zeppelin dropped six bombs on Great Yarmouth by mistake – the Germans were attempting to bomb the Humber Docks but the zeppelin blew off course. Two people, Martha Taylor and Sam Smith, died and three more were injured.
5. In 1937 Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
6. On the same day, the first play written for British television, The Underground Murder Mystery by J. Bissell Thomas, was broadcast by the BBC. The 30-minute play was set in Tottenham Court Road tube station.
7. In 2013 NASA’s Curiosity rover found calcium deposits on Mars similar to those seen on Earth when water circulates in cracks and rock fractures.
8. In 1870 Two sisters from New York became the world’s first stockbrokers. Victoria Caffin Woodhall and Tennessee Caffin attracted mainly female customers. The business collapsed due to their outspoken views on Marxism and racial equality.
9. In 1728, a woman named Margaret Dickson, who’d been hanged for infanticide, opened her coffin and climbed out. She was subsequently proved innocent.
10. In 1977 the world's largest ever crowd, 12.7 million people, attended an Indian religious festival.

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