Monday, 14 March 2022

15 March

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 15 March:

  1. Today is the Ides of March which means it was on this date in 44 BC that Julius Caesar was killed by Brutus, Cassius, and others. There were a number of omens before his assassination: the night before, Caesar dreamed he was soaring above the clouds, and placed his hand in the hand of the king of the gods. His wife dreamed their house had fallen in, that he'd been assassinated, and had taken refuge in her bosom. In Rome, a small Sparrow, belonging to a species known to the Romans by a regal name, flew towards the senate house, with a crowd of other birds chasing it. The other birds killed the sparrow. The arms of Mars in Caesar's house rattled and the doors of his bedroom flew open for no apparent reason. An attendant mistakenly removed the throne from the senate room. Caesar was stabbed 23 times. His last words are not known for sure, but the best known guess is the Latin phrase Et tu, Brute? ("even you, Brutus?" or "you too, Brutus?") from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
  2. Another royal person died on this date in 453: Attila The Hun, King and conqueror of Asia, destroyer of villages and pillager of the countryside. He died on his wedding night. He got drunk and while making a toast to his own good fortune, drunkenly raised his glass and bashed himself on the nose. He died of the resulting nosebleed. A lucky escape for his bride, perhaps.
  3. On this date in 1964, Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton for the first time, ten days after divorcing Eddie Fisher, at the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal; it was her fifth marriage, his second.
  4. In 1972 Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, based on the novel by Mario Puzo, and starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, James Caan, and Robert Duvall opened in the US.
  5. In 1955, Colonel Tom Parker became Elvis Presley's manager. Parker managed Presley all his life and after his death. He'd previously managed the 'Great Parker Pony Circus' with one of the acts being a troupe of dancing Chickens.
  6. In 1972, a Los Angeles Radio station was raided by LA police after calls from listeners who feared there'd been a revolution when morning. DJ Robert W. Morgan played Donny Osmond's Puppy Love on repeat for over an hour. The police left without making any arrests.
  7. In 1965, the first T.G.I. Friday's restaurant opened in New York.
  8. In 1969, third division Swindon Town beat Arsenal 3-1 in the League cup final at Wembley, on a water-logged pitch.
  9. In 1892, the first Escalator was patented by inventor Jesse W. Reno of New York. When it broke down, emergency services had to use ladders to rescue riders stuck between floors. They hadn't figured out that if an escalator isn't working, it's basically just a flight of stairs!
  10. In 1992, investigators report that pieces of an old aeroplane had been found on a remote Pacific Island, believed to be associated with the mysterious disappearance of US aviator Amelia Earhart.


The Power of Love


Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace. 
 

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.


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