Wednesday, 23 March 2022

24 March

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 24 March:

  1. This date in 1733 saw the birth of Joseph Priestley, English clergyman and scientist who discovered Oxygen, sulphur dioxide, silicon fluoride and ammonia, invented the pneumatic trough, and the pencil eraser. He once observed, "The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate."
  2. Elizabeth I, also called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, The Faerie Queen or Good Queen Bess, died on this date in 1603 at the age of 69. Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. James I, son of Mary Queen of Scots, acceded to the throne and united the English and Scottish crowns.
  3. In 1975 Alex Mitchell, aged 50, a bricklayer, was watching The Goodies with his wife. He found one particular sketch, "Kung Fu Kapers" so hilarious that he literally died laughing. He laughed for 25 minutes before expiring from a fatal heart attack. Far from hating The Goodies for taking her husband from her, Mitchell's wife sent the show a letter thanking the producers and performers for making her husband's last moments so enjoyable.
  4. In 1932, the first radio broadcast from a moving train took place in America. A New York radio station, WABC, broadcast a variety program from a moving train in Maryland.
  5. In 1995, the 19-10 Cardiff Central train to Birmingham was late. The reason given was because the driver didn’t know the way. (Did no-one tell him all he had to do was follow the train tracks?)
  6. In 1877, the Oxford/Cambridge Boat Race ended in a dead heat for the first and only time.
  7. In 1832, Mormon founder Joseph Smith was beaten, tarred and feathered in Ohio. (Was this on one of his many stag nights???)
  8. In 1965, on the first date of their anniversary tour, Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman was knocked unconscious by an electric shock from a microphone stand in Odense, Denmark.
  9. In 1953 a tenant at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill Gate in London made a ghoulish discovery while examining wallpaper in the kitchen. There was a hidden cupboard, which had been papered over. Inside was the naked body of Mrs Ethel Christie.
  10. The world's longest dive took place on this date in 1960. Kaiko, a Japanese deep-sea probe, made the longest unmanned dive reaching the bottom of the Challenger Deep, measuring it at 10,911 meters or 35,797 feet deep.


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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