5 June: Stoke on Trent

On this date in 1925, Stoke on Trent became a city. 10 things you might not know about Stoke on Trent:

1. Where is it? It's in Staffordshire, about half-way between Manchester and Birmingham.
2. It's actually made up of six towns which were amalgamated: Stoke, Hanley, Burslem, Longton, Tunstall and Fenton.
3. It's called Stoke on Trent because Stoke was the original ancient parish. Stoke derives from an Old English word, stoc, which basically just meant "place". Later on the word took on other meanings such as dairy farm, summer pasture, crossing place, meeting place and place of worship. Any of them could have been the reason for it being applied here; nobody knows. Needless to say, Stoke was quite a common name for villages and towns and so they usually had something added to distinguish them from all the other Stokes. In this case, the name of the river.
4. Sometimes, it's referred to as "the city of five towns", a name coined by local novelist Arnold Bennet, because it's the only polycentric city in the UK. Bennet set several of his novels in the city, although he called Stoke "Knype". Why five towns when there were six? Purely because Bennet thought "Five towns" sounded better than "six towns" and so he left Fenton out. Fenton is sometimes referred to as "the forgotten town".
5. The first Michelin tyre factory was built here in the 1920s, but the most significant industry was pottery. In fact, the area is sometimes referred to as "The Potteries". Stoke-on-Trent is the home of the pottery industry in England and is commonly known as the Potteries. Thanks to an abundance of coal and clay in the area, companies such as Royal Doulton, Dudson Ltd, Spode, Wedgwood, Minton (famous for ceramic tiles. The tiles on the floor of the Houses of Parliament were made in Stoke-on-Trent, by Minton) and Baker & Co. were established and based there.
6. Stoke City Football club once had a vicar in midfield. His name was Father Elijah Smith and he played for the team in the 1880s.
7. The motto of Stoke-on-Trent is Vis Unita Fortior meaning United Strength is Stronger.
8. When the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent initially applied to the Home Office for city status it was turned down by the Home Office on the grounds it didn't have a big enough population. Undeterred, the borough, believing that it should be a city because its importance as the centre of the pottery industry, appealed to a higher authority. King George V agreed with them, so city status was granted.
9. A common term of endearment in the area is "duck". It's said to come from the Saxon word 'ducas' from which the title of duke was derived, rather than referring to quacking birds.
10. Famous people from Stoke on Trent include presenters Frank Bough, Anthea Turner, Nick Hancock and Bruno Brookes; actor Neil Morrissey, Edward Smith, the captain of the Titanic, and Robbie Williams.

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4 June: Roquefort cheese

This date in 1070 was the day Roquefort cheese was first made, according to legend. Here are 10 things you might not know about Roquefort cheese.

1. According to the story, the Cheese was discovered by accident. A shepherd boy is said to have left his lunch in a cave while he went after a girl he fancied. History doesn't record whether he won her heart or not, but he didn't return for his lunch for several months, by which time his plain cheese had turned in to Roquefort.
2. It's made from sheep's milk, specifically the milk of the Lacaune breed of sheep.
3. It's a blue cheese, and the mould which makes it is called Penicillium roqueforti. The mould grows in the caves where the cheese is ripened, although nowadays it can be grown into a lab and injected into the cheese to ensure consistency.
4. While the mould isn't actually Penicillin, it does have anti-inflammatory properties and was used by people in rural communities to prevent wounds turning gangrenous.
5. It's said that Pliny the Elder was eating it in AD79, nearly a millennium before the shepherd boy abandoned his lunch. However, Pliny isn't that specific about the origin of his cheese – he just says it came from Gaul. In fact, he doesn't even specify whether it was a blue cheese. The story is most likely a marketing strategy by early producers.
6. Roquefort is subject to the same rules as Champagne and Cornish pasties. Under European law, only cheeses aged in the natural Cambalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may bear the name Roquefort. In fact, even before that the village had been granted sole rights to the ageing of Roquefort by Charles VI of France in 1411.
7. There are other rules. It must be made of raw ewes’ milk delivered at least 20 days after lambing has taken place. The sheep must have been grazing in pasture as much as possible, and where not, at least 75% of the corn they are fed must have been produced in the area.
8. A typical wheel of Roquefort weighs between 2.5 and 3 kilograms and is about 10cm thick. Each kilogram requires about 4.5 litres of Milk to produce.
9. It is said to have been Charlemange's favourite cheese.
10. Delicious it may be, but in the 1940s its true glory wasn't evident when it appeared on TV. A presenter named James Beard, who fronted a TV show called I Love to Eat in 1946, coloured the veins with ink so the cheese would look better on TV.

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3 June: George V

George V, King of England from 1910 to 1936, was born on this date in 1865.

1. He was the second son of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and Queen Victoria was his grandmother. His mother was the eldest daughter of King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark. His full name was George Frederick Ernest Albert.
2. His elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, was just 17 months older, so they were educated together. Neither of them excelled in academic subjects, and their father thought the best education they could get was to be drafted into the Navy. When George was 12, both brothers joined the cadet training ship HMS Britannia at Dartmouth, Devon. When he was in Japan in 1881, he got a tattoo of a dragon on his arm. While serving in Malta, he fell in love with his cousin, Princess Marie of Edinburgh. There were mixed reactions from both families. Marie's mother was one of those who disapproved and so when George proposed to her, she turned him down on her mother's advice.
3. His older brother, the heir to the throne, became engaged to his second cousin once removed, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck. That romance was doomed, however, since six weeks after the engagement, Albert died suddenly of pneumonia. George was now forced to give up his career in the Navy because he was now heir to the throne. During the mourning period, he and Victoria Mary became close and he ended up marrying her on 6 July 1893. George insisted that she drop one of her names. Since Queen Victoria would be a hard act to follow, she chose to become Queen Mary.
4. He was the first English monarch since 1714 who wasn't able to speak German fluently. This horrified Queen Victoria, so he and his brother were sent to Lausanne in the hope that they might learn another language. It didn't work.
5. George became king in 1911, and was King during World War I. He visited the war front regularly with Queen Mary, but there was some dissension at home because he had a German surname, thanks to Queen Victoria's husband Albert. Hence it was George V who changed the family name to Windsor and insisted that his relatives also adopted British sounding names. Hence Battenberg became Mountbatten.
6. Other things which happened during his reign were the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and the setting up of the Irish Free State in 1922; the first Labour government in 1924, and the first Christmas broadcast by the monarch in 1932. He was a popular king and would visit factories and dockyards to meet the workers. He advised the government during the General Strike of 1926 not to take a hard line against protestors. He said, "Try living on their wages before you judge them." He also warned government ministers that they should be worried about the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. He warned that within ten years there would be another world war, and was proved right.
7. His hobbies were shooting Pheasants and stamp collecting. On one shooting trip, he shot more than a thousand birds in six hours, and was forced to admit that he'd "gone a little too far". As for stamp collecting, George played a significant role in building the Royal Philatelic Collection into the most comprehensive collection of United Kingdom and Commonwealth stamps in the world.
8. He and Queen Mary had six children, including two kings: King Edward VIII and King George VI. His youngest child, Prince John, died at the age of 13. He was once quoted as saying, "My father was frightened of his mother, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me." However, there's no conclusive evidence that he actually said that. What we do know is that Victorian parents were often pretty strict, anyway, so it would have been normal for the time. It was also known that he wasn't one to express emotion and affection readily, even to his wife, preferring to express his feelings for her in letters. One of his children, Prince Henry did describe him later on as a "terrible father".
9. He died January 20, 1936 aged 70. He was a heavy smoker and his health had been failing for some time. He had been king for twenty-five years, eight months, and fifteen days. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII, who abdicated in favour of his brother, George VI. The current Queen, Elizabeth II, is his granddaughter.
10. It came out in 1986 that his doctor, Lord Dawson of Penn, had actually hastened his end, without consulting the family, as they would have disapproved, and euthanasia was completely illegal in Britain at the time. He wrote in a diary which was made public after he'd died that he did it to preserve the King's dignity, prevent further strain on the family, and so the King's death could be announced in the morning edition of The Times. He issued a statement that evening that "The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close". The diary also revealed that George V's last words were not "Bugger Bognor!" after being told he would soon be well enough to go on holiday there, but "God damn you!" addressed to a nurse administering a sedative. Dr Dawson administered a lethal injection later that evening.

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2 June: St Elmo

Today is the feast day of Saint Elmo (the one with the fire). 10 facts about him and his fire:

1. He was also known as Erasmus of Formia, and was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.
2. He was a bishop in Italy at the time of Diocletian's persecution of Christians. He ran away and hid in the mountains for seven years, until an angel appeared to him and told him it was time to go home.
3. On the way, St Elmo encountered soldiers who tortured him and threw him in prison but an Angel helped him escape. During his journey he openly confessed to being a Christian and converted people. This soon came to the notice of the emperor, who became determined that St Elmo must die.
4. There were numerous attempts to kill him including putting him in a barrel full of spikes and rolling him downhill, but an angel healed him of those wounds. He was beaten and whipped, coated with pitch and set alight, and thrown into a dungeon where it was intended he'd starve to death, but an angel let him out. Finally, his abdomen was slit open and his intestines wound around a windlass. This was apparently beyond the capabilities even of an angel to heal, and he died.
5. He is patron of sailors, possibly because he was preaching one time when a thunderbolt struck the ground near him, and he simply carried on. Sailors, being in particular danger from sudden Lightning strikes, took this as a sign and adopted him as their patron.
6. He is also patron of Fort St. Elmo, (Malta), women in labour, and is invoked against colic in children, intestinal ailments and diseases and cattle pest.
7. So what is St Elmo's Fire, then? It's a weather phenomenon which happens when there is a strong electric charge in the atmosphere such as during a thunderstorm or a volcanic eruption. It's caused by luminous plasma and appears as a blue or violet glow, and tends to appear around tall, pointy structures like spires, chimneys and the masts of ships. It may also be seen on aircraft wings or nose cones. Sometimes it even appears around leaves and grass, and at the tips of cattle horns. It's often accompanied by a hissing or buzzing sound and may be a sign of an imminent lightning strike.
8. Some sailors attribute Saint Elmo's fire to other saints. Welsh sailors call it "candles of St David" and Russian sailor call them the lights of St Nicholas or St Peter. They were also sometimes called St. Helen's or St. Hermes' fire. It was usually interpreted by mariners as a good omen, and a sign St Elmo (or David or Nicholas or Peter) was protecting them. In the Philippines, however, the opposite is true. There, they call it santelmo and believe it is a sign of accidents or serious arguments. Shakespeare gave it a negative connotation in his play, The Tempest – evidence of the tempest inflicted by Ariel.
9. Some famous sailors in both fact and fiction have observed it. They include Charles Darwin, Ferdinand Magellan, Starbuck in Moby Dick, and Tintin. Jules Verne, in his novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth, describes the fire occurring while sailing during a subterranean electrical storm.
10. Then there's the 1985 film which was based around a bunch of friends who had recently graduated and were adjusting to life in the adult world. They used to meet in St Elmo's Bar, which gave its name to the movie despite the studio hating the name and angling to have it named something more mundane, like The Real World. The theme song St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) was written by John Parr and David Foster and was inspired by the story of athlete Rick Hansen—who was travelling the world in his wheelchair in his Man in Motion Tour to promote awareness of spinal cord injury. 

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1 June: Kentucky

On this date in 1792, Kentucky was admitted to the union, becoming the 15th state. 10 things you might not know about Kentucky:

1. Experts disagree on how the state got its name. They do agree the name is of Native American origin, but which tribe and which word is open for debate. The three contenders are: the Wyandot name for the area, Kah-ten-tah-teh, which translates as “Land of Tomorrow”; the Shawnee name for the area, Kain-tuck-ee, meaning “At the Head of the River”; or the Iroquoian or Mohawk word Kentucke meaning “among the meadows.”
2. It used to be a county in Virginia, established in 1776. However, the state capital, Richmond, was so far away that the people of Kentucky County didn't feel it served them adequately and started angling to go it alone, finally granted in 1792.
3. The state capital is Frankfort, which became capital in 1792 after pledging more manpower toward the construction of a statehouse than any other city. The first settlement in what is now Kentucky was Harrodstown (now Harrodsburg), which was founded in 1774. It was named after James Harrod who led a team of area surveyors.
4. It's nicknamed the Bluegrass state after a type of grass which grows there. It's usually Green, like any other grass, but in spring it produces bluish buds which make fields of it look Blue. This in turn gave rise to the state Music – Bluegrass Music. This became popular when a singer named Bill Monroe took traditional European music and made it faster, added different instruments such as the banjo and mandolin and sang with a voice which was a “high lonesome sound.”
5. The state tree was once the Kentucky coffee tree, but this changed in 1976 and it's now the tulip tree. The state motto is "United We Stand, Divided We Fall"; the state animal is the grey squirrel; the state fish: Kentucky spotted bass; state fruit: blackberry; state butterfly: viceroy; state drink: Milk; state flower: goldenrod; state gemstone: freshwater pearl; state musical instrument: Appalachian dulcimer; state dance: clogging. There are two state songs: My Old Kentucky Home, and a Bluegrass state song, Blue Moon of Kentucky.
6. Bourbon Whiskey is a big thing here. In fact, there are more barrels of the stuff currently ageing in cellars than there are people living in the state.
7. 17 square miles of Kentucky isn't actually physically attached to the rest of the state at all. This was the result of a surveying error in the late 18th century. It's now known as the Kentucky Bend, and is located in an oxbow bend of the Mississippi River at the state’s south-westernmost point. It connects with Tennessee directly to the south, but not with the rest of Kentucky at all. There are about 17 people living there who conduct most of their day to day business in Tennessee but when it comes to voting, they have to make a 40 mile trip to get into Kentucky.
8. Another anomaly is that the most fertile land in the state is in Barren County.
9. Some of the things Kentucky is home to: the oldest continuously held horse race in the country (Kentucky Derby); the world’s largest Fireworks display (Thunder Over Louisville, the opening ceremony for the former); the world’s longest cave (Mammoth Cave, 400 miles which have been explored and much more which hasn't); the first commercial oil well; the first commercial winery in the USA (opened in 1799 near Lexington and is called First Vineyard); Middlesboro, the only city in the United States built within a meteor crater; The first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant (a service station opened by Harland Sanders in 1930, in the town of Corbin); and the largest amount of gold stored anywhere in the world ($6 billion worth at Fort Knox).
10. Famous people from Kentucky include Abraham Lincoln, President of the Union, and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy; Mildred and Patty Hill, who wrote the tune to “Happy Birthday to you”; actors George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Jennifer Lawrence, Melissa McBride (The Walking Dead, and also Chris Hardwick who hosts its companion show, Talking Dead); Film Director John Carpenter; boxer Muhammad Ali; singers Billy Ray Cyrus and The Everley Brothers; mystic Edgar Cayce and Casey Jones the railway engineer.

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31 May: 151

Today is the 151st day of the year. 10 things you didn't know about the number 151.

1. 151 is the 36th prime number, and a twin prime with 149. 151 is also a palindromic prime.
2. Bacardi 151 was a brand of highly alcoholic Rum named for its alcohol proof level of 151, that is, 75.5% alcohol by volume. It was discontinued in 2016.
3. There are 151 Pokémon in the original set.
4. 151 is the atomic number of a theoretical element called unquintunum.
5. London bus route 151 runs between Shotfield and Worcester Park Station.
6. Psalm 151 is said to have been written by David after killing Goliath. It was quoted in its entirety by Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia during his first address to his Council of State and has been set to music several times, including: Péter Eötvös' "Psalm 151 – In Memoriam Frank Zappa"; a track on the 1989 Door into Summer album by Christian rock band Jacob's Trouble; and it was the title of a song by the Polish band Kult; and Ezra Furman on her 2018 LP Transangelic Exodus, even though when she wrote the song she had no idea there even was a Psalm 151.
7. 151 Abundantia is a main belt asteroid discovered by Johann Palisa in 1875, named for Abundantia, a Roman goddess of luck, chosen to celebrate the fact that a lot of asteroids had been discovered in the 1870s.
8. 151 is a Manchester company founded in 1997 which produces household, DIY, art and craft, gardening and automotive products.
9. The A151 is a relatively short road located entirely in the county of Lincolnshire. Parts of it are thought to be two thousand or more years old. In the 1920s it was a turnpike road.
10. In numerology, a person with 151 in their chart is someone who may be drawn to study both science and spirituality. They may be seen as a leader, although they don't necessarily seek out the role, but rather allow people to follow them as they pursue their own goals on their own terms. They enjoy exploring old things such as old houses or castles.

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30 May: Canary Islands Day

30 May is Canary Islands Day, the anniversary of the first session of the Parliament of the Canary Islands. 10 things you might not know about the Canaries:

1. They may be a region belonging to Spain, but they're actually much closer to Africa. They are just 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the African continent, but they are 1,700 kilometres (1,056 miles) from the Spanish mainland. The islands are located in the Atlantic Ocean in an area called Macaronesia.
2. They are volcanic islands, formed by volcanic eruptions. Some of the islands still have volcanoes today. The most recent volcanic eruption was Tenerife’s Mount Teide in 1909. Mount Teide is the highest point in all the Spanish territories, including the Pyrenees, and is the third highest volcano in the world after Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in Hawaii. In Lanzarote, there's a restaurant called El Diablo which uses a hole dug over a volcano to cook food. The grill's temperature reaches 400°C and uses no energy.
3. The canary bird was named after the islands, not the other way round. The birds originate in Macronesia. The islands were named for a different type of creature – Dogs. The Latin word for dog is canaria. No-one knows for sure why this was. Pliny the elder noted that Gran Canaria contained "vast multitudes of dogs of very large size". That's one theory. Another is that the islands were home to large numbers of Seals, also known as "sea dogs". Or it might be because the first human inhabitants, the Guanches, used to worship dogs.
4. Before any humans arrived at all, the islands were inhabited by giant lizards, Rats and tortoises. The Guanches arrived from North Africa at some point. Modern scientists have concluded that they were related to Berbers. It is believed they arrived on the archipelago in the first millennium BC. The name of these people derives from guanchinet, which literally translated means "person of Tenerife".
5. The archipelago includes eight main islands: Tenerife (Capital: Santa Cruz de Tenerife), Fuerteventura (Capital: Puerto del Rosario), Gran Canaria (Capital: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), Lanzarote (Capital Arrecife), La Palma (Capital: Santa Cruz de La Palma), La Gomera (Capital: San Sebastián), El Hierro (Capital: Valverde) and La Graciosa (Capital: Caleta de Sebo); plus many smaller islands, islets, and rocks. Tenerife is the largest, but even so you can drive around it in about three hours. Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria share the status as capital of the archipelago. This means the President of the Canaries has to move from one to the other every four years.
6. The canary bird is the official symbol of the islands along with the Phoenix canariensis palm. Each of the main islands has its own official symbols in addition. These are: El Hierro: El Hierro giant lizard and Juniperus phoenicea (Sabina); La Gomera: Paloma rabiche and Viñátigo; La Palma Graja and Canary Island pine; Tenerife: Tenerife blue chaffinch and Dracaena draco (Drago); Gran Canaria: Canary Mastiff and Euphorbia canariensis (Cardón); Fuerteventura: Canarian houbara and Cardón de Jandía; and Lanzarote: Blind Crab and Tabaiba dulce. The Arrorró or Himno de las Canarias by Teobaldo Power has been the official anthem of the Canary Islands since 2003.
7. The islands have some unique sports, including Canarian wrestling, in which opponents stand in an arena called a terrero and try to throw each other to the ground using strength and quick movements. The game of the sticks is another, a type of fencing using sticks. This probably originated when shepherds in olden times used to challenge each other with their walking sticks. Another is the shepherd's jump, which is a kid of pole vault over an open area. This was probably a skill shepherds developed to get around in the hills.
8. The islands also have their own whistling language. Or La Gomera does, at any rate. It's called ‘Silbo Gomero’ and is a whistling form of Castilian Spanish, used to convey announcements and news across the valleys.
9. It was at the battle for Santa Cruz in Tenerife that Nelson lost his arm in 1797.
10. The dramatic landscapes of the islands have made them sought after locations for films. Films made there include One Million Years BC, The Land That Time Forgot, Clash of the Titans, Fast & Furious 6 and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

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