18 January: $6 Million Dollar Man

On this date in 1974, $6 Million Man starring Lee Majors premièred on US TV. 10 facts about this show.

1. What was it about? The plot concerns a former astronaut, Colonel Steve Austin, portrayed by Lee Majors. After being seriously injured in a NASA test flight crash, Austin is rebuilt with bionic implants that give him superhuman strength, speed and vision. Austin is then employed as a secret agent by a fictional U.S. government office titled OSI.

2. The working title for the series was Cyborg, which is the title of the book by Martin Caidin, published in 1971, on which the series was based.

3. Martin Caidin based the character of Steve Austin on astronauts David Scott and Eugene Cernan (commanders of Apollos 15 and 17, respectively).

4. The air crash in the opening sequence was real. The aircraft was an M2-F2 which crashed when a rescue Helicopter strayed into the air space during the test flight. Pilot Bruce Peterson had to suddenly swerve to avoid a collision causing the crash. The crash happened on May 10, 1967, at Edwards Air Force base in California (although the dialogue heard on the show was recorded by Lee Majors). The scene from the operating theatre was taken from a Columbo episode called "A Stitch in Crime".

5. The theme tune was written by Oliver Nelson.

6. So what could the Six Million Dollar Man actually do? The bionic Eye contained a camera, a night vision function, an infra-red filter and the ability to see things moving too fast for a human eye to distinguish. He could also see through it normally. The bionic legs enabled him to run at 60mph as shown in the opening credits, but it was never officially determined what his top speed was. He can leap 30 feet (9.1 m) high. His bionic arm is as strong as a bulldozer and contains a Geiger counter.

7. The producers made sure that, while bionics were pretty powerful, the stories were still plausible by placing limits on what Steve Austin’s bionic parts could do. For example, he could jump two storeys high but not three, and could jump down no more than three storeys. The implants have a major flaw in that extreme cold interferes with their functions and can temporarily disable them.

8. Lee Majors was married at the time to Farrah Fawcett, who appeared in the series three times. Majors would have liked her to play Jamie Sommers, the Bionic Woman, but the part went to Lindsay Wagner instead. The Bionic Woman first appeared in an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man in 1975. She was a professional tennis player who rekindled an old romance with Austin, only to experience a parachuting accident that resulted in her being given bionic parts similar to his. However, her body rejected the parts and she died. The character was very popular, however, and the following season it was revealed that she had been saved by an experimental cryogenic procedure, and she was given her own spin-off series.

9. The show was very popular during its run and introduced several pop culture elements of the 1970s, such as the show's opening catchphrase ("We can rebuild him; we have the technology", voiced over by Richard Anderson in his role of Oscar Goldman). Children saw Steve Austin as a role model which led to problems with some children deliberately trying to seriously injure themselves in the hopes of getting bionic parts. In one case, the producers and Lee Majors had to write a letter to one kid the tell him it was purely fiction.

10. In France, the show was called L'homme qui valait 3 milliards or "The Man Who Was Worth 3 Billion". In Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, the series was known as El Hombre Nuclear "The Nuclear Man". In Israel, the number six million is associated with the Holocaust, so there the show was called The Man Who Is Worth Millions.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

17 January: David Lloyd George

Born on this date in 1863 was David Lloyd George, a former British Prime Minister. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. Although he was born in Manchester, David Lloyd George was the only Welshman ever to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the only one to speak Welsh as his first language. Lloyd George’s father was a Welshman from Pembrokeshire and had become headmaster of an elementary school in Manchester. His mother was the daughter of David Lloyd, a Baptist minister.

2. His father died when he was still a baby and his mother moved back to Wales, so Lloyd George grew up in Caernarvonshire.

3. The family was supported by his mother’s brother, who enabled his nephew to qualify as a solicitor in 1884.

4. He entered Parliament in 1890 when he was elected Liberal MP for Caernarvon, aged 27. He retained that seat for 55 years.

5. He married Margaret Owen in 1888 and had five children with her, but was a habitual womaniser and cheated on her often, including with their daughter’s teacher, Frances Stevenson, with whom he had a longstanding affair. He married her in 1943 after Margaret had died and he was 80 years old. Their letters to each other have been published under the name of My Darling Pussy. Apparently Lloyd George called Frances Pussy because of her gentle personality.

6. In 1906 he was made President of the Board of Trade. Herbert Asquith later promoted him to Chancellor. As Chancellor, he introduced state pensions for the first time and declared a war on poverty.

7. He became Prime Minister in 1916, during the first world war. He was acclaimed as the man who won the war, and in 1918, the first general election in the UK where women were able to vote, he won by a landslide.

8. In 1919 he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations and the war reparations settlement.

9. As well as introducing state pensions, he raised the school leaving age to 14, prohibited the employment of children in railways and transport, building and engineering works, factories and mines, and introduced national insurance.

10. In 1940 Winston Churchill invited him to join his War Cabinet, but Lloyd George declined on grounds of age and health. In 1944 he was created Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, but died not long afterwards at the age of 82. He is buried on the banks of the River Dwyfor.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

16 January: Priscilla Name Day

Today is the name day for people called Priscilla. Priscilla is an English female given name adopted from Latin Prisca, derived from priscus. One suggestion is that it is intended to bestow long life on the bearer.

10 famous Priscillas:

1. Priscilla: first century Christian missionary married to Aquila. The couple lived, worked, and travelled with the Apostle Paul.

2. Priscilla Presley: American businesswoman and actress. She is the ex-wife of the late American singer Elvis Presley, as well as the co-founder and former chairperson of Elvis Presley Enterprises.

3. Priscilla "Pris" Stratton: replicant character from the 1982 film Blade Runner.

4. Priscilla Star Diaz: better known by her stage name MISSPSTAR, formerly known as P-Star, is an American rapper, dancer, model, singer, actress, director, and disc jockey.

5. Priscilla: 2nd-century foundational leader and prophet of the religious movement known today as Montanism based in the Phrygian towns of Pepuza and Tymion.

6. Priscilla: name given to the tour bus in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Australian road comedy film written and directed by Stephan Elliott.

7. Priscilla Barnes: American actress known for her role as Terri Alden in the ABC sitcom Three's Company, between 1981 and 1984.

8. Priscilla Harris Braislin Merrick: the first mathematics professor at Vassar College.

9. Priscilla White: known professionally as Cilla Black, British singer, television presenter, actress and author.

10. Priscilla Kitaen: real name of Voodoo, a comic book character appearing in Wildstorm and DC Comics.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

15 January: Ivor Novello

Welsh actor, dramatist, singer and composer Ivor Novello was born on this date in 1893. 10 facts about him:

1. His real name was David Ivor Davies, and he was born in Cardiff. His father was a tax collector and his mother was a famous singing teacher called Dame Clara Novello Davies.

2. As a boy, he had a notable soprano voice which won him a scholarship to study at Magdalen Choir School in Oxford. He was known there as the Welsh Prodigy, and began writing songs and was getting them published by the age of 15.

3. After leaving school he gave piano lessons in Cardiff for a while, then moved to London with his mother. They took a flat above the Strand Theatre, which became his London home for the rest of his life.

4. He served in the Royal Naval Air Service during WWI and survived two crash landings.

5. His acting debut was in 1919 in a French silent film called The Call of the Blood. The film was a box office success people started calling Novello the New Valentino.

6. In 1924, he wrote a play in collaboration with actor Constance Collier. It was called The Rat. Novello starred in it, and also in the film adaptation which came along later.

7. While he was known for being very good looking ("the most handsome man in England" according to the American press) and perfect for roles as the male romantic lead, he could also pull off playing a villain, as he did as the sinister suspected serial killer in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger.

8. He spent some time in prison, eight weeks, to be exact, in 1944 for misusing petrol coupons during rationing. He tried to bribe an arresting officer, which didn’t help. Some say he never got over the public humiliation, and it could well have cost him a knighthood.

9. He was also gay, which at that time could have counted against him in the knighthood stakes as well. He had a 35 year relationship with a fellow actor called Bobby Andrews.

10. Novello died suddenly on March 6, 1951 of a coronary thrombosis only hours after performing in his own play The King's Rhapsody. He was 58. 7,000 people attended his funeral, at which women outnumbered men 50 to one.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

14 January: Tosca

On this date in 1900 Puccini's opera Tosca premièred in Rome. 10 things you might not know about Tosca:

1. The libretto for Tosca was written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, who’d also worked on La Bohème and Madama Butterfly.

2. It took eleven years to write after Puccini first saw the play La Tosca by French playwright Victorien Sardou in 1889 and decided he wanted to turn it in to an Opera. A couple of years later, Puccini and Sardou fell out and the publishers passed Tosca to another composer. In 1895, Puccini changed his mind and took the job back. Even so it took another four years to complete as Puccini, Illica, Giacosa and the publisher kept falling out and threatening to quit.

3. Tosca is a political thriller and a love story, set in Rome in June 1800 (during the Napoleonic wars and a time of great political unrest). Tosca is a famous singer who is in love with a painter called Cavaradossi. Baron Scarpia, the chief of police, lusts after Tosca and wants her for himself. He arrests Cavaradossi on suspicion of assisting an escaped political prisoner, but the latter escapes. Scarpia manipulates Tosca into telling him where her lover is hiding and tells her that Cavaradossi won’t be executed if she gives herself to him. The execution will be faked and the couple will be granted safe passage out of Rome. Tosca kills Scarpia and goes to watch the fake execution – only it’s not. The bullets are real and Cavaradossi dies. The opera ends with Tosca throwing herself off a parapet.

4. There’s a myth that in one production, the pile of mattresses put in place for the actress playing Tosca to fall on was a bit too bouncy, and instead of disappearing in a fall to her death, bounced back up over the parapet several times.

5. Tosca is made up of three acts, and runs for about three hours including two intervals.

6. Puccini was so keen to make the opera sound authentic to its setting that he extensively researched the sounds of the church bells in the city. For Act III, in which church bells are heard at dawn, he visited the Castel Sant’Angelo, the prison in Rome where Cavaradossi is held, to measure the exact sound of the matins bells as they would be heard from the ramparts. He had bells cast especially to recreate the sound and gave detailed instructions about exactly where each bell should be placed backstage in order to make it sound exactly right. Illica, one of the librettists, thought this was a bit over the top. In a letter to the publisher, he wrote, “the great fuss and the large amount of money for the bells have constituted an additional folly, because it passes completely unnoticed”. Puccini also pitched the music for the Te Deum at the end of Act 1 to match the great bell of St. Peter’s Basilica.

7. The premier was attended by Queen Margherita, although she didn’t arrive until after the first act, the Prime Minister of Italy, Luigi Pelloux and many more local dignitaries.

8. Queen Margherita wasn’t the only latecomer. Some other members of the audience arrived after the curtain rose and tried to get in, causing a disturbance. The opera was paused for a few moments while everything was calmed down and carried on without further incident.

9. The best known music from this opera includes Vissi d’arte (‘I lived for art’), which is sung by Tosca during Act II, E lucevan le stelle (‘The stars were shining brightly’), sung by Cavaradossi as he awaits his execution, and the Te Deum at the end of Act I. Tosca’s score is also full of musical motifs, representing different characters and ideas. The best known is the sequence of three chords representing Scarpia (the interval is an unsettling tritone, known as the ‘devil’s interval’).

10. Today, Tosca is the fifth most performed opera in the world.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

13 January: Edmund Spenser

On this date in 1599 the poet Edmund Spenser died. 10 facts about him.

1. Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552. His exact date of birth is not known. It’s not known for sure who his parents were, either, but he was probably the son of John Spenser, a journeyman clothmaker.

2. He was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors' School and then at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

3. He married twice. His first wife was called Machabyas Childe. Their wedding took place at a rather grand venue: St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, which is now the church of the House of Commons. They had two children, Sylvanus and Katherine. By 1594, she’d died and he married Elizabeth Boyle, with whom he had a son called Peregrine.

4. He is related by marriage through his second wife, to Diana, Princess of Wales. It’s possible that, being called Spenser, he was related to her in his own right, too, but there’s no proof of this.

5. His first major work was called The Shepheardes Calender and was published in 1579. It consisted of twelve poems known as eclogues, each dedicated to a month of the year.

6. He’s best known, however, for a poem called The Faerie Queene, which is one of the longest poems in the English language. This is despite the fact he never finished it. The first three books were published in 1590, and the second set of three books was published in 1596. He intended it to consist of 12 volumes. It is an allegorical work, in praise of Queen Elizabeth I.

7. He probably wrote The Faerie Queene in Ireland. Spenser had gone to Ireland in service of Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. When Lord Grey was recalled to England, Spenser stayed in Ireland, having acquired other official posts and land in Cork. His main estate was at Kilcolman, near Doneraile in North Cork. Legend has it that he sat under a nearby tree to write, and the tree became known as "Spenser's Oak". The tree survived until the 1960s when it was destroyed by Lightning.

8. In 1596 he wrote A View of the Present State of Irelande in which discussed plans to for England to establish control over Ireland and to violently crush any resistance. Needless to say, this didn’t go down too well, and his castle at Kilcolman was burned by Hugh O’Neill’s forces in October 1598. According to legend, Spenser escaped the fire through a cave, but one of his children died, although it’s more likely he’d already gone to Cork City long before O’Neill got there.

9. The word “blatant” was coined by Spenser. He invented a creature with hundreds of tongues, called “The Blatant Beast”. He might also be indirectly responsible for the phrase, “going for a song”. The story goes that Queen Elizabeth liked his poem The Faerie Queene so much that she paid him £100 for it. The Lord High Treasurer, Lord Burghley, allegedly commented, ‘What? All this for a song?’

10. Spenser died suddenly in 1599 at the age of just 46. Ben Jonson suggested he’d died of poverty ("for want of bread") but this is unlikely to be true because he had a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen. He was buried near Geoffrey Chaucer in what is now known as Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. It’s said that many other poets of the time attended the funeral, including William Shakespeare, and that they threw quill pens and pieces of poetry into his grave. However, when his tomb was opened in the 1930s, no pens or poems were found.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

12 January: Hermann Goering

Today in infamous people history: this date in 1893 was the birthdate of Hermann Goering. 10 facts about him.

1. Göring was born in Bavaria, the son of Heinrich Ernst Göring, who was the German consul general in Haiti at the time. As a child he lived in a castle owned by Hermann, Ritter (knight) von Epenstein, who was Göring’s godfather and was also having an affair with his mother. Von Epenstein also happened to be Jewish.

2. He served in the first world war, having entered the German Army as an infantry lieutenant in 1912. He transferred to the air force and was a flying ace. He reportedly shot down 22 allied aircraft during the war, and received the Pour le Merite and Iron Cross 1st class. In 1918 he became commander of the same squadron in which Manfred, Freiherr (Baron) von Richthofen, had served.

3. Unimpressed with how veterans were treated in Germany after the great war, he went to live in Scandinavia and worked as a commercial pilot in Denmark and Sweden.

4. In 1923 he married a Swedish baroness Carin von Kantzow, who divorced her husband in order to marry him. She died in 1931 and in 1935 he married his second wife, an actress called Emmy Sonnemann. A large reception was held the night before their wedding at the Berlin Opera House with fly pasts by fighter aircraft both on the night of the reception and the day of the ceremony. Hitler was best man. Goering had his only child with Emmy, a daughter named Edda. Hitler was her godfather and she was treated like a princess. She remained protective of her father as an adult, and said her ‘only memories of him are loving ones, I cannot see him any other way.’

5. Goering was a drug addict. He took part in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, in which Hitler tried to seize power prematurely. During this, Goering was severely injured in the groin and fled to Sweden to escape arrest. He was given morphine for the pain of his injuries and became so hooked on it that he had to go through two rounds of treatment at the Långbro mental hospital in Sweden.

6. He had a younger brother called Albert who worked against the Nazi regime. Albert was a film maker in Vienna in 1938, and he would defend Jews who were being bullied in the street and arranged exit visas for his Jewish friends. Albert was the subject of numerous Gestapo reports, 4 arrest warrants and finally a death warrant in 1944, which called for execution on sight. Goering once said of his younger brother, ‘he was always the antithesis of myself.’

7. Goering was known for his extravagant dress and love of Opera and art, though a lot of his art collection was plundered from Jewish collections in occupied countries. He grew very fat due to a glandular problem and dressed in outlandish costumes such as a medieval hunting costume for practising Archery with his doctor, a red toga fastened with a golden clasp while smoking an unusually large pipe; and a fur coat described by Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano as like something "a high-grade prostitute wears to the opera". Despite his obesity he liked to be called "der Eiserne" (the Iron Man).

8. He had a large estate in in the Schorfheide, north of Berlin which he named Carinhall in honour of his first wife. He borrowed Lion cubs from the zoo to keep there, and in his house at Obersalzberg, as pets.

9. He made a fatal tactical error during the Battle of Britain, by switching to bombing London at night which gave the British defences time to recover. After that Goering pleaded ill health and tried to retire, at least as much as Hitler would let him. However, he still had his eye on the top job. In April 1945 Goering sent Hitler a telegram, in anticipation of his likely death, asking permission to take up control over Germany, having been named as successor in 1941. It was not to be as Hitler and Martin Bormann condemned Goering as a traitor and rescinded the 1941 decree. Goering was forced to resign from his posts, and was expelled from the party in Hitler’s will.

10. He was condemned to hang as a war criminal in 1946. His request to be shot instead was declined and so he killed himself by taking poison capsule which he had secreted in a container of pomade.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

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