9 April: Astronauts Day

Today is Astronauts Day because the first 7 US astronauts were selected on this date in 1959. 10 things you might not know about astronauts.

1. The word astronaut comes from Greek words meaning “star” and “sailor”.

2. In Russia, people who travel to space are typically known as cosmonauts (from the Russian "kosmos" meaning "space". Chinese space travellers use the term taikonaut (from the Mandarin word for "space").

3. Since it started, NASA has selected 370 astronaut candidates: 299 men, 61 women; 212 military, 138 civilians; 191 pilots, 159 non-pilots. As of November 2024, there were 47 active astronauts and 12 management astronauts.

4. In 2020, eighteen astronauts (fourteen men and four women) had died during space flights. 13 were American, four were Russian (Soviet Union), and one was Israeli. 11 men had died training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four due to fires in pure oxygen environments.

5. There are also a number of health risks associated with spending time in space. These include decompression sickness, barotrauma, immunodeficiencies, loss of bone and muscle, loss of eyesight, sleep disturbances and radiation injury.

6. In NASA’s early days, astronaut selection was limited to military pilots, often test pilots. There was also a height restriction – height had to be below 5 feet 11 inches. By 1964 the emphasis had changed to academic qualifications in the natural sciences, medicine, or engineering fields.

7. Training to be an astronaut takes 20 months. They are required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft and must learn how to pilot a Space Shuttle. They train for weightlessness and space walks in water and in an aircraft. They all undergo some medical training. Astronauts aspiring to work on the International Space Station must also learn Russian so they can understand the manuals on the Russian side, and communicate with Russian ground control in an emergency.

8. Between 1986 and 2007, Cosmonaut survival kits included shotguns. No, not for shooting aliens! It was in case, on re-entry to Earth, they landed in some remote wilderness and might have to fend off a hungry bear.

9. Astronauts can grow up to 3% taller while spending time in microgravity. When they return to earth, their height returns to normal after a few months.

10. If you define an astronaut as anyone who has been in space, including space tourists, the astronaut is Oliver Daemen, who was 18 years and 11 months old when he made a suborbital spaceflight on Blue Origin. The oldest is William Shatner, who did the same at the age of 90.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

8 April: Dana Name Day

In Latvia, today is the name day for people called Dana. Dana is a unisex given name. In Arabic, it means 'the most perfectly sized, valuable and beautiful pearl' In Persian, it means 'wise'. It is also occasionally used as a feminine version of Daniel or a short version of other names. 10 famous Danas:

1. Dana Scallon (pictured): known mononymously as Dana, Irish singer and politician. Won Eurovision in 1970 with All Kinds of Everything.

2. Dana Andrews: American film actor who became a major star in film noir and Westerns.

3. Dana: South Korean pop singer.

4. Dana White Jr.: American businessman, the CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a global mixed martial arts organisation.

5. Dana Scully: one of the main characters on the television show The X Files.

6. Dana Carvey: American comedian who has appeared as a cast member of Saturday Night Live and in the Wayne's World movie series.

7. Dana Plato: American actress who played Kimberly Drummond on the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes.

8. Dana Franklin: Protagonist the novel Kindred by Octavia E Butler. A 26-year-old African-American woman writer, married to a white writer named Kevin. She repeatedly travels in time to a slave plantation in antebellum Maryland.

9. Dana Delany: American actress who starred as Katherine Mayfair in Desperate Housewives and also provided the voice of Lois Lane in Superman: The Animated Series. She has the longest tenure of playing Lois Lane, having portrayed the character for 17 years.

10. Dana Owens: also known as Queen Latifah, American rapper, singer and actress.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

7 April: 97

 Today is the 97^th day of the year. 10 fun facts about 97.

1. 97 is the only prime number in the 90s and the highest prime number less than 100.

2. Jack Reacher likes the number 97 for just this reason and it forms the last two digits of his ATM card PIN in the novel Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child.

3. The 10-97 police code means "arrived on the scene".

4. 97 Klotho is a main-belt Asteroid discovered by Ernst Tempel in 1868. It is named after Klotho or Clotho, one of the three Moirai, or Fates, in Greek mythology.

5. It’s the atomic number of Berkelium, a synthetic chemical element which has the symbol Bk and is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California.

6. The A97 is a major road in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It runs south from Banff on the north coast to its junction with the A93 road at Dinnet.

7. British logician, mathematician, and philosopher Bertrand Russell lived to be 97.

8. "Process 97" was the fictional secret formula in the film The House On 92nd Street.

9. The seventh word of the seventh line of Shakespeare's Sonnet XCVII (97) is “prime”.

10. 97 is the decimal unicode number representing the Latin lowercase "a".

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

6 April: Hula Hoops

On this date in 1987 Roxann Rose set the record for continuous revolution of a hula hoop (90 hours). 10 facts about hula hoops:

1. Roxann Rose’s record has since been broken and at time of writing the record holder is Jenny Doan who hula hooped for 100 hours.

2. There are also records for hula hooping on one leg (Leanna Fernandez (UK) - 2 hours, 30 minutes, 19 seconds in 2021); hula hooping in plank position (Reger Maffei (USA) - 7 minutes, 41.28 seconds in 2024); spinning the most hoops at once (Marawa Ibrahim (Australia) 200); The most people hula-hooping simultaneously (4,183 by the Department of Health and the Ministry of Public Health in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2013. The hula hoops remained in continuous motion for two minutes); and running a half marathon while hula hooping (two hours and 29 minutes by Tamara "Tats" Ward (UK) in 2025.

3. Items resembling modern hula hoops have been used since at least 500 BC.

4. The Native American Hoop Dance is a form of storytelling dance using hoops as props.

5. The modern hula hoop was inspired by Australian children playing with Bamboo hoops as the owners of an American toy company, Wham-O, happened to be driving past. They went home and made similar toys for their own children, who loved them. Even adults at cocktail parties were keen to have a go, especially when they’d imbibed a few cocktails! This told Wham-O that they had a hit on their hands and began selling them in 1958. It became a craze. More than 20 million people bought them in that year.

6. The name hula comes from the Hawaiian dance which uses similar hip movements.

7. Not all countries embraced the craze as America did. Indonesia banned them because they “might stimulate passion”; Japan forbade them on public streets; China called hula hoops “a nauseating craze” and in the Soviet Union, the hoop branded a “symbol of the emptiness of American culture.”

8. Hula hooping is nowadays a popular fitness activity with hula hooping included in the Nintendo Wii exercise package. That said, British Medical Journal has reported that the hula hoop was responsible for an increase in back, neck, and abdominal injuries.

9. At the height of the craze there were hit songs about hula hoops: one by Georgia Gibbs and another by Maureen Evans.

10. Hula Hooping Girl, a 2020 street art painting by Banksy in Nottingham portrays a young girl hula-hooping with a bicycle tyre.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

5 April: Mallorca

Today is the feast day of St Catherine Tomás, Patron of Mallorca (also sometimes spelled Majorca in English). Ten facts about the island:

1. It’s the largest of Spain's Balearic Islands, and the seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.

2. The name of the island comes from an old Latin phrase ‘insula maior’ which translates as ‘larger island’, which was often mispronounced and that evolved into its modern name.

3. The capital is Palma, where around half the population live.

4. Its highest peak is the Puig Major (1445 metres) which is also the highest mountain in the Balearic Islands.

5. In 2011, Mallorca’s Serra de Tramuntana mountain range was awarded World Heritage Status by UNESCO for being an area of great Physical and Cultural significance.

6. There is a cathedral there which was built on the site of a mosque, so its orientation is towards the southeast rather than the usual Christian east to west alignment. Construction started on La Seu cathedral began in 1230 and continued for 400 years. In recent times, Antoni Gaudi made some additions.

7. There’s also a castle which is unusual because it’s built in a perfect circle. Castell de Bellver was built in the 14th century.

8. The island has been an inspiration to creative people of many kinds. Frederic Chopin spent some time here on his doctor’s advice. While he didn’t have the best possible time, he got a lot of composing done, working on the Preludes, Op. 28, his Ballade No. 2, Op. 38; two Polonaises, Op. 40; and the Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39. Agatha Christie stayed in Palma and Port de Pollença and was inspired to write a short story collection called Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories. The artist Joan Miro and the poet Robert Graves chose to settle on the island.

9. Mallorca has a traditional dance called Ball dels Cossiers which dates back to the 13th or 14th century. Three pairs of dancers, usually male, defend a "Lady," who can be played by a man or a woman, from a demon or devil.

10. In the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries there was a renowned school of cartographers, cosmographers, and navigational instrument makers called the "Catalan school". Their work with maps and navigational instruments made the discovery of the New World possible.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

4 April: Maps

 Today is National Reading a Roadmap Day. 10 facts about maps:

1. The study of maps and mapmaking is known as cartography, and a person who makes maps is known as a cartographer.

2. People started making maps at least 16,500 years ago. We know this because there is a map of stars in the French caves of Lascaux. The first road map is believed to be one called the Turn Papyrus Map. It was created in Egypt in around 1160 BC, showing ways to get around bends in rivers.

3. There is no such thing as a perfectly accurate map of the world. This is because the Earth is a sphere and maps are flat, so any representation will be distorted to some extent. The one we are most familiar with is called the Mercator projection, which was invented in the mid 16th century by a cartographer called Gerardus Mercator. It’s most useful for sailors as it shows exactly where you’d end up if you set sail from any coastline, but many of the land masses are completely the wrong size. North America and Europe look much bigger than they actually are. Greenland and Africa are shown as pretty much the same size when Africa is actually about 14 times bigger. Someone needs to explain this to Donald Trump: there’s 14 times less oil and minerals there than he thinks!

4. Another projection is the Dymaxion, or Fuller, map, which was created by Buckminster Fuller around 1943. He put a world map on an icosahedron, or 20-sided polygon, and flattened it.

5. Maps also frequently show places that don’t exist. Sometimes this is down to a mistake. In 1798, James Rennell drew the first map of Africa which wrongly included a mountain range called the Mountains of Kong which didn’t exist, but the mountain range appeared on maps of Africa for over 100 years. Many ancient cartographers believed the fictional city of El Dorado was real for centuries, and included it on maps as recently as 1808.

6. Sometimes fictitious places were included on purpose, so map makers would know if someone else had simply copied their map instead of putting the work in. The London A to Z had a fictitious street. Another example was created by Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest Alpers who used an anagram of their initials to name a fake town called Agloe, which they placed near the Catskill Mountains in New York as a trap. You can almost see these two rubbing their hands together and the dollar signs lighting up in their eyes when Rand McNally put Agloe on one of their maps. However, Rand McNally had the last laugh because someone, seeing the town on the original map, had built a general store there, and a real community had sprung up around it. Agloe had become a real town. In the modern age, even Google maps adds fake places. Argleton, England was discovered on Google Maps in 2008, but was later removed from Google Maps.

7. Also, places that do exist are sometimes left off on purpose – like military bases, in case the map ends up in enemy hands. American geological survey maps don’t include nuclear waste dumps, either.

8. Maps usually show north at the top, which could lead to the assumption that early explorers saw the northern hemisphere as more important or it was reflecting the position of the North Pole on the top of the planet. However, it might actually have been a convention that started in Korea with the Kangnido map, created in 1402 by a Korean astronomer named Kwon Kun. It’s believed he put North at the top because looking North was associated with looking at the emperor. European maps in the middle ages often put east at the top as it suited them back then to “orient” the map looking east (towards the Orient) to make sure they had it the right way up. Orient comes from the Latin word for East, ”oriens” and it evolved into the modern word orientation.

9. In 1891, a group of countries created the International Map of the World Initiative with the purpose of creating a worldwide standard for maps. Wars and depressions kept scuppering it, although it was still a thing up until the 1980s, but has since dropped off the radar.

10. During WWII, maps were smuggled into prisoner of war camps to help prisoners escape. There were Monopoly sets with silk maps concealed inside the playing board along with other helpful items like real money hidden in the piles of Monopoly money, and a playing piece which was a working Compass. There were also multi-layered Playing cards which, when soaked in Water, revealed a map.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

3 April: Dugongs

Today is World Aquatic Animal day, so here are some facts about an aquatic animal I’ve not covered yet – dugongs.

1. Dugongs belong to the order Sirenia, which also includes their cousins, the Manatees. Dugong dungon is the only living dugon in the order. The only other true species of dugong, Hydrodamalis gigas, was hunted to extinction in 1767, just 36 years after its discovery. Dugongs are also related to Elephants.

2. There is a 5,000-year-old wall painting of a dugong, apparently drawn by Neolithic peoples, in Tambun Cave, Malaysia.

3. The word "dugong" derives from the Visayan language. It doesn’t, as is commonly thought, mean "lady of the sea". Other common names include "sea cow", "sea pig", and "sea camel".

4. They are strictly vegetarian, the only completely herbivorous marine mammal on the planet. Their diet consists mainly of seagrass which they tear up by the roots using their lips, leaving a bare trail behind them. Their grazing habits are one reason for them being known as sea cows. An adult dugong will eat up to 30 kilograms of seagrass a day, and if seagrass is scarce, they’ll eat algae.

5. Mature males and older females have tusks. It’s possible to tell by the rings on a dugong’s tusks how old it is. Dugongs can live up to 70 years.

6. They are sociable animals and live in groups of up to 200. They communicate with each other using chirps, whistles, barks and other sounds that echo underwater.

7. They can mate at any time of year. A group of males will pursue a female: the “following phase”. This is followed by the “fighting phase”, which is what it says on the tin: the males fight each other for the female and the female may fight off unwanted males as well. Finally there is the “mounting stage” which is also what it says on the tin, where several of the males will get lucky. Female dugongs only produce one calf every 2.5 – 7 years and are pregnant for 13 – 14 months.

8. There is a myth in some parts of the world that dugongs were once human women, and that they cry when they are butchered or beached. It is therefore bad luck to kill one, so they don’t get hunted for food in these areas. In other places, however, dugong meat is said to have aphrodisiac properties and is considered a luxury food. In some places, the tusks were used as sword handles.

9. They have been hunted, or trapped in fishing nets enough to make them endangered. Australia has created a number of dugong protection parks where it is illegal to hunt them, even for Aboriginal Peoples.

10. It is tricky and expensive to keep dugongs in captivity, because the seagrass that they eat is hard to grow in an aquarium.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/