18 June: 169

Today is the 169^th day of the year. 10 facts about the number 169.

1. 169 is an artist in the UK Hip Hop or Grime genre whose collaborations with the rapper Dave include the hits Thiago Silva and Wanna Know.

2. 169 Zelia is a main belt asteroid discovered by the brothers Paul Henry and Prosper Henry in 1876. It was named for Zelia Martin, a niece of the astronomer Camille Flammarion.

3. London bus route 169 runs from Clayhall/the Glade to Barking Town Centre.

4. In computing, 169 is the first number of an automatic IPv4 address assigned by TCP/IP when no external networking device is contactable. (Don’t ask me what that means in English!)

5. The A169 is an A road in North Yorkshire which runs from the A64 at Malton on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds through the Vale of Pickering and across the North York Moors to join the A171 just west of Whitby.

6. The 169-Storey Treehouse is the 13^th book in a series for children by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton. Andy and Terry’s treehouse has 13 storeys added in each book. The levels included in 169 include an electric pony stable, a weather dome (where you can have whatever weather you want whenever you want it), a 100% edible gingerbread house, a potato-powered translation transmitter that allows you to talk to everything everywhere all at the same time, and a hall of funhouse mirrors.

7. The 169 series was an express train type introduced in 1969 by Japanese National Railways, and operated by East Japan Railway Company until 1996 and by Shinano Railway in Nagano Prefecture until 2013.

8. The year 169 (CLXIX) was a common year starting on Saturday, known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Senecio and Apollinaris. During this year, Northern African Moors invaded what is now Spain; Marcus Aurelius became sole Roman Emperor upon the death of Lucius Verus, and forced his daughter Lucilla to marry Claudius Pompeianus.

9. The 169th prime number is 1009.

10. In numerology, 169 resonates with study, learning, and wisdom; also independence and aloneness. Hence a person influenced by it will be introspective and eager to learn about themselves. They are drawn to many different areas of study but especially science.

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/

17 June: Radar

On this date in 1935, Radar was tested in Orfordness, Suffolk, the first time radio-based detection and ranging was shown in Britain. The first target that was detected: a flying boat 17 miles (27 km) away. 10 things you might not know about radar.

1. The word radar is an acronym for "radio detection and ranging" which was coined in the early second world war.

2. Radar uses Radio waves to determine if something, like a ship, Submarine or aircraft, is out there when you wouldn’t be able to see it, how far away it is and how fast it is moving.

3. It does this by sending out short bursts of radio waves, or pulses. Some of these will bounce back if they hit something. The waves which bounce back are known as echoes. By measuring the time it takes for a pulse to leave the radar and return as an echo, the system can calculate the distance to the object. If the object is moving, the frequency of the returning waves changes slightly, which helps the radar figure out its speed. This is called the Doppler effect, which is the reason why a siren from an ambulance sounds slightly different when it’s moving away from you rather than coming towards you. Radar is similar to the echolocation that Bats use.

4. Physicists knew about the concept of radar as far back as 1886 when Heinrich Hertz  proved that electromagnetic waves (like radio waves) exist, and that they could travel through different materials and bounce off metal surfaces.

5. In the early 1900s, a German inventor named Christian Hülsmeyer created the telemobiloscope, a device which could detect ships in Fog up to 3km away. While it did help prevent collisions in poor visibility, it didn’t tell you exactly where the other ship was.

6. Radar technology grew very fast during World War II. Eight countries were secretly working on developing it: the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, the USSR, Japan, the Netherlands, France, and Italy.

7. Some historians believe it was radar, not the atomic bomb, which helped the Allies win the war.

8. After the war, other uses for radar were developed besides finding things to shoot at. It’s used for navigation and making air and sea travel safer; it’s also used in weather forecasting, tracking animals and Birds and in medicine. The flapping of a bird’s wings distinguishes it from aircraft, and it’s even possible to tell one type of bird from another using radar.

9. Police use radar guns to measure the speed of cars on the road. One person who was caught and fined using one of these devices was Sir Robert Watson-Watt, who was one of the people who developed radar in the early days of the war with the aim of collaborating with the United States to beat the German military.

10. The cathode-ray tube has been the preferred technology for displaying radar information ever since the early days. Radar displays have developed alongside computer and television screens so they keep getting better.

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/

16 June: Munich

Today is the feast day of St Benno of Meissen, Patron saint of Munich. 10 facts about Munich.

1. Munich is located on the river Isar north of the Alps and is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria with a population of 1,604,384 in 2024. It’s the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg.

2. It began with a monastery in the 12^th century and the settlement which grew up around it became known as zu den Munchen ("to the monks") which evolved into the modern German name for the city, München. That said, evidence has been discovered of settlements here dating back to the Bronze Age when the river Isar was an important trade route.

3. The town as we know it was founded by Henry the Lion, the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, in an attempt to gain a monopoly in the salt trade. He’d burned down a rival town and built a bridge. He granted the monks the right to establish a market in 1157, which was fortified.

4. Munich is famous for beer. The first king of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph, was instrumental in establishing Munich as a centre for Beer production. He granted a monopoly to the richest brewers, in exchange for them paying him taxes. He also did them the favour of removing a limit on the number of staff they could employ so that they could meet the beer requirements of a growing population. Munich's working and lower classes consumed beer as a staple of their diet. Since the Middle Ages beer had been regarded as nutritious liquid bread (fließendes Brot) in Bavaria. Not only that, but it wasn’t safe to drink the water.

5. Today, of course, it’s the venue for Oktoberfest (follow the link for more info on this) but not only that, there are over 60 beer gardens to have a beer or three in the summer; it’s home to 6 major breweries and the world’s only airport beer garden. There are also pools of beer underground beneath the city. These are not open to the public, but were built by breweries of old as a way to keep their product cool before fridges were invented. The pools are used for fermenting and storing beer, keeping it at the perfect temperature.

6. Also under the city are some artificial caves which Ludwig II, the "Swan King" had built under his palace. Given his penchant for fairytale castles, it will be no surprise to learn that these caves were fitted with waterfalls, coloured lights, and even a wave machine. It’s said he had a special shell-shaped boat and got some of his minions to push it around the underground lake while he listened to his favourite operas as a way to unwind from the pressures of royal life.

7. Talking of wave machines, one wouldn’t immediately flag Munich as a surfing destination, since it’s not by the sea. However, there’s a park in the city called The English Garden where there’s an urban surf centre, one of the very few in the world. The English Garden, btw, is huge, bigger than Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York. It was designed by Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell between 1789 and 1807.

8. Munich was the base of the Nazi party in the 1930s and was where the 1938 Munich Agreement was signed by Neville Chamberlain. Heinrich Himmler and Eva Braun were born in Munich. Hence the city was heavily bombed in the second world war although much of the architecture has since been restored. A hill in the city called the Olympiaberg, which has great views, as far as the Alps on a clear day, is actually not natural but was created from the rubble from the bombings. The city was also the base of a resistance movement called the White Rose. This group stencilled slogans like "Down with Hitler" and "Hitler the Mass Murderer" on public buildings in Munich, which got their leaders executed.

9. The first photo taken in Germany in 1839 by the scientists Carl August von Steinheil and Franz von Kobellwas of a church, the Frauenkirche. Another of Munich’s churches has a fresco which includes a saint holding a Pretzel. This isn’t a modern thing but dates back to the 14^th century. There’s a local legend about a character known as the "Brezenreiter" or "Pretzel Rider," who would ride through the streets once a year handing out pretzels to the poor, and this is who the fresco is deemed to represent.

10. Munich is also home to Circus Krone. While you’d generally picture a circus as taking place in a big tent, Circus Krone has a building. It was the first circus to occupy its own building and is still one of very few European circuses to do so.

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/

15 June: Rubber

On this date in 1844, Charles Goodyear obtained his first rubber patent. 10 things you might not know about rubber.

1. Rubber comes from Hevea brasiliensis, a tall, softwood tree native to south America. In the wild this tree grows to a height of 34 metres (120 feet), but the trees cultivated for rubber production only reach about 24 metres (80 feet). The carbon they need to grow really tall is contained in the rubber which is harvested, and foliage is removed to make tapping easier.

2. Ancient people in South America knew about rubber 2,000 years ago. They used it to make soles for shoes and balls for ball games. The Mayans extracted white sap from rubber trees; the Olmecs who first created rubber balls. The Aztecs used rubber balls in a game called "ollama".

3. Rubber was brought to the attention of Europeans thanks to Christopher Columbus, who saw natives in Haiti playing with rubber balls in 1493.

4. It was 1735 before anyone made a scientific study of the stuff. This study was by Charles-Marie de La Condamine and François Fresneau of France.

5. The word rubber was coined by Joseph Priestley in 1770 when he found it could be used to rub out Pencil marks. It was Goodyear’s vulcanisation process which made rubber a desirable commodity.

6. The main chemical constituents of rubber are elastomers, or “elastic polymers,” large chainlike molecules that can be stretched to great lengths and yet recover their original shape. The first common elastomer was polyisoprene, from which natural rubber is made.

7. Rubber trees start producing latex when they're around six to seven years old and can be tapped for 20-30 years. During that time, a tree can produce 19 lbs of rubber each year. A tree will be tapped every couple of days, yielding approximately 50 grams (1.7 ounces) of latex. When it comes out of the tree, latex is white. Changes in colour occur when things are added. Tyres are black because carbon black has been added. Tapping is done by scoring the trunk of the tree at an angle of about 30 degrees, as high up as the tapper can reach. Subsequent cuts are made immediately below the previous one. Trees are often rested for a period after heavy tapping.

8. Synthetic rubber was first made in 1909 by Fritz Hofmann in Germany. In 1910, Russian scientist Sergei Lebedev made rubber from a colourless gas, butadiene, which came in handy during both World Wars when natural rubber was in short supply. Today, synthetic rubber has overtaken the use of natural rubber.

9. Hevea brasiliensis isn’t the only plant which produces latex; it’s merely the one that is best at it. One common plant which produces latex is the Dandelion. In Nazi Germany, research projects tried to use dandelions as a base for rubber production, but failed.

10. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, and Liberia are the world’s leading producers of natural rubber. 65% of the rubber produced is used by the automotive industry for mountings, gaskets, belts, hoses, and of course, tyres. 

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/

14 June: Skunks

14 June is National Skunk Day. 10 things you might not know about skunks.

1. Skunks belong to the family Mephitidae, which means “stink.” There are about 10 different species in the family, native to North America.

2. A group of skunks is called a surfeit.

3. These animals are best known for spraying foul smelling stuff from their anal glands when threatened. That said, a skunk will try to avoid having to use the spray if it can, because it only has the capacity for five or six successive sprays and once that is used up, it takes about ten days to replenish. A skunk’s Black and White stripes actually point at the spray glands and act as a warning to any animal which has been caught out before. If that doesn’t deter the potential predator, the skunk will perform a warning dance first. The moves might include stomping the ground or slapping their tail. Some species will do handstands on their front paws. The spray is only used as a last resort.

4. If they do use it, though, it’s pretty potent stuff. It can cause temporary blindness in the case of a direct hit to the Eyes, as if the stench isn’t bad enough. It is made from thiols, sulphur-based compounds also found in garlic and onions. The Smell can be detected from over a mile away (unless you’re one of the one in a thousand people who can’t smell it) and can linger for weeks. It’s also flammable, not that the skunk makes use of that characteristic.

5. Skunks are omnivorous, so they’ll eat anything. Their diet includes berries, fungi, nuts, roots, grass, small mammals and Amphibians, Snakes (they are immune to snake venom), worms, eggs and insects, including Bees and Wasps. They have even been known to attack hives, their thick fur protecting them from stings.

6. They generally don’t wander more than 2 miles/3km from home, although a male skunk might extend his range to up to 5 miles/8km to look for females in the breeding season. A male skunk will mate with numerous females and plays no part in raising the young.

7. They have powerful front claws which they use for digging and breaking apart dead tree trunks for shelter or to get at tasty things inside.

8. Their senses of smell and hearing are excellent but they can’t see very well. If something is more than 10 feet/3 metres away, the skunk cannot see it.

9. They’re actually rather cute and intelligent and so some people believe they make great pets (with their spray glands removed). That said, keeping a skunk as a pet is only allowed in about 17 US states and even then there are restrictions on the type of skunk you can own and you need a permit. It’s legal to have a pet skunk in the UK, but it’s illegal since 2006 to remove the scent glands.

10. A famous fictional skunk is Pepé Le Pew, a Warner Brothers character depicted as an anthropomorphic French striped skunk, who is constantly in search of love and romance, but other characters run away from him because he stinks. Johnny Depp once said that he imagined Pirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Jack Sparrow as a blend of Keith Richards and Pepé Le Pew.

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/

13 June: F

According to “The Immortal Society”, today is F day. 10 things you might not know about the letter F.

1. F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet and the eleventh least frequently used letter in the English language (after G, Y, P, B, V, K, J, X, Q, and Z), with a frequency of about 2.23% in words.

2. The letter F evolved from the Semitic letter waw, which in turn is thought to have evolved from an Egyptian hieroglyph depicting a hook, club or mace.

3. In the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, F corresponds to the number 15 in decimal.

4. F is the chemical symbol for Fluorine.

5. On the vehicle registration plates of the European Union, F represents France.

6. "F" Is for Fugitive is the sixth novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet mystery" series, published in 1989.

7. In education, an F grade denotes failure.

8. There are a couple of rude words beginning with F, sometimes referred to in polite company as “The F word”. The F Word is also British cooking show featuring celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.

9. In the video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare the F key is pressed when a character dies, and has become an internet meme for paying respects.

10. A bold italic letter f is used in musical notation as a dynamic indicator for "loud or strong". It stands for the Italian word forte.

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/

12 June: Cleopatra (the movie)

The most expensive film ever made, Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, opened on this date in 1963. 10 facts you might not know.

1. Its budget was $44 million is equivalent to over $411 million in 2024. This included construction of 79 sets, 26,000 costumes and the $1 million Elizabeth Taylor demanded for her role. Even being the highest grossing film at the box office that year didn’t save Twentieth Century Fox from almost going bankrupt. It took years for the film just to break even. If it wasn’t for The Sound of Music three years later, the studio would have gone under.

2. Elizabeth Taylor's 65 costumes alone cost $194,800, the highest ever for a single-screen actress. These included a dress made from 24-carat Gold cloth.

3. It was supposed to be two three hour films: "Caesar and Cleopatra", followed by "Antony and Cleopatra". Twentieth Century Fox decided to edit it down to three hours fourteen minutes for general release as just one film.

4. Another huge expense would have been all the ships needed for Cleopatra’s fleet. It was actually said at the time that Twentieth Century Fox had the world's third largest navy.

5. It was the first film that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starred in together, and marked the beginning of their famous on-off love affair. At the time, they were both married to other people, Burton to Sybil Williams and Taylor to Eddie Fisher. Hence their on-set affair caused a massive scandal that made headline news.

6. Before the role was offered to Elizabeth, Sophia Loren, Joan Collins, and Dorothy Dandridge were among those considered for the role.

7. At first, filming took place in Pinewood in England only eight minutes of this footage made it into the final cut because the weather in England isn’t much like it would have been in ancient Egypt. Those eight minutes cost £6.45m. Another problem was that the British climate didn’t do much for Taylor’s health, and she contracted pneumonia and almost died. A tracheotomy had to be performed in order to save her life; the scar is visible in some scenes. The climate in Rome was better for her recovery.

8. There were a few errors. In one scene, Caesar is saying goodbye to Cleopatra in Alexandria before sailing back to Rome, when an aide informs him he must hurry up or they’ll miss the tide. In fact, tides in the Mediterranean Sea are so minimal that the tide would never have been an issue. Other “mistakes” were not actually goofs at all, such as Cleopatra talking to Caesar about Rome's interest in Egyptian corn. Americans would claim that the Egyptians wouldn’t know about the corn they are familiar with, maize, because it was originally cultivated in prehistoric Mesoamerica and only spread worldwide in the 15th and 16th centuries. In fact, the script uses the British meaning of the word corn, which includes other cereal grains as well.

9. Elizabeth Taylor was originally barred from entering Egypt to film because, for her marriage to Eddie Fisher, she had converted to Judaism. However, when the authorities realised how much money the film would bring in to their economy, they relented.

10. Cleopatra eventually earned nine Oscar nominations, winning four, but people who actually worked on it were less than impressed. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was never proud of it and the only reason he didn’t quit was because Elizabeth Taylor was a good friend of his. He did later try to get his name removed from the credits. As for Taylor, it’s said that when she saw the final cut, she threw up.

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/