4 October: The Bronx Zoo

Today is world Zoo Day, so here are some facts about the Bronx Zoo in New York.

1. The zoo opened on 8 November 1899 as the New York Zoological Park. However, from the start people would refer to it as the Bronx Zoo and it officially changed its name to that in 2004.

2. As of 2010, the zoo housed more than 4,000 animals from 650 species over 250 acres, including parts of the Bronx River. More than 2 million people visit the zoo every year.

3. The zoo’s first director was William Temple Hornaday, who’s previous job was taxidermist for the Smithsonian Institution. He founded the zoo because he was concerned about declining numbers of Bison and wanted to raise awareness of it. After a row with the Smithsonian, the New York Zoological Society approached him and offered him the directorship of the zoo in 1896. He remained in the post for 30 years, and in 1906, re-introduced some of the zoo’s bison back into the wild.

4. In 2009 the zoo was called in by Tanzania to collect about 500 kihansi spray Toads, whose only habitat was threatened by a hydroelectric dam. Some of the toads lived in an artificial environment at Bronx Zoo and some at Toledo Zoo while the Tanzanian authorities worked on a way to re-create their natural environment. In 2012, it was possible to fully re-introduce the toads in Tanzania. Not all conservation efforts have been as successful. Thylacines, or Tasmanian tigers, were nearing extinction in the early 1900s. The zoo managed to acquire some, but they didn’t live long in captivity.

5. It was the first zoo to have its own animal hospital, opening in 1916, and the first to have a major exhibit of nocturnal animals which opened in the 1960s, but since had to close due to budget cuts.

6. There is a fountain at the zoo that was moved there from Lake Como in Italy. The fountain was designed by Biaggio Catella, but it caused a few problems in its original location, diverting water from other fountains nearby and after about 20 years began to tilt. The city of Como sold the fountain to an agent of William Rockefeller in 1901, and it was donated to the zoo. Another non-living attraction is the Rocking Stone, a boulder which is 7 feet tall and 10 feet wide and was carried to its current location by glaciers in the last Ice Age. It was said to be so perfectly balanced that it could be rocked with a tiny push. Though the health and safety people have set it on a firmer footing, presumably fearing lawsuits if someone pushed too hard and was crushed by a 30 ton rock.

7. In 2016, the Zoo was recognised by Guinness World Records as having the largest displayed collection of Origami elephants in the world: 78,564. As for live Elephants, not so many these days. When there were just three left, the zoo vowed not to acquire any more.

8. Since 2006 the public Toilets at the zoo have been eco-friendly. Not only do they use just 6 ounces of water per flush, therefore saving a million gallons of water a year, but the flushed waste is captured and turned into compost.

9. In 1906 the zoo actually had a human being on display: an African man named Ota Benga. He and some others from his tribe were originally brought to America for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair by anthropologist Samuel Verner. The Africans were returned to Africa, but reportedly, Benga expressed a wish to stay in America. Verner arranged for him to become an exhibit in the zoo. A combination of public outrage and Benga getting fed up of being a captive resulted in him being sent to an orphanage instead. While Benga did find a home in the African American community in Virginia and found work, he also suffered from depression and committed suicide at the age of 33. In 1963 a kind of human exhibit opened, called The Most Dangerous Animal in the World. Those words were printed above a cage which contained nothing but a mirror.

10. Animals don’t escape often but create headlines when they do. Two notable escapees were a platypus named Penelope, who had a fake pregnancy and then abandoned her mate, Cecil. An extensive search followed, but Penelope was never found. This was in 1957. In 2011 a venomous cobra made a bid for freedom, but turned up after a week she was recovered. She’d never left the reptile house. During her week of freedom, however, someone started a parody Twitter account where the snake tweeted about her adventures, which carried on long after it was recaptured.

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 October: 276

On day 276 of the year, have some fun facts about the number 276!

1. In The Bible, it’s the number of souls saved from the shipwreck in Acts 27. It’s also one of a sequence of triangular numbers which includes 666.

2. 276 Adelheid is an asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, discovered by Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa at Vienna Observatory in 1888. Adelheid is one of the 120 asteroids for which no official naming citation has been published.

3. Area code 276 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan for the western part of the U.S. state of Virginia.

4. The Roman numeral for 276 is CCLXXVI.

5. London bus 276 runs from Newham University Hospital to Stoke Newington Common, passing Homerton Hospital, Bow Church, Roman Road Market, Stratford bus station and 5 of the 7 addresses I lived at during my time in London!

6. The year 276 was a leap year starting on Saturday, known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Tacitus and Aemilianus. It was a busy year for Emperor Tacitus. Not only did he double the silver content of the aurelianianus, but he campaigned successfully against the Goths who’d invaded Asia Minor. However, it was also the year he died, in Tyana, Cappadocia. It’s not known whether he died of an of illness, or was murdered.

7. In Binary, 276 is 100010100.

8. It’s not a number used as an international dialling code, but mobile numbers in South Africa typically start with +27 6.

9. There’s no A276 road in England, either, although one was once proposed, which would have connected Worthing and Newhaven.

10. In numerology 276 resonates with family, home, harmony, nurturing, and idealism. People under its influence are perceptive, astute and able to analyse problems to find viable solutions. They have a talent for scientific analysis.

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/

2 October: Mahatma Gandhi

Today is Gandhi Day – Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, in Porbandar, India on this date in 1869. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. Mahatma wasn’t his name. It was a title, meaning ‘great soul’, thought to have been first applied to him by his friend Pranjivan Mehta in a letter in 1909. His actual first name was Mohandas.

2. Gandhi's father, Karamchand, served as the dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar state. During his tenure, Karamchand married four times. His first two wives died young; his third was barren. She gave him permission to marry a fourth time. Mohandas was the youngest of the four children of that marriage. According to his sister, one of Gandhi’s favourite pastimes as a child was twisting Dogs’ ears. At school, he was an average student. He was shy and studious, disliking games.

3. He married at 13, his wife was a 14 year old called Kasturbai Kapadia. It was an arranged marriage as was the custom. He later wrote, “We didn't know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives.” However, by the time he was 16 he’d figured it out and fathered a child, which sadly only lived a few days. The couple had four more children who would survive, before Gandhi gave up sex at the age of 37.

4. He went to London in 1888 to study law and was called to the bar in June 1891. While he was there, he took dancing lessons and served on the executive committee of the Vegetarian Society, having been unimpressed by how bland vegetarian food in England was. A fellow member of that committee was one Arnold Hills, who went on to found the football club that became West Ham United. When he returned to London for talks with politicians in 1931, he turned down the posh hotel he was offered and stayed in a community centre in Bromley-by-Bow.

5. His career as a barrister was hampered by his severe stage fright. The first time he had to cross examine someone, he got so nervous that he had to give up the case and give the client his money back.

6. He spent 21 years in South Africa, which was where he began his political campaigning, having experienced the racial discrimination there. Gandhi returned to India at the age of 45 in 1915. He adopted his style of wearing white loin cloth and shawl in 1921, to encourage Indians to boycott foreign-made clothes and embrace home-grown, hand-spun fabric known as khadi.

7. He served in the Boer War on the side of the British – but not as a soldier. He formed the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps, which was a group of volunteers who carried wounded soldiers to hospital. Gandhi hoped that if Indians showed loyalty in this way, it would help their cause for full citizenship, but any assurances the British made in that direction came to nothing.

8. Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy were pen pals. Tolstoy’s writings about non-violent resistance impressed Gandhi so much that, in 1909, he wrote to Tolstoy seeking guidance and advice. They continued the correspondence. It’s believed that a letter to Gandhi was the last thing Tolstoy ever wrote.

9. Gandhi never won a Nobel Peace Prize, despite being nominated several times. The Nobel Committee didn’t like his nationalist stance, and believed that, although Gandhi himself rejected violence in any form, many of his followers showed no such restraint and would commit violence in his name.

10. Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist called Nathuram Godse. Godse thought Gandhi was being too soft and shot him three times in the chest. When Prime Minister Nehru announced his death, he said that “the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere”.

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/

1 October: Night of the Living Dead

On this date in 1968 the cult horror movie Night of the Living Dead had its world première in Pittsburgh. 10 facts about it.

1. Writer/director George A. Romero, writer John A. Russo, and actor Rudy Ricci worked together at the Latent Image, their Pittsburgh-based commercial film company. In 1967 they decided to try their hands at a feature film. Originally, the film was going to be about adolescent aliens coming to Earth and causing mayhem; but this idea was shelved when the trio realised there wasn’t enough money in their budget to create a convincing space ship. Aliens eating corpses was another idea, and it was this, and Richard Matheson’s apocalyptic horror novel I Am Legend, that Romero used to create the first few pages of the script.

2. This film is known as the first zombie film as we know them. Until this point, the word “zombie” referred to a concept from Haitian folklore, a reanimated slave. A 1932 film called White Zombie was about such slaves, with a racial and post-colonial tension theme. Zombies eating flesh, preying on the living and only killed by shooting in the head are tropes introduced by Night of the Living Dead. That said, the word “zombie” was never used in the film. The dead are referred to either as “ghouls”, "flesh eaters” or "those things."

3. Evans City Cemetery was chosen as a location because it was remote and surrounded by woods, so it was less likely that members of the public or the police would come along asking questions. The farmhouse was a house soon to be demolished and loaned by the owner. George A. Romero joked that his crew would demolish the house for him, but first they had to clean it up to make it look lived in.

4. Spoiler alert. It would be another month before the US movie rating system was instituted on 1 November 1968. Hence Night of the Living Dead is one of the last films in America to be released without a rating. This meant children were free to buy tickets and go and see it unaccompanied. Film critic Roger Ebert was critical of parents who allowed their children to see it, because, not only was it gory and scary, the hero dies in the end, unlike the Saturday morning pictures they were used to, in which the hero would always triumph.

5. It was a rare thing in the 1960s for a black actor to be cast in a leading role when the rest of the cast was mostly white. Unknown Duane Jones got the part because his audition was best. The character of Ben was even changed from the original concept of an angry, foul-mouthed truck driver to a character that suited Jones better. Jones himself helped re-work his lines to fit.

6. Chocolate syrup or red ink was used as Blood, depending on the effect required. The gore eaten by the ghouls was leftovers from lunch – roast ham, burgers, meatball Sandwiches – smeared in chocolate syrup.

7. Because it was likely some re-animated corpses would have been naked in the morgue, it was decided at least one of the ghoul extras should be nude. An artist’s model was recruited to be the naked ghoul. Then word got out there was going to be a naked person on set which attracted an audience of locals who set up their lawn chairs around the edge of the set so they could watch. Judith Ridley, who played Judy, said. “It was funny to see the rest of the zombies trying to keep their eyes elsewhere instead of looking down at the obvious places on the nude one.”

8. The working title was "Monster Flick." A considered title was "Night of Anubis," Anubis being the god of mummification in ancient Egypt, but that was rejected as most film-goers were unlikely to get the reference. The title decided upon was actually Night of the Flesh Eaters, but lawyers representing the makers of a 1964 film called The Flesh Eaters threatened to sue, so the title was changed to Night of the Living Dead. The last minute title changed resulted in the copyright notices being left off the credits, which meant the film was assumed from the start to be in the public domain. The ruling that copyright goes without saying and a notice isn’t necessary was some years away. Hence, in spite of efforts to get copyright retroactively in federal court, Night of the Living Dead remains in the public domain.

9. George A. Romero and John Russo make cameo appearances, Romero as a reporter in Washington DC and Russo as a ghoul who makes it into the farmhouse only to be struck with a tyre iron.

10. The budget was $114,000 (equivalent to $977,841 in 2024) and the film grossed approximately $30 million (equivalent to $257,326,430 in 2024). It made over 263 times its budget and so is one of the most profitable films ever.

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/

30 September: To the Manor Born

This date in 1979 saw the first broadcast of To the Manor Born starring Penelope Keith. 10 things you might not know about the show.

    1. To the Manor Born is a BBC television sitcom, created and mostly written by Peter Spence and starring Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles.

    2. The title is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet. The full quote goes: "Though I am a native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance".

    3. The premise: Audrey fforbes-Hamilton is forced to sell her vast country estate, Grantleigh Manor, when her husband dies, and move into a smaller house on the estate. She does, however, still drive a Rolls Royce and keeps her butler. The manor is bought by Richard DeVere, a nouveau riche millionaire supermarket owner originally from Czechoslovakia. The series focusses on their love-hate relationship.

    4. Spoiler alert. Love wins out in the end, though, as in the last regular episode, Richard has to sell the Manor to finance a refrigeration plant. Audrey’s Uncle Greville has just died, and left her a big pile of money, enough to buy the manor back at auction. She then asks Richard to marry her.

    5. To the Manor Born was filmed in Cricket St Thomas, a village in Somerset. The manor is Cricket House, which was, at the time of the original series, owned by Peter Spence’s father-in-law. Today it’s a hotel with a wildlife park. Audrey’s house, The Old Lodge, is about a mile away and called West Lodge. The church is the Church of St Thomas, located on the grounds of the estate.

    6. Spence first got the idea for the series when he met a woman just like Audrey at a party. A comedian Spence wrote for bought a manor house, and invited Spence to the house-warming. The previous owner was also on the guest list. Spence met her, and also heard the comedian’s description of her, which he would later describe as a "perfect description" of Audrey.

    7. The theme tune was composed by Ronnie Hazlehurst, the BBC's Light Entertainment Music Director. He composed theme tunes for many sitcoms around this time.

    8. Audrey’s late husband was called Marton (pronounced “Martin”). This spelling came about as a typo on a script. John Lloyd, the producer of the radio play, decided to keep this spelling because "the aristocracy are always mucking about with the spelling of things".

    9. The final episode set a record for the biggest-ever audience for a single programme on British TV, with an audience of over 27 million viewers. The record was broken 15 years later by the series Only Fools and Horses with 27.6 million viewers.

    10. Dame Penelope Keith, who died in 2026, was the last surviving member of the main cast.

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/

29 September: 272

Today is day 272 of 2026. Some fun facts about 272.

1. There are 272 words in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (although some sources say 271 because Lincoln wrote several drafts with slight variations).

2. 272 Antonia is a main belt asteroid discovered by French astronomer Auguste Charlois in 1888 in Nice.

3. 272 is a telephone area code in north-east Pennsylvania, covering Williamsport, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Monroe County.

4. The A272 is a road in south-east England, following an approximate east–west route from near Heathfield, East Sussex to the city of Winchester, Hampshire. It has been said that the A272 follows part of the route taken by pilgrims travelling between Winchester and Canterbury. However, this is unlikely because it passes through the low weald of Sussex, which would have consisted of forests low-lying marshy ground, which would have been difficult for travellers. Dutch author Pieter Boogaart wrote a book about it: A272 – An Ode to a Road, and it was mentioned as part of the route Pablo Picasso would take as part of his Bicycle ride in the first episode of Monty Python.

5. The year 272 was a leap year starting on Monday, known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Postumius and Veldumnianus. Constantine the Great, Roman emperor was born this year, and it was also the year that the Battle of Immae took place: Aurelian defeated the Palmyrene heavy cavalry near Antioch, and Queen Zenobia fled under cover of darkness to Emesa (Syria).

6. In in 1838 a group of 272 enslaved people were sold by Jesuit priests to fund Georgetown University. This is the subject of a documentary film called The Georgetown 272: The Journey.

7. London bus 272 runs from Cavendish Road to Shepherd's Bush Station.

8. Its divisors are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 17, 34, 68, 136, and 272.

9. 272 in Roman numerals is CCLXXII and in binary it’s 100010000.

10. In numerology, 272 resonates with relationships and romance, co-operation and teamwork. People influenced by it are aware of how everything is connected and enjoy their romances and friendships.

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/

28 September: The Radio Times

On this date in 1923 the first issue of Radio Times went on sale in Britain. 10 things you might not know about Radio Times.

1. Radio Times is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to Television and Radio programme schedules and also including other features of interest like interviews and reviews.

2. It was founded by John Reith, who was the general manager of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) at the time. He did it because the Newspaper Publishers' Association was refusing to publish the radio listings unless the BBC paid a hefty fee. Newspapers were concerned that people were going to stop buying the papers and would get their news and information from the radio instead.

3. It was the world's first broadcast listings magazine and the first to reach its 100^th anniversary.

4. The first edition cost 2d and covered what was on six BBC wireless stations (2LO, 5IT, 2ZY, 5NO, 5WA and 5SC).

5. A Braille edition has been produced since 1927.

6. In 1934, listings for television programmes first appeared. Another big change occurred in 1953, when the TV listings were moved from the back of the magazine and integrated with the radio listings for each day. Television was starting to look like the medium of the future, and it was suggested that the BBC register the name “TV Times”. The BBC, however, didn’t agree that TV was the future and refused to do so. Which meant the name was still free for ITV to use later.

7. Although television and most of the radio stations (except for the Home Service) ceased broadcasting during WWII, Radio Times announced at the start of the war that "Broadcasting carries on!" and never missed an issue, even in the face of Paper rationing. It was reduced to 20 pages of tiny type on thin paper at one stage, but carried on.

8. Today, Radio Times is published on Tuesdays and carries listings for the week from Saturday to Friday. In the beginning, though, the listings were from Sunday to Saturday. When the change was made in 1960, it meant one date, 8 October 1960, was listed twice.

9. Special events meant dedicated covers. Christmas, the Eurovision song contest, sporting events, royal events, and the moon landing had special ones. In April 2005 there were two special events: a general election and the Daleks returning to Doctor Who for the first time in years. The cover that week recreated a scene from the 1964 serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth, in which Daleks were seen crossing Westminster Bridge with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the background. The cover text read "VOTE DALEK!". In 2008, this cover was voted the best British magazine cover of all time. Doctor Who, incidentally, is the programme which has featured most often on the cover of Radio Times, at 29 times.

10. As well as the magazine, today there is also a Radio Times website and a podcast.

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/