5 November: Miriam Name Day

If your name is Miriam, today is your name day. 10 famous Miriams:

1. Miriam: in the Bible, the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus.

2. Miriam González Durántez: Spanish international trade lawyer and wife of former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Nick Clegg.

3. Miriam “Midge” Maisel: the titular character in the TV series The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel.

4. Miriam Margolyes: comedian, writer, and actress. Known for her work as a character actor across film, television, and stage.

5. Miriam Makeba: South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist.

6. Miriam Cates: British television host and former politician who was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Penistone and Stocksbridge from 2019 to 2024.

7. Miriam Shor: American actress.

8. Miriam Toews: Canadian writer, author of A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018).

9. Miriam Leveirs: character in D.H. Lawrence's novel Sons and Lovers.

10. Miriam Stoppard: British physician, author, television presenter, and agony aunt.

4 November: Endive

Today is the Day of Endive in the French Revolutionary calendar. 10 facts about endives.

1. The scientific name for endive is Cichorium endivia.

2. It belongs to the Daisy family.

3. Endive originated near Sicily and the Mediterranean region. It was used in Egypt, Rome and Greece as a salad vegetable. It was grown in England by 1548 although the first recorded mention of it in the US was in an 1806 seed catalogue.

4. Endive is good source of vitamins A, K and vitamins of the B group. It’s also good for manganese, Copper, Iron and Potassium as well as fibre. Endive also contains a substance called Kaempferol, which has anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, analgesic and anti-allergic properties.

5. There are two main types: curly-leaved endive, also known as frisée; and broad-leaved endive, also known as Escarole or Batavian endive. Escarole has a milder flavour than Frisée.

6. Belgian endive is actually a variety of Chicory that was discovered by a farmer in Belgium in 1830. He found that chicory can sprout and produce creamy-coloured leafy heads when stored in wet, dark conditions. It’s also known as "witloof".

7. Endive is a cool-season crop, meaning it grows best in autumn or spring. The best quality endive is produced in areas with cool summers. Hot weather promotes the production of the bitter compounds in the plant. Some farmers cover the plants with baskets or boxes for a few weeks to limit the amount of bitterness.

8. China is the leading producer of endive, followed by the USA, Spain, Italy, and India.

9. Endive can reach 6 to 10 inches in height.

10. The flowers are pale blue and contain both types of reproductive organs.

3 November: Opals

On this date in 1986, the largest rough black opal was found in Lightning Ridge, Australia by the Lunatic Hill Mining Syndicate. It was named the Halley's Comet Opal as Halley's Comet was visible that year. It’s about the size of a man’s fist and was on sale in 2006 for $1.2 million. 10 facts about opals.

1. Halley’s Comet isn’t the largest ever, just the largest existing Black one. The Olympic Australis opal is the largest at 280 mm long, 120 mm thick, and 115 mm wide and was found in Coober Pedy in 1956. The Olympic Games took place in Melbourne that year, hence the name. The world’s most expensive opal is the Virgin Rainbow, valued at over $1,000,000. It was discovered in Australia in 2003 by John Dunstan in the skeleton of a Belemnite, an ancient ancestor of the cuttlefish.

2. Opinions are divided on the origin of the word opal. Some believe it to be derived from the Sanskrit word for 'jewel', while others think it comes from the ancient Greek word opallios, which can either mean “seeing” (the word opaque comes from this root), or "other" as in "alias" and "alter".

3. The stone is made from silica and water and can be found in the crevices and cracks of virtually any rock, although most commonly in limonite, sandstone and basalt. It is considered a mineraloid rather than a crystal, as are obsidian, amber and Pearl, because its atoms are not arranged at regular intervals.

4. Australia mines over 95% of the world’s precious opals, and so the opal is the national gemstone of Australia. There’s a myth there which tells of an ancestral being who rode to Earth on a Rainbow, and where the rainbow touched the ground, all the pebbles and stones turned to opals.

5. In the Middle Ages, opals were considered lucky because they contained all the colours of other gems and therefore had all their virtues. Opals were believed to grant the wearer the ability to become invisible, resulting in the opal being the patron gemstone for thieves. Another of its powers was to preserve the colour of blonde hair.

6. Later on, however, opals became known for bad luck and were associated with death. This superstition is a direct result of a book by Sir Walter Scott called Anne of Geierstein, published in 1829. In this story, the Baroness of Arnheim wears an opal talisman with supernatural powers. A drop of holy water falls on it, and the opal turns into a colourless stone, and the Baroness dies.

7. Opal is the birth stone for people born in October. The superstition that it’s unlucky for a person born in any other month to wear one also derives from Scott’s novel.

8. Other opal superstitions include a Russian one that they embodied the evil eye, and so if one was spotted among goods for sale, that signalled the end of your shopping trip for the day. Arabic legends say opal falls from the heavens in flashes of Lightning, while ancient Greeks believed they gave their owners the gift of prophecy and protected them from disease.

9. Opals are associated with purity and emotions as many believe they can intensify and reflect the mood of the wearer. They are said to promote creativity and interest in the arts, and in new age healing opals are said to treat fevers and infections, purify the blood and regulate insulin.

10. Opals were first made in a lab by Pierre Gilson in 1974.

2 November: Daniel Boone

American folk hero Daniel Boone was born on this date in 1734. I’ve attempted to provide 10 facts, but with so many tall stories about his life it’s hard to distinguish fact from folklore so don’t take any of this as gospel! Even his date of birth is suspect as he was born around the time of a calendar change so some sources may give his birthdate as 22 October!

1. His father, Squire, was a weaver and blacksmith from England who emigrated to Pennsylvania, where he met and married Sarah Morgan, whose family were Quakers from Wales. The couple built a one room cabin, where Daniel was born. The family were expelled from the Quakers after two of the children married outside the faith and one was visibly pregnant at the time. In 1750 Squire sold his land and moved the family to North Carolina, possibly as a result of the controversy. So while Daniel was brought up as a Quaker, as an adult he simply described himself as a Christian.

2. He wasn’t well educated. He preferred hunting to school, learning the skills from local Native Americans. When his teacher raised the issue of his absences with his father, Squire allegedly said, “Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting.” From then on most of his education was from members of his family and he never did learn to spell. That said, he was better educated than many of the frontiersmen he travelled with – he could read, which was more than could be said for a lot of them. Sometimes he was the only one of a party who could read and often had a book or two with him. The Bible and Gulliver’s Travels were his favourites, and he’d read aloud to his fellows around the campfire.

3. In his teens, he figured out that a lot of money could be made from selling furs and animal hides, and as a teen went on his first long hunting trip, sold the furs in Philadelphia and then blew the lot on "a general jamboree or frolick."

4. He acquired a reputation as an able navigator who could remember every trail he walked. This brought him to the attention of land surveyors who’d take him on as an assistant when they went exploring. Boone picked up enough of their skills to become a surveyor in his ow right and is said to have surveyed land as far away as Texas. At least 150 patches of land were surveyed by him, but he wasn’t actually that good at it, and the maps he produced were not very accurate.

5. His reputation as a navigator got him the gig of opening a path through the Cumberland Gap, a narrow mountain pass near the modern borders of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The result was the Wilderness Road, which made it possible for 200,000 settlers to move to Kentucky. Boone founded a fort settlement there, called Boonesborough, which consisted of 26 log cabins surrounded by 15-foot-high walls. It's now a state park.

6. While his relations with Native Americans were mostly good, there was the occasional hiccup. In 1778, Boone and a party of men were captured by Shawnee Indians. In order to survive, Boone had to promise the chief, whose name was Chief Blackfish, that Boonesborough would surrender peacefully to the tribe. Chief Blackfish adopted Boone as his son and gave him the name Big Turtle. Boone, however, managed to escape and travelled 160 miles over rough terrain, reaching Boonesborough four days later and was able to warn them of the upcoming attack. They successfully withstood a 10-day siege. On another occasion, Boone's daughter Jemima and some of her friends were abducted by Indians while on a canoeing trip. Boone managed to track the girls down within three days, although the fact it appeared he’d taught his daughter well must have helped – the girls broke twigs and left markings whenever they could.

7. Boone’s wife was called Rebecca Bryan. As he was often away on extended trips for years at a time she was left to bring up their ten children and the eight nephews and nieces they’d adopted, all by herself. At least he dropped in to visit at least ten times. Or maybe nine, if one folk tale is true. The story goes that he returned one time after a long trip of well over nine months to find that Rebecca had given birth to a child in his absence. Assuming he was dead, she’d turned to his brother to meet her needs and the inevitable happened. Daniel was a good enough sport about it to adopt the child and bring her up as his own. However, since the details, including which of his brothers it was, vary from source to source, it may not be true.

8. It’s also probably not true that he wore a coonskin hat, the iconic headgear of frontiersmen at the time, made from the skin and fur of a Raccoon and sometimes including the head and tail as well. Boone is often portrayed as wearing one, but according to one of his sons, he actually despised them and opted for a flat, broad-brimmed hat instead.

9. He was going on long hunting expeditions well into his 70s. At 76, he went on a six-month hunt up the Missouri River, reportedly as far as the Yellowstone River, a round trip of more than 2,000 miles.

10. In 1809, Daniel Boone dictated his autobiography to his grandson John Boone Calloway. This manuscript may well have been the most accurate account of Boone’s life, had it survived long enough to get published, which it didn’t. Calloway took it with him on a trip and was apparently reading it as he canoed down the Missouri River, when his canoe overturned and the whole thing was washed away. Hence it was left to others to tell his story. Boone lived to see some of the embellishments start to circulate and he hated it. He said, "Nothing embitters my old age [more than] the circulation of absurd stories … many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which exist only in the regions of fancy. With me the world has taken great liberties, and yet I have been but a common man."

1 November: 305

Today is the 305^th day of the year. 10 fun facts about the number 305.

1. Intimidator 305 or Project 305 are alternative names for Pantherian, a Roller Coaster in at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia, United States. It is 305 feet (93 m) tall and reaches speeds up to 90 mph (145 km/h).

2. Could it have been the inspiration for 305, a song by Shawn Mendes? The lyrics go, “It's 3:05. I'm on a rollercoaster ride. Hoping you don't change your mind. I don't wanna let go. Never been so sure in my life.”

3. 305 Gordonia is a main belt asteroid discovered by Auguste Charlois in 1891 in Nice and named after James Gordon Bennett Jr., his patron.

4. Mr. 305 is a nickname for the rapper Pitbull. One of his albums is called Welcome to the 305.

5. The Peugeot 305 is a medium-sized car produced by Peugeot from 1977 to 1989.

6. 305 is a 2008 American mockumentary film about a group of five Spartans charged with protecting a Goat path.

7. The 305 MVP is a nickname for the wrestler Montel Vontavious Porter.

8. 305 is the telephone area code for Miami, Florida.

9. The IBM 305 RAMAC was the first commercial computer to use a hard disk drive.

10. The A305 is a road in London which runs between East Sheen, also known as Sheen, a suburb in south-west London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames; and Hanworth, a district of West London, historically in Middlesex, now part of the London Borough of Hounslow.

31 October: John Keats Quotes

Born on this date in 1795 was John Keats, Romantic poet, whose poems include Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to Psyche and To Autumn. 10 quotes:

1. Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced. A proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.

2. A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.

3. To stay youthful, stay useful.

4. The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.

5. All writing is a form of prayer.

6. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

7. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success.

8. Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.

9. If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true.

10. A man should have the fine point of his soul taken off to become fit for this world.

30 October: 303

It’s day 303 of 2026. 10 fun facts about 303:

1. The year 303 was a common year starting on Friday, known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Diocletian and Maximian. In this year, Emperor Diocletian launched the last and largest major persecution of Christians in the Empire.

2. Area code 303 is a telephone code assigned to central Colorado.

3. 303 is a six-issue comic-book mini-series by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows, and published by Avatar Press. A Russian colonel leads a Russian team investigating a plane crash in Afghanistan. a document found on the plane suggests that the global war on terror was started to facilitate the west taking over the oil-rich Middle East. The Colonel eventually assassinates the President of the United States with the intention of ending the Global War on Terror.

4. 303 Josephina is a large asteroid discovered by Elia Millosevich in 1891 in Rome.

5. Prometheus (Stargate), also called BC-303 or X-303, is a fictional spacecraft in the Stargate SG-1 television series.

6. The A303 is a trunk road in southern England, running between Basingstoke in Hampshire and Honiton in Devon. It passes through five counties and its route includes Stonehenge.

7. 303 is a track on K, the debut album by English psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker. They played at the Glastonbury Festival, and to get there, drove along, you've guessed it, the A303.The Levellers also used the road in the lyrics of a song called Battle of the Beanfield, about the attack by police on travellers celebrating the Solstice at Stonehenge in 1985: "Down the '303 at the end of the road, Flashing lights, exclusion zones".

8. 303 is a 2018 German romantic road movie directed by Hans Weingartner. The film stars Mala Emde and Anton Spieker as strangers who journey across Europe in a Mercedes 303 camper van.

9. 303 were a British girl group based in London. The group comprised Chloe Wealleans-Watts, Io Munro and Maddie Hinkley. The group was founded on 30 March 2017, which inspired the name.

10. London bus 303 runs from Edgware Bus Station to Kingsbury Circle.