30 September: Elie Wiesel

On this date in 1928 the writer Elie Wiesel was born. Here are ten quotes from him:

1. Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
2. The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
3. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
4. There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
5. Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.
6. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the centre of the universe.
7. There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
8. I write to understand as much as to be understood.
9. If the only prayer you say throughout your life is "Thank You," then that will be enough.
10. Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.

29 September: Brunei

The Constitution of Brunei was signed on this date in 1959. Here are 10 things you might not know about Brunei:

1. Brunei is a Muslim country and produces oil - but it's not in the middle east - it's in Asia, completely surrounded, apart from its coastline, by the state of Sarawak in Malaysia.
2. The capital and largest city is Bandar Seri Begawan.
3. The capital city has a district called Kampong Ayer which stretches for 8km/5 miles along the Brunei River. It was a village founded a thousand years ago. Houses there are built on stilts and it is the largest settlement of that kind in the world with a population of around 30,000. It has been referred to as "The Venice of the East".
4. According to legend, Brunei was founded by Awang Alak Betatar, who became Sultan Muhammad Shah. When he first discovered the place, he is believed to have exclaimed "Baru nah" (loosely translated as "that's it!" or "there"). It was renamed "Barunai", meaning "Ocean" in the 14th century. The word "Borneo", as in the island which forms part of the nation, is of the same origin. Now its official name is the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace.
5. Brunei is the smallest non - island country outside Europe.
6. It is a Malay Muslim monarchy dating back to 1405. The current sultan is Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah and he is the 29th ruler. His full name is too long to tweet at 215 characters long.
7. He's also very rich. His home is the largest residential palace in the world, the Istana Nurul Iman. It's more than half a kilometre long and one-quarter of a kilometre wide, and has 1788 rooms - 338 more than the Vatican. This includes 257 bathrooms. He has a lot of cars - one source stated he had over five thousand cars, including 20 Lamborghinis, 160 Porsches, 130 Rolls Royces (including one coated with 24k Gold), 360 Ferraris, 170 Jaguars, 180 BMWs, 360 Bentleys, and 530 Mercedes-Benzes. He also owns a jumbo jet which he pilots himself. On his 50th birthday, he decided to treat himself - by building an enormous stadium and paying Michael Jackson $17 million to perform there.
8. The Belalong Tree Frog (Rhacophorus belalongensis) can only be found in Brunei.
9. Malay is the official language. Other languages spoken are Bahasa Malay, English and Chinese.
10. Bruneians don’t point using their index fingers; this is considered impolite. They point with their thumbs.

28 September: California

On this date in 1542 Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (also known by his Portuguese name Joao Rodrigues Cabrilho) landed at what is now called the San Diego Bay, becoming the first European to arrive in what will become the state of California. Here are ten things you might not know about California:

1. California's official state nickname is the Golden State. Others include The Land of Milk and Honey, The El Dorado State, The Grape State and the Grizzly Bear State. The latter was the official nickname once, until the bear population was wiped out. The grizzly bear is the state animal and appears on the Flag, despite the fact there have been no sightings of wild grizzlies since the 1920s. The bear on the flag is Monarch, a 1,200-lb. wild California grizzly bear captured in 1899. He lived at Woodward's Garden and then Golden Gate Park until his death in 1911.
2. Other state symbols are the state marine animal, the California Gray Whale; the state tree, California Redwood, state bird, California Valley Quail, state flower, Golden Poppy, motto Eureka (which means I have found it and alludes to the discovery of Gold). The capital city is Sacramento.
3. By area, California is the USA's third largest state, but it's the biggest in terms of population. More people live in California than in the whole of Canada, and one in eight Americans live in California.
4. It's also the USA's biggest economy and the largest producer of agricultural goods. Several places in California have declared themselves the world capital for a particular product: Fallbrook is the Avocado Capital of the World; Coachella Valley is the Date Capital of the world; Fresno is the Raisin Capital of the World. Castroville is the Artichoke Capital of the World (In 1947 Castroville's first Artichoke Queen was a girl called Norma Jean who later changed her name to Marilyn Monroe). There are more than 300,000 tons of Grapes grown in California annually and more than 17 million gallons of Wine is produced each year. More Turkeys are raised in California than in any other state in the United States, More sourdough Bread is produced in Oakland than any other city in the world. Sacramento has the world's largest Almond processing plant, doing twelve million pounds per day in high season. Not surprising then that if California was a country it would have the 7th largest economy in the world and Los Angeles is the fourth largest economy in the US all by itself.
5. California has 58 counties, including San Bernardino County, the largest county in the country, and Alpine County, which is the eighth smallest of the 58 but has no high school, ATMs, dentists, banks, or Traffic Lights. It is also the only county in the state that doesn't generate agricultural production.
6. California has the world's tallest flagpole (in the small town of Dorris), the tallest totem pole in the US (McKinleyville) and the world's tallest tree, Hyperion, whose location is a closely guarded secret. The tree with the largest trunk is in Sequoia National Park - it is 102 feet in circumference.
7. The highest and lowest points in the contiguous U.S. (ie any state that isn't Hawaii or Alaska) are both in California within 100 miles of each other. They are Mt. Whitney at 14,494 feet (4421m) and Badwater Basin in Death Valley, 282 feet (86m) below sea level.
8. In the middle of the state, a palm tree and a pine tree stand next to each other to signify the divide between Northern and Southern California.
9. California is the only state to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
10. Wacky laws that exist in parts of California: it is illegal to molest a monarch butterfly, let off a nuclear bomb, wear cowboy boots unless you own two or more Cows, ride a bike in a swimming pool. keep anything other than a car in the garage, to curse on a mini-golf course, bathe two babies in the same bath at the same time (and it's illegal to have more than one bath in your house), wipe your car with used underwear, peel an Orange in a hotel room, or overtake a fire truck on a Bicycle. Ugly people are banned from walking down the street, and animals are not allowed to mate publicly near a tavern, church or school. Drivers are obliged to give way to ducks or peacocks.

27 September: Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh, Scottish writer best known for his novel Trainspotting was born on this date in 1961. Ten quotes from him:

1. Bad luck is usually transmitted by close proximity to habitual sufferers.
2. I enjoy the freedom of the blank page.
3. The first job of a writer is to be honest.
4. You can't lie to your soul.
5. By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be.
6. I'm not running away, I'm moving on.
7. Some people are easier to love when you don't have to be around them.
8. Now, for the first time, he's seeing that there really is a way out of this, and it's all so simple. You don't have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe.
9. You were what you were and you are what you are. Fuck that regrets bullshit.
10. I chose not to choose life. I chose something else.

26 September: Scotland Yard

On this date in 1829 Scotland Yard, the official British criminal investigation organisation, was formed. Here are ten things you might not know about Scotland Yard:

1. The name "Scotland Yard" comes from the original headquarters of the Metropolitan Police back in 1829. The address was 4 Whitehall Place, but the back entrance, which became the public entrance, was in a street called Great Scotland Yard. The street may have been the site of a residence for the kings of Scotland before the union with England, or it may simply have been built on land which belonged to someone by the name of Scott in the Middle Ages.
2. The first two commissioners to occupy the building were Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne. The first two constables were PC William Atkinson and PC William Alcock, who were arrested for drunkenness on their first day.
3. The police moved away from that building in 1890 when the force got too big to be accommodated there. Their new HQ was dubbed "New Scotland Yard". The current HQ, while officially known as New Scotland Yard is still generally referred to as Scotland Yard although technically you could say it should be "New New Scotland Yard".
4. The construction of the new building itself created a mystery worthy of Scotland Yard which remains unsolved - the builders found a dismembered torso of a woman. The case became known as the "Whitehall Mystery".
5. There is still a police presence in Great Scotland Yard. The mounted branch still have some stables there.
6. The current New Scotland Yard is on Broadway in Victoria and has been the Metropolitan Police's headquarters since 1967. However, they are on the move again, back to one of their former locations on Victoria Embankment. The current building is being sold for £250 million.
7. The triangular "New Scotland Yard" sign outside the building turns 14,000 times a day.
8. Security, as you might expect, is tight. There is a concrete wall around the building, concrete barriers in front of the ground level windows and a covered walkway from the street to the entrance. Armed officers from the Diplomatic Protection Group patrol the exterior of the building along with security staff.
9. The headquarters also houses the force's crime database which can be used by all Britain's police forces and goes by the name of Home Office Large Major Enquiry System or HOLMES for short. Was that a coincidence, I wonder, or did some computer and Sherlock nerd spend ages trying to make that fit? The training programme is called "Elementary".
10. The building also houses a crime museum, called The Black Museum, which is not currently open to the public (although it can be viewed by invitation if you're an appropriate celebrity, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). Exhibits include letters from Jack the Ripper, and the pot in which serial killer Dennis Nilsen boiled the heads, hands and feet of his victims in order to remove their flesh. There is some pressure from Parliament to open it to the public as charging for entry would help fund the force.

25 September: Wandsworth Bridge

Wandsworth Bridge opened on this date in 1940. Here are ten things you may not know about Wandsworth Bridge.

1. Wandsworth Bridge is 650 feet (200m) long, 60 feet (18m) wide and has a clearance below of 39 feet (11.9m) at lowest astronomical tide. It carries the A217 road which connects Battersea to Parson's Green.
2. There have been two bridges on the site. The first was a toll bridge built in 1873 and designed by Julian Tolmé. It was built because there were plans to build the western terminus of the Hammersmith and City Railway nearby so it was anticipated more people would want to cross the river at that point. However, the railway terminus wasn't built, and it was difficult for vehicles to cross it because of drainage problems on the approach road - so it operated at a loss.
3. The first bridge opened in 1837 with a low key ceremony followed by a buffet in the local pub.
4. The toll for a pedestrian was 1⁄2d and for a cart 6d. In 1880 it was taken into public ownership and made toll-free.
5. In 1880, it was, to all practical purposes, a footbridge, in bad condition and too weak to carry Buses. In 1926, a Royal Commission recommended it should be replaced.
6. The new bridge cost £503,000 - about £31.5 million in 2016. (The old bridge had cost £40,000 - about £3.2 million in 2016).
7. The current bridge was designed by Sir Thomas Peirson Frank. Work began on the new bridge in 1937 and was meant to open in 1939, but completion was delayed by the start of the second world war. (The first bridge had opened late, too, because the builders went on strike.)
8. Also thanks to the war, the bridge was painted in rather dull shades of Blue to camouflage it during air raids. The colour scheme hasn't changed since then so, despite it being a very busy bridge (over 50,000 vehicles crossing it every day), it has been regarded as the least noteworthy bridge in London.
9. If you're planning on passing under it in a boat, beware - Wandsworth Bridge is where the speed limit for shipping changes from 12 knots (22 km/h) to 8 knots (15 km/h). It is strictly enforced.
10. At the southern end of the bridge is a large 1960s modernist style roundabout, which was used as a location in the 1971 film, A Clockwork Orange.

24th September: Trinidad and Tobago Republic Day

Today is Republic Day in Trinidad and Tobago, a public holiday celebrating their becoming a republic in 1976 and ceasing to be a Commonwealth realm.

1. The country consists of the two main islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous smaller ones – including Chacachacare, Monos, Huevos, Gaspar Grande (or Gasparee), Little Tobago, and St. Giles Island.
2. Trinidad is the largest and most of the people live there. Tobago only has 6% of the total area and 4% of the total population.
3. Trinidad was named by Christopher Columbus - he called it "La Isla de la Trinidad" ("The Island of the Trinity"). Tobago gets its name because it resembles a tobacco pipe used by local natives. The indigenous name for Trinidad was Iere or "Land of the Humming Bird" and Tobago was Aloubaéra (black conch) and Urupaina (big snail).
4. The capital city is Port of Spain, on Trinidad, which is the only capital city in the world to be named after another country. The largest city is San Fernando, also on Trinidad. The principal town on Tobago is Scarborough, named after the British town.
5. Trinidad and Tobago is the third richest country by GDP (PPP) per capita in the Americas after the USA and Canada.
6. The first two black women to win Miss Universe are from Trinidad and Tobago - Janelle Commissiong in 1977 and Wendy Fitzwilliam in 1998. Also from there is a Miss World titleholder Giselle LaRonde. They have one Nobel Prizewinner - novelist VS Naipaul was born there. They've also done well in sport - at London 2012, Trinidad and Tobago came third in Olympic medals per head of population, beaten only by Grenada and Jamaica.
7. The national sport is cricket, but an unusual popular sport on the islands is Goat racing, which has been taking place since 1925. The "jockeys" run alongside the goats, guiding them with a nine-foot leash and whip. There is an enormous Goat Racing Stadium in Buccoo.
8. The national birds for Trinidad and Tobago are the scarlet ibis and the cocrico. It has a national musical instrument, too, the steelpan, said to be the only new acoustic musical instrument to be invented in the 20th century. Calypso and Soca music originated here.
9. The Trinidad Moruga “Scorpion” Pepper has officially been ranked as the world’s hottest pepper by the Guinness Book of Records.
10. Trinidad is home to the world's largest natural deposit of asphalt, the Pitch Lake. It covers an area of about 100 acres and is 245 feet deep.

23 September: Saudi Arabia

Today was the date of the Foundation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 - here are 10 things you might not know about Saudi Arabia:

1. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" because Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam, are both within its borders. The Saudi king’s official title is “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.”
2. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. There are no national elections but adult males are traditionally entitled to petition the King, and the King must abide by Islamic law. At time of writing the king is Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. He was crowned King of Saudi Arabia at the age of 79 on 23 January 2015 following the death of his half brother, King Abdullah. King Salman also has the distinction of becoming, in 1985, the first Saudi, first Arab, and first Muslim to travel in space when he rode aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle Discovery.
3. The national sport in Saudi Arabia is Football. However, there are other popular sports including Camel racing (The annual King's Camel Race, is one of the sport's most important contests and attracts animals and riders from throughout the region, and the camel market in the capital city of Riyadh is one of the largest in the world and sells about 100 camels a day) and sidewalk skiing which is basically tipping a car onto its side wheels on a public road, driving it on a tilt, and climbing out and standing on top of the vehicle. This activity has gained considerable popularity in Saudi Arabia. Some participants can even change the tyres of the two airborne wheels while in motion.
4. Women aren't allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, so you won't find any women sidewalk skiing. Women have very little freedom here. They cannot travel or study without permission from a male relative. They are not allowed to work (except in lingerie shops where there is a total reversal of the law. Men are not allowed to sell lingerie and a shop can be closed down if a man is caught serving on the lingerie counter - but the women still have to have permission from a male relative to work); must sit in separate specially designated family sections in restaurants, to wear an abaya and cover their hair. Saudi Arabia was the last country in the world to give women the vote. Local elections in 2015 was the first occasion when women voted.
5. Saudi Arabia is the 13th largest country in the world and the largest country in the world not to have any rivers. Over 95% of Saudi Arabia is desert or semi-desert, so supplying fresh Water is an issue. Drinkable water here is more expensive than oil.
6. The world's next tallest building is going to be here. They started building it in 2014 Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Tower will stand 3,280 feet (1 km) high, 600 feet (183 meters) taller than the world's current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa hotel in Dubai.
7. The judicial system and Constitution are all dictated by Islamic law. All shops and businesses close for up to half an hour five times a day for prayer times. All Saudis are officially Muslims. There are other religions among ex-pats living in the country but they are not allowed to worship openly and woe betide any who try to convert people - that would get them the death penalty. Only Muslims can be buried within the borders of Saudi Arabia.
8. Execution by beheading is perfectly legal here and can be meted out for rejecting Islam, adultery and being gay as well as for rape and murder. However, the country is experiencing a shortage of swordsmen - they are seriously considering changing the method of execution to firing squad instead.
9. They are seriously concerned about witchcraft, sorcery and magic there. So much so that the government has set up an Anti-Witchcraft Action Unit under the auspices of the religious police. The unit is charged with apprehending sorcerers (who will be sentenced to death) and reversing the harmful effects of their spells. They have even banned Harry Potter books.
10. The traditional national dish is khūzī, a dish consisting of a stuffed lamb. In Jeddah and Jejaz, baby camels are also considered a delicacy.

22 September: Hobbit Day

Hobbit Day is the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in JRR Tolkien's books, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit was published this day in 1937. In the books both Bilbo and Frodo were said to be born on September 22nd, but in different years. Bilbo was born in the year of 2890 and Frodo in the year of 2968. 

1. According to Tolkien, Hobbits are "relatives" of the race of men, although they tend to regard themselves as a separate species, since they have lost the genealogical details of how they are related to us.
2. Tolkien's explanation for the word "hobbit" is that it was derived from holbytla (plural holbytlan), meaning "hole-builder" in Old English. He may have been influenced by Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt.
3. There are three different races of hobbits. Bilbo and his family, the ones who live in the Shire, are Harfoots. They lived on the lowest slopes of the Misty Mountains in holes, or Smials, dug into the hillsides. The term is analogous to "hairfoot". The Stoors were shorter and stockier and were good swimmers. They lived in marshes and are the only race of hobbits able to grow beards. Déagol and Sméagol/Gollum were descended. Stoor is an Old English word meaning "strong". Finally there are Fallohides (a name derived from "fallow" and "hide", meaning "pale skin") who were taller and fairer and lived in the woods. They were more adventurous than the average hobbit. Bilbo and three of the four principal hobbit characters in The Lord of the Rings (Frodo, Pippin and Merry) had Fallohide blood through their common ancestor, the Old Took.
4. Tolkien envisaged hobbits as "fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (Brown). The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: Green velvet breeches; Red or Yellow waistcoat; brown or green jacket; Gold (or brass) buttons; a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf)."
5. Hobbits are between two and four feet (0.61–1.22m) tall, the average height being three feet six inches (1.07m).
6. They dress in bright colours, favouring yellow and green, and rarely wear Shoes, since the soles of their Feet are leathery and tough. They are adept with slings and throwing stones.
7. A hobbit's life expectancy is 100 years on average. They come of age at the age of 33 and can live as long as 130 years, especially if they happen to own a magic ring...
8. Hobbits are depicted as shy creatures, fond of home comforts, food (six meals a day if possible) and partying. However, they are more than capable of defending their land if the need arises. They eat cake, Bread, meat, Potatoes, ale and Tea, and smoke pipe weed. Birthdays are a great excuse for a party, like Bilbo's birthday party at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. Food, Fireworks, dancing and much merriment were the order of the day. On their birthdays, hobbits give presents to others rather than receive them. Old and useless objects, which may have been given as presents over and over are called "mathom" in their culture. Throwing a party or a feast is deemed an appropriate way to celebrate Hobbit Day.
9. In the hobbit calendar, every year begins on a Saturday and ends on a Friday and each month has 30 days. New Year's Eve and New Years Day, and three Lithedays in mid-summer didn't belong to any month. Every fourth year there was an extra Litheday, similar to a leap year.
10. Hobbits may actually be real. Small human skeletons were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. The excavated skeletons reveal a hominid that (like a hobbit) grew no larger than a three-year-old modern child and had proportionately larger feet than modern humans. Nine of them have been found so far and have been given the scientific name of Homo floresiensis. Dwarf elephants, giant rats, and Komodo dragons would also have lived on the island.

21st September: Dick Turpin

On this date in 1705 Highwayman Dick Turpin was baptised. Here are some facts about him:

1. Richard "Dick" Turpin was born at the Blue Bell Inn (later the Rose and Crown) in Hempstead, Essex, the fifth of six children to John Turpin and Mary Elizabeth Parmenter.
2. Although no records survive of his marriage, he is thought to have married a woman called Elizabeth Millington in 1725.
3. Dick Turpin's father was a butcher and innkeeper, and before embarking on a life of crime, dick followed those trades, too. He was an apprentice butcher in Whitechapel, and after his marriage, opened a butcher's shop in Buckhurst Hill, Essex.
4. In those days, deer rustling was a common and serious crime. A bunch of notorious deer rustlers in the area were the Essex Gang. Dick Turpin's first forays into crime were no doubt receiving and selling stolen meat.
5. It's thought Turpin became the landlord of a pub called the Rose and Crown in Clay Hill in about 1733. There was no evidence at this time that he was involved in any thefts.
6. By 1734, Turpin was working directly with the gang and was involved in raiding houses with them. He was never caught, but others were and were variously imprisoned, executed or deported. It was then that Turpin turned to Highway Robbery.
7. Press reports of the crimes at the time described him as being 5 feet 9 inches tall with small pox scars and wearing a blue-grey coat and a natural wig.
8. The overnight ride from London to York on Black Bess may have been mere legend, but Turpin did move to Yorkshire where he posed as a Horse trader. At this time, he was using the alias of John Palmer.
9. John Palmer was arrested in 1738 for shooting a game cock in the street and threatening to shoot a man who rebuked him for it. The authorities suspected he was a horse thief and kept him in jail.
10. They found out who he really was when he wrote to his brother-in-law from his cell. The brother-in-law refused to pay the delivery charge on the letter, either because he didn't think he knew anybody in York, or because he didn't want anything to do with Turpin. The letter ended up at another post office where Turpin's old teacher saw it and recognised his writing. He went to York to identify Turpin and got a £200 reward, worth £29,000 in today's money.

20th September: Everything I Have I Owe to Spaghetti Day

Today is Everything I Have I Owe to Spaghetti Day so here are ten things you might not know about spaghetti:

1. Dried spaghetti is made from milled Wheat and Water, Fresh spaghetti contains Eggs as well.
2. Industrially produced spaghetti is 25 centimetres long. Too big for most saucepans, but experts say it shouldn't be broken up to fit, but rather added slowly to boiling water as it softens.
3. Spaghetti is the plural form of the Italian word spaghetto, a diminutive of spago, meaning "thin string" or "twine".
4. Spaghetti was probably first made in Sicily around the 12th century.
5. Some spaghetti records: the largest ever bowl of spaghetti was created in 2010; a Californian restaurant, Buca di Beppo filled a swimming pool with around 6.250 kg of pasta; the longest strand of spaghetti ever was produced in Ober Ramstadt, Germany and was 455m long; and the current world record for eating spaghetti is held by a Tuscan man who ate 100 grams in 33 seconds.
6. Unsurprisingly, Italy is the world's leading producer of spaghetti. In 2008 Italy exported 1.7million tonnes of the stuff. The biggest importers of pasta are the United States, Germany, UK and France. The USA also produces its own, since the first US spaghetti factory opened in Brooklyn in 1848.
7. Spaghetti contains fat, carbohydrates (fibre and sugar), proteins, magnesium and Iron. There are 158 calories in 100 grams of spaghetti.
8. One of the most popular spaghetti dishes is spaghetti bolognaise. If you want to eat this dish in Bologna, where it originated, you won't find it on a menu, because there, they call it tagliatelle al ragù.
9. The BBC television programme Panorama featured a hoax program about the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland on April Fools day, 1957, showing people picking spaghetti from spaghetti trees.
10. Spaghetti westerns don't really have anything to do with spaghetti. "Spaghetti" was a kind of nickname for Italy at the time, where those movies were made.

19 September: Otzi the Iceman

Ötzi the Iceman was discovered 25 years ago today. Here are ten facts about him:

By Sandstein - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21475730

1. Ötzi was found on 19 September 1991 by two German tourists, Helmut and Erika Simon, who were walking off the path between the mountain passes Hauslabjoch and Tisenjoch at 3,210 metres (10,530 ft). They thought he was a modern mountaineer who'd recently died, and called the police. It took the authorities four days to extract the body. He was taken to Innsbruck for examination where archaeologist Konrad Spindler of the University of Innsbruck declared Ötzi to be about four thousand years old.
2. Ötzi is so called because he was found in the Ötztal Alps. He has also been referred to as Similaun Man, "Frozen Fritz", Man from Hauslabjoch, Hauslabjoch mummy and Frozen Man.
3. Ötzi was approximately 1.65 metres (5 ft 5 in) tall, weighed about 50 kilograms (110 lb) and was about 45 years of age when he died.
4. How did he die? He was found to have a serious wound in his shoulder caused by an arrow, from which he would probably have bled to death, although the arrow shaft had been removed before he died. It's thought what actually killed him was a blow to the head.
5. He wasn't in great health. He had intestinal worms, and was carrying birch fungus with him, a substance known to be a remedy for worms. He had bad teeth, degeneration of the bones and Lyme disease. He was also lactose intolerant.
6. He had 61 tattoos, mostly groups of black lines. The pigment used was made from ash or soot. Some of the tattoos are placed where Ötzi's bones were wearing away, so it's speculated that the tattoos might have been part of a ritual, similar to acupuncture, for pain relief.
7. What did he do for a living? We don't know, but guesses include that he was a Copper smelter (because he had a copper axe and copper particles in his hair), a mountain shepherd (because the wearing away of his bones suggested he did a lot of walking on hilly terrain) or even a chieftain (killed as a ritual sacrifice, or in a battle).
8. The clothes he was wearing included a cloak made from woven grass, leggings, a coat, a tool belt (the belt had a pouch sewn to it that contained a cache of useful items: a scraper, drill, flint flake, bone awl) all made from leather and a bearskin hat. His Shoes generated particular interest. They had bearskin soles, deer hide top panels, and netting made of tree bark. Soft grass in the shoe probably functioned like modern Socks. The shoes were sufficiently complex that a Czech academic, who reproduced them, was sure that they had been made by a specialist cobbler. The shoes were designed for walking on Snow - waterproof and wide - and so good that a Czech company wanted to buy the rights to make and sell them for modern people.
9. Scientists have sequenced Ötzi's DNA and say he is most closely related to southern Europeans, especially to Corsicans and Sardinians. They also found, when analysing the DNA of modern Blood donors, that there are nineteen men living in the Tyrol today who are related to Ötzi.
10. A mummy wouldn't be a mummy without a curse, and Ötzi is no exception. Several people involved in the discovery, recovery and study of Ötzi have died under mysterious circumstances, including Helmut Simon and Konrad Spindler. The deaths of seven people, of which four were the result of accidents, have been attributed to the curse. However, given the hundreds of people involved in the recovery and study of the mummy the deaths are not statistically significant enough to prove a curse.

18 September: Samuel Johnson

This date in 1709 saw the birth of Samuel Johnson, poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755. It took him nine years to create.

1. No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
2. Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
3. Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
4. The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
5. To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
6. Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
7. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
8. Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
9. Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
10. Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little. 

17 September: Bacteria

On this date in 1683 Dutch scientist Antony van Leeuwenhoek became the first to report the existence of bacteria. He spotted them using the microscope he'd just designed. Even though he published his observations to the Royal Society of London, nobody looked at bacteria again for over 100 years. Here are ten things you might not know about bacteria.

1. There are a lot of them - about about 5 million trillion trillion of them, outnumbering all other life on Earth. If you placed them all end to end, you'd get a line of bacteria reaching to the edge of the known universe. There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a millilitre of fresh Water.
2. They're not all bad. Less than 1% of them cause illness. Many are beneficial to us, and even essential; but when they're bad, they're very, very bad. One teaspoon of the bacterium C. botulinum, if properly distributed, could kill every single human being in the USA.
3. Human beings are 90% bacteria - there are ten times more bacterial cells in the human body than human ones. In 2012, scientists discovered 1,458 new species living in in the human belly button alone. The make up of the bacteria living in a person's belly button is as individual as a fingerprint. It's even possible for a person to have bacteria in their belly button usually only found in places they've never visited. There are more bacteria in one human intestine than there are people on Earth.
4. Bacteria are the oldest life forms on the planet, having been here for at least 3.5 million years.
5. The word "bacteria" derives from the Greek word for a staff or cane, as the first bacteria to be discovered were rod shaped. Since then, other types have been found. Some, like E. Coli, have tails and can travel 25 times their own length in a second, equivalent to a Horse running 135 miles per hour.
6. They are literally everywhere. In 2007, biologists revived an 8-million-year-old bacterium extracted from the Antarctic ice. They have been found two miles underground, living off radioactive rocks. There are types which can survive almost 10,000 times the dose of radiation lethal to humans, so scientists are looking at using them to clean up nuclear waste. One of these species has been nicknamed “Conan the Bacterium.” A more sobering thought is that is we destroy ourselves in a nuclear war, the bacteria will still be there. Some scientists have gone so far as to transcribe the song, “It’s a Small World After All” into the DNA of a bacteria that is resistant to radioactivity, as a message to the life forms that will evolve from them. Bacteria are even found floating in the clouds, and scientists are discovering that seeding clouds with bacteria is a better way of making it rain than using chemicals or dust.
7. Other uses bacteria can be put to include making certain types of food, such as Yogurt, vinegar and even Chocolate and Coffee. Some can eat through rock and are useful in mining. They can also repair or create building materials and even turn dissolved Gold into solid nuggets. It's even thought bacteria can help cure diseases - scientists are discovering that the composition of bacteria in humans causes more diseases than previously thought, and altering the biodiversity of bacteria in the body could save lives.
8. There are a few species of bacteria which can be seen with the naked eye. Thiomargarita namibiensis can reach half a millimetre long and Epulopiscium fishelsoni 0.7 mm. At the other end of the scale are ultramicrobacteria which are as small as Viruses, although they have not been studied much. There could be some so small we haven't been able to discover them yet.
9. There are bacteria which glow in the dark. During the US Civil War some soldiers had wounds which glowed in the dark because they were infected with such bacteria. That was actually a good thing, as the glow in the dark bacteria killed other, more harmful ones so soldiers with glowing wounds were more likely to survive.
10. When things get tough, even for bacteria, they can re-write their own DNA, hoping for a beneficial mutation to help them survive.

16 September: Malaysia Day

Today is Malaysia Day - so here are some things you may not know about Malaysia.

1. Malaysia is literally a country of two halves: Peninsular Malaysia to the west and East Malaysia to the east. Peninsular Malaysia is located south of Thailand, north of Singapore and east of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. East Malaysia comprises most of the northern part of Borneo and shares borders with Brunei and Indonesia.
2. Its capital city is Kuala Lumpur, which means "muddy confluence". Possibly due to the fact it rains here on as many as 200 days a year. The city is home to the tallest twin towers in the world, the Petronas Towers which house the headquarters of the national oil company Petronas, the only Malaysian company in the Fortune Global 500.
3. Malaysia’s currency is the ringgit, which means “jagged” in Malay, and originally referred to the separated edges of Spanish Silver dollars widely circulated there.
4. Malaysia is home to several things which are the largest of their kind in the world. At 700 metres (2,297 ft) long and 70 metres (230 ft) high the Sarawak Chamber is the largest cave chamber in the world; the pomelo, the largest citrus fruit in the world, which weighs from 2.2–6.7 lbs. (1–3 kg) and can reach the size of a small football; the world’s tallest tropical tree, the Tualang, which has a base diameter of over 10 feet (3m) and reaches heights of around 262 feet (80m); the Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world. This bloom can be up to 3-feet (1-m) wide and weigh 15 lbs. (6.8 kg); the world's largest insect egg, that of the Malaysian Stick Insect (Heteopteryx dilitata), which lays eggs of 1.3 cm, larger than a Peanut; the largest undivided leaf, Alocasia macrorrhiza. A specimen found in 1966 measured 9.9 feet (3.02m) long by 6.3 (1.92m) wide; the longest King Cobra in the world, measuring 5.54 metres, captured alive in Port Dickson in April 1937 and grew to 5.71 metres in captivity in London Zoo; and the world's largest roundabout at Putrajaya in Malaysia, which is 2.2 miles (3.5 km) in diameter.
5. Famous people from Malaysia include the actress Michelle Yeoh and Shoe designer Jimmy Choo.
6. The first person to become a citizen of Malaysia was Kok Shoo Yin, 17, who received his official documentation on November 14, 1957.
7. Kuala Kangsar district office is the site of the last surviving rubber tree from the original batch H. N. Ridley brought from London's Kew Gardens in 1877. Rubber is an important export. Malaysia is the world’s third largest natural rubber producer. In 2011, the country produced 996,673 metric tons of the stuff. Malaysia is also the world’s largest supplier of rubber gloves.
8. The tallest mountain is Mount Kinabalu, at 4,095.2 metres (13,436 ft) and the longest river is the Rajang River in Sarawak at 760 kilometres (472 mi).
9. Malaysia’s national dish is Nasi lemak, a Rice dish cooked in coconut milk, often served wrapped in a Banana leaf. It is usually eaten for breakfast. The national drink is teh tarik (“pulled tea”), which is Tea that is thrown across a distance of about 3 feet (1 m) by Mamak men, from one cup to another, with no spillages. Originally this was to cool it down ready for customers to drink. The English word “ketchup” is thought to be derived from the Hokkien word ke-tsiap.
10. Some Malaysian sports teams employ a shaman, or bomoh to smudge their equipment with holy smoke and if possible, place a charm near the goalposts before a match. Other superstitions include the belief that if a Cat jumps onto the coffin of a dead relative, the person will come back as a ghoul, and that one's dead relatives will give one the winning lottery numbers if one visits the graveyard at night bringing offerings.

15 September: Costa Rica

Costa Rica gained independence from Spain on this date in 1821. Here are ten things you may not know about Costa Rica.

1. It's a small country - 51,100 km2/19,653 sq miles in are - smaller than Lake Michigan in the USA - but has 801 miles of coastline.
2. Costa Ricans refer to themselves as “Ticos” (males) and “Ticas” (females). When talking about their significant other, they call them their “media naranja”, which means “the other half of my Orange.”
3. The name of the country literally means "Rich Coast".
4. It doesn't have an army. It was constitutionally abolished in 1949. While not alone in this - 22 other countries have no army, but Costa Rica is the only armyless country with a population of over a million.
5. It's a great place for wildlife. Its area may only be .03% of the earth's surface, but 5% of all known species of plant or animal can be found in Costa Rica. That includes 750,000 species of insects, including about 20,000 different types of Spider; about 18% of the world's butterfly species and 52 species of Hummingbird. Not to mention monkeys, Sloths and Turtles. About 25% of the country has been made into national parks or conservation areas.
6. People have four names each - at least two first names followed by their father's surname and their mother's surname. Women do not change their names when they marry.
7. Streets, however, don't often have names at all. Even in the capital, San José, people will use landmarks to direct people anywhere, and only in 2012 were any street signs put up there.
8. If you're into archaeological curiosities, Costa Rica has some of those, too. The Diquís Delta stone spheres are believed to be around 2,000 years old. There are thousands of stone spheres, ranging in size from from 4 inches (10 cm) to 8 feet (2.5 m) in diameter. Many of the stones were found placed near gravesites, aligned in strait and curved lines, triangles, and parallelograms.
9. Most radio stations in the country play the national anthem ("Noble patria, tu hermosa bandera" ("Noble homeland, your beautiful flag") every morning at 7am.
10. The highest point in the country is Cerro Chirripó, at 3,819 metres (12,530 ft).