30th June: Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge was opened on this day in 1894 by the then Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.

1. Before the bridge was built, anyone wanting to cross the river there would have had to use the Tower Subway - a 410-metre tunnel under the river, and pay half a penny for the privilege. The tunnel is still there, but now it's a water main.
2. It was eventually decided that a bridge was needed but planners faced a problem - it was still important for tall ships to be able to sail up the Thames. A competition was held to design the bridge. Over 50 designers entered, including civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette, whose major achievement was the creation of a sewer network for central London. Some of the designs were quite wacky. Bazalgette's design was rejected because of a lack of sufficient headroom. It took the judging committee eight years to pick a winner, and in the end, they chose a design by Sir Horace Jones, the City Architect, who was actually on the committee.
3. It took as long to decide on the designer as it did to build the actual bridge, which also took eight years. It cost £1,184,000 to build, over £100 million in today's money. It took over 400 workers, over 70000 tons of concrete and 11,000 tons of steel to construct the bridge, which is is 244 metres long; each tower is 65 metres high. The pedestrian walkways are over 40 metres above the river at high tide. The central span is 200 feet (61m).
4. It is the only bridge on the Thames which can be raised. The central span which carries the A100 road is split into two bascules which can be raised to an angle of 86 degrees to allow a ship to pass through. Each bascule weighs over a thousand tons and is moved by means of a hydraulic engine. It takes 61 seconds to raise the bascules. At one time this would happen about 50 times a day but nowadays it's down to four or five times a week.
5. Ship owners who want to pass through don't have to pay a charge but they do have to give 24 hours notice. River traffic always has priority over road traffic, so if you arrive at the bridge in your car at the same time as a ship, you'll face a Red traffic light and probably a queue. No exceptions - even if you are President of the United States of America, you'll still have to wait, as Bill Clinton found out in 1997 when his motorcade was split because a barge named Gladys was scheduled to pass through. The authorities at Tower Bridge had tried to warn the President that this might happen, but the American Embassy didn't answer the phone.
6. The most exciting London Bus ride ever must have been if you'd happened to catch a number 78 bus one December day in 1952. In those days the procedure for opening the bridge wasn't Traffic Lights, but a warning bell and gates which had to be closed by a gateman who would then signal to the watchman that the bridge was clear. A relief watchman missed the signal and started opening the bridge while the double decker bus was still on it. The quick thinking driver, one Albert Gunton, put his foot down and the bus jumped the 3ft (0.91m) gap and dropped 6 feet (1.8m) onto the north bascule, which hadn't started to rise. Gunter was given £10 (equivalent to £260 in 2015) by the City Corporation to honour his act of bravery. No-one was hurt but it must have been a scary ride!
7. Tower Bridge is not called Tower Bridge because it has towers - it was actually named for the nearby Tower of London. People who don't know London frequently think Tower Bridge is called London Bridge, possibly because Tower Bridge is one of London's iconic buildings used on films to indicate that the action is taking place in London. London Bridge is a completely different bridge further along the river. There's a common urban myth that says an American millionaire bought the old London Bridge when it was being rebuilt, under the misconception that he was getting Tower Bridge.
8. It may be iconic and a favourite of people today, but it had its haters when it was first built, among them H.H. Statham, who called it "the vice of tawdriness and pretentiousness" and Frank Brangwyn who said that "A more absurd structure than the Tower Bridge was never thrown across a strategic river".
9. High above the road is a walkway which is sufficiently high that it never needs to be raised. It started off as a pedestrian walkway but pedestrians rarely used it because you had to climb a lot of steps to get to it, and it became a haunt for prostitutes and pickpockets. It closed in 1910 but re-opened in 1982 as part of the Tower Bridge Exhibition which can be visited for a fee.
10. Possibly because it's so iconic, Tower Bridge is occasionally used by people who want to protest about something, like the Fathers4Justice guy who climbed up it dressed as Spiderman, or the pensioner who drove a flock of two sheep across (which apparently one has a legal right to do) to make a point about the rights of older people being eroded away. The most spectacular protest was probably carried out by Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock in 1968. He was peed off because, in his opinion, there weren't enough aerial displays to mark the 50th anniversary of the RAF, and decided to stage one of his own. He flew his Hawker Hunter jet around the Houses of Parliament three times, over the RAF Memorial and topped it off by flying under the top span of Tower Bridge. He was arrested and discharged from the RAF on medical grounds without the chance to defend himself at a court martial.

More Thames Bridges Facts:

Albert Bridge
Battersea Bridge
Blackfriars Bridge
Cheslea Bridge 
London Bridge
Southwark Bridge

Wandsworth Bridge

Waterloo Bridge
Westminster Bridge 

29 June: Coriander/Cilantro

Coriander (cilantro) is the herb celebrated on this date by the French Revolutionary Calendar. It's one of those things that divides the world into two camps, those who love it and those who hate it, a bit like Marmite. If you love it, enjoy these facts. If not - know thy enemy! Also, fact #7 will explain why you dislike the stuff. Personally, I like it.

1. Coriander belongs to the parsley family and its scientific name is Coriandrum sativum.
2. The whole plant is edible including the seeds and roots as well as the leaves. The seeds are always known as coriander, but the leaves are sometimes called Chinese parsley, and Americans call it cilantro.
3. It has been around a long time. The ancient Egyptians believed coriander could be used in the afterlife as a food for the departed. Hence there was coriander in King Tut's tomb (since Egypt is not one of the places coriander grows naturally, this is taken as evidence that the Egyptians cultivated it). The Chinese believed it imparted immortality and that if a pregnant woman ate it, her baby would be a genius; it was used in love potions in the Middle Ages, usually mixed with Wine. It is mentioned in the Bible (Exodus, XVI, 31) - it was the bitter herb of the passover meal. It was also mentioned in The Tales of the Arabian Nights.
4. Coriander was grown in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
5. The plant is native to Southern Europe, North Africa and West Asia. The Romans used it - Roman soldiers took it with them to help preserve their food which is how it got to England, from whence it was taken to North America by colonists around 1670.
6. Before the seeds have matured, the plant doesn't smell too nice. In fact, the ancient Greeks thought it smelled like bed bugs, The Ancient Greek word for a bed bug was Koris, so that is how the plant got its name. The American variant, cilantro, is Spanish for coriander.
7. There is a significant number of people who would say coriander tastes disgusting. This is basically because those people are mutants - that is to say they are genetically predisposed to find the taste of coriander unpleasant. These people will tell you the herb tastes like rancid soap or metal. Coriander leaves contain chemicals called aldehydes (some of which are also found in the secretions of stink bugs, so this no doubt explains the smell of the plants, too). People who don't like coriander have a gene which makes them especially sensitive to the taste and smell of these chemicals. People who live in cultures where coriander is used a lot in cooking are less likely to dislike it, which may mean the gene is less common, or that there are other factors at work whereby haters can, over time with repeated exposure, acquire a taste for it.
8. Because both the seeds and leaves are commonly used, coriander is classified both as a herb and a spice. The roots are used in Thai curries.
9. Sugarplums, as referred to in the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, were actually a treat made of sugar coated coriander.
10. Coriander leaves are rich in Vitamin C and K and the plant is a good source of dietary fibre, manganese, Iron and magnesium, with traces of protein, calcium, phosphorous, Potassium, thiamine, niacin and carotene.

28th June: Mel Brooks quotes

Born on this date in 1926 was Mel Brooks, film director whose most famous movies include The Producers, Spaceballs and Blazing Saddles.

1. Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.
2. As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.
3. If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colourful and lively.
4. Humour is just another defence against the universe.
5. Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
6. If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country.
7. Immortality is a by-product of good work.
8. I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front.
9. Hope for the best. Expect the worst. The world's a stage. We're unrehearsed.
10. Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.

27th June: The Liberty Bell

On this date in 1778 the Liberty Bell was returned to Philadelphia. 10 facts about a bell with a crack in it and why America loves it so much.

1. Although the Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American independence, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, it was simply known as the Statehouse Bell, and was used to summon lawmakers to legislative sessions and to alert citizens about public meetings and proclamations.
2. The original bell was cast in Whitechapel, London, in 1752, long before the revolution. Isaac Norris, the then speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, asked the colony's London agent, Robert Charles, to obtain a "good Bell of about two thousands pound weight". The growing city needed a bell which could be heard over a greater distance. Charles ordered the bell from the London bellfounding firm of Lester and Pack (now the Whitechapel Bell Foundry). It cost £150 13s 8d, (equivalent to £21,351.87 today).
3. Nobody really knows how it first got a crack in it. It's possible that it cracked the first time it was rung in its new home. Some place the blame on the Whitechapel Foundry for making a flawed and brittle bell. The Whitechapel Foundry says it must have been damaged in transit or rung by an inexperienced bellringer. Whatever the reason, it was decided that the bell had to be broken up and re-cast. This was done by two local founders, John Pass and John Stow. They reckoned the bell was too brittle and added more Copper to the mix to rectify it. However, although it didn't break when it was rung again, it sounded, according to one contemporary report, "like two coal scuttles being banged together". Pass and Stow hastily took the bell away and recast it a second time. This time they added pewter with a high lead content, so even though it sounded all right, it was brittle, It cracked again when rung for Washington’s Birthday in February 1846. The authorities in Philadelphia actually tried to have the bell sent back to London and a new one made, but the captain of the ship which had brought it refused to take it. A new bell was ordered anyway, but they didn't think it sounded any better than the old one, so they left the old one where it was and put the new one in the cupola on the State House roof and attached to the clock to strike the hours. President Benjamin Harrison, said of it, "This old bell was made in England, but it had to be re-cast in America before it was attuned to proclaim the right of self-government and the equal rights of men."
4. The inscription on the bell reads "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. "By Order of the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania (the spelling of "Pennsylvania" was not at that time universally adopted) for the State House in Philada." Centred on the front of the Bell are the words, "Pass and Stow / Philada / MDCCLIII."
5. It wasn't called the Liberty Bell until abolitionists adopted the Bell as a symbol of their movement. The name referred to the Bible verse inscribed on it. The verse following it in the Bible reads "It shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." The Abolitionists took this to mean that all slaves had to be freed every fifty years.
6. The story that the bell was rung on July 4, 1776 probably isn't true, and was merely fabricated by a journalist. The public announcement of the Declaration when bells were rung all over the land was several days later on July 8. It may have rung then, but according to the Independence Hall Association, the state house steeple was under repair at the time, so it may not have been rung then, either. Nobody who was there is around to verify the story.
7. Whether it rang or not, it was feared the British would melt the Bell and use it to make cannons, so it was removed and hidden away, returning on June 27 1778. In 1915 it went on a tour of the USA and attracted huge crowds, but the brittleness of the bell made it too easy for souvenir hunters to chip bits of it off, so it was placed in the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia, where it is occasionally tapped to mark special occasions.
8. The Liberty Bell weighs 2,080 pounds (940 kg) and comprises 70% copper and 25% Tin, with the remainder consisting of Lead, Zinc, arsenic, Gold and Silver. Its Circumference is 12 ft (3.7m).
9. The capsules of the Mercury spacecraft launched in the 1960s were bell-shaped. The Mercury spacecraft that astronaut Gus Grissom flew on July 21, 1961, was dubbed Liberty Bell 7 and was painted with a crack to mimic the one in the bell. It was the only Mercury craft to get the modification, and it was the only one to suffer an integrity failure.
10. Any conclusion that the bell must therefore be cursed is contradicted by a Taco Bell April Fool joke in which the company claimed they'd bought the Liberty Bell and changed its name to the Taco Liberty Bell. Some people were angry about that, but even so, Taco Bell’s sales went up by more than a half million dollars that week.

26th June: The Science Museum

On this date in 1909, the Science Museum in London was established. 

1. The Science Museum started off as part of South Kensington Museum, founded in 1885. The South Kensington Museum included surplus items from the Great Exhibition and items from the Museum of Patents. The collection was eventually split into the Art Museum (which became the Victoria and Albert Museum) and the Science Museum.
2. The Science Museum is one of London's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors a year.
3. The museum's collection of over 300,000 items includes Stephenson's Rocket, Puffing Billy (the oldest surviving steam locomotive), the first jet engine, a reconstruction of Francis Crick and James Watson's model of DNA, an example of a Newcomen steam engine, the worlds first steam engine, a working example of Charles Babbage's Difference engine and documentation of the first Typewriter.
4. It once had the Wright flyer, the world’s first heavier than air aircraft, because Orville Wright wanted to loan it to the Science Museum rather than give it to the Smithsonian. Eventually, the Science Museum had a replica made and gave the original to the Smithsonian in 1948.
5. The Museum is based in Brompton, and its original iron buildings were so ugly that they were named the ‘Brompton Boilers’.
6. The closest London Underground station is South Kensington; a subway leads from the station to the museum, and also to the Natural History Museum next door. At one time, there was a public corridor connecting the two museums but it has been closed off.
7. The Director at time of writing is Ian Blatchford.
8. The Science Museum benefits more schoolchildren than any other museum in the UK, thanks not school outings there and also the outreach programmes it runs. There are also occasional evenings where children and accompanying adults can spend the night in the museum, camping out among the exhibits and taking part in science based activities.
9. From the 1930s, there were plans to put a planetarium on the top floor, but it never happened because Madam Tussaud's beat them to it.
10. Among the films and TV shows filmed in the museum are The Ipcress File, the thriller starring Michael Caine, and the BBC TV version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth.

Related Posts

British Museum

National Gallery 

Natural History Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

June 25th: George Orwell

George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984 was born on this date in 1903. Here are ten George Orwell quotes.

1. In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
2. Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
3. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
4. I'm fat, but I'm thin inside... there's a thin man inside every fat man.
5. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
6. What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
7. Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
8. At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.
9. Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac.
10. War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

24th June: Rosemary

Rosemary was the herb of the day in the French Revolutionary Calendar. Here are some facts about this herb:

1. Rosemary, is a woody, perennial herb belonging to the Mint family. Its close relatives include Basil, Lavender and Oregano.
2. It is native to Spain, Italy, Portugal, Southern France, Greece and North Africa and is commonly seen on rocky limestone hillsides near the sea.
3. The name comes from the Latin "ros" and "marinus" meaning "dew of the sea".
4. Although you'd be forgiven for thinking it derives from "Rose of Mary" since it has associations with The Virgin Mary. She is said to have hung her cloak on a rosemary bush to dry, which is why the flowers are Blue.
5. Another explanation as to why the flowers are blue comes from Sicily. The legend says that when the evil sorceress Circe caused men to leap off cliffs to their deaths, one blue-eyed woman clung to the cliffs to try and stop them, and was turned into a rosemary bush.
6. One thing rosemary is often associated with is memory. The ancient Greeks believed rosemary had a magical ability to strengthen memory and students would wear sprigs of it in their hair while they were studying. In more modern times, it has become a symbol of remembrance. At funerals, people would throw rosemary springs into graves to show that they would never forget the dead person; "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance," says Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rosemary is also worn on Remembrance Day and other war commemorations.
7. Rosemary was commonly worn at weddings in the middle ages. This led people to wonder if it was a love charm, but more likely it was a symbol of fidelity. If a man was indifferent to the aroma of rosemary it was believed he was incapable of giving true love. The memory thing was also significant here - if a bride wore it, it was a sign she wouldn't forget her family.
8. Rosemary is commonly used as a flavouring for roast lamb, pork, chicken and turkey, and is often an ingredient of Stuffing. It can also be made into a herbal tea. It has been used as a medicine for gas, toothache, headache, jaundice and baldness, as well as for a tonic to quicken the mind and improve memory. It also helps preserve food as it has antioxidant properties. In olden times it was spread or burned in sick rooms to ward off disease.
9. As well as its culinary and medicinal properties, the plant is considered attractive enough to grow in gardens for its looks alone. It is an evergreen shrub which can reach 1.5m (5 ft) tall and can be grown as a small hedge around a vegetable garden. It can grow in dry conditions and will attract bees.
10. Rosemary is an ingredient of Hungary water, an early alcohol based perfume dating back to the 14th century. The oldest surviving recipes call for distilling fresh rosemary (and possibly thyme) with strong brandy.

June 23rd: Midsummer Eve/St John's Eve

Today is Midsummer Eve, also St John's Eve. Here are a few of the superstitions and customs associated with today.

1. If it rains on midsummer-eve, the filberts will be spoiled, according to a traditional English proverb.
2. Fairies are said to speak in human tongues on this night.
3. Fern seed gathered on this night was reputed to have the power to turn people invisible. Hemp seed sown at midnight by a single woman reciting "Hemp-seed I sow, hemp-seed I hoe, and he that is my true love come after me and mow" would bring her future husband to her. St John's Wort was also gathered to hang over doorways and windows to protect the residents from Witches and also to put in drinks to cure madness, sciatica, epilepsy and paralysis. Salve made from the herb cured wounds from spears and swords. St John's Wort is a proven anti-depressant, so there was some truth in it. Vervain, trefoil and rue were also believed to have magical properties and would be picked on this night.
4. In Ireland they used to believe that the souls of the living leave their bodies tonight, and wander to the place, by land or sea, where they will eventually die.
5. This might have been the origin of the custom of lighting bonfires and staying up all night to greet the rising Sun. People would jump through the fires, and set Fire to wheels and roll them down hills.
6. There were a lot of customs aimed at young women finding out who they were going to marry. In Britain, it was the custom for an unmarried woman to fast then lay out a cloth at midnight with Bread and Cheese. She'd sit down ready to eat, leaving the front door open. Her future husband would enter the room, salute her with a bow, then leave. Or, a more patient maiden would pick a sprig of St John’s wort and wear it in her bosom until Christmas, by which time the man who was to be her husband would see it and take it from her. Some of the customs were more social in nature with girls getting together and washing dresses, which they would place in front of the fire to dry; the likeness of their future husbands would come and turn the dresses and drink a toast to their future brides. Or they'd make a dumb cake. Two of them had to make it, two break it, and a third would put it under each of their pillows, all in complete silence, so the first two would dream of their future husbands. Or if baking wasn't their thing, they could dig up the root of the mugwort plant, and place it under their pillows for the same result. Or, they might hang up Midsummer Men, cuttings of a herb called orpin, in pairs, one representing them and one representing their sweetheart. If the springs leaned towards each other, their romance was well starred. If one withered, it foretold a death.
7. There is a legend in Stanton Drew, Somerset, UK, which says that once when Midsummer's Eve fell on a Saturday, there was a wedding, and the guests celebrated with gusto. At midnight, the fiddler declared he had to stop playing as it was now Sunday, the Lord's Day. The bride wanted to carry on celebrating and said she'd carry on dancing even if she had to go to Hell for a musician. At that moment, a gaily-dressed fiddler appeared, and readily agreed to play for them. Later, when they were exhausted and asked him to stop, he wouldn't - and they couldn't stop dancing, either. In the morning, there was no sign of the revellers in the field, but in their place was a stone circle. The stones are still there today.
8. In Germany, an old St John’s Eve custom is to place a wreath on the door of homes, because St John the Baptist walks through the streets tonight and bows to any home which has a wreath.
9. At Oxford, a sermon used to be preached from a stone pulpit in a corner of Magdalen College. The court was decked with green boughs so the preaching would resemble that of John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness.
10. In the middle ages, about two thousand men would parade through the streets of London, wearing flowers and jewels. The watchmen, as they were called, carried tar-burning torches called cressets, and there'd be bonfires in the streets. Henry VIII banned the custom, probably afraid of a large crowd of armed men.

22nd June: Charon

On this date in 1978, Charon, Pluto's satellite, was discovered. Here are ten facts about Pluto's moon.

1. It was discovered by United States Naval Observatory astronomer James Christy in Washington, D.C., using photographic plates of Pluto. He noticed that every so often, a slight elongation appeared on the side of Pluto. Further investigation showed it to be a separate body.
2. Christy named the new object "Charon" after his wife, Charlene, whose nickname was "Char". His colleagues objected at first and wanted to call it Persephone in keeping with the naming of moons after mythological figures. However, Christy discovered that Charon was a mythological figure - the ferryman who ferries souls across the river Styx - so the name stuck.
3. The name Charon means “of keen gaze”, either fierce, flashing eyes, or to eyes which are a bluish-gray colour.
4. Pluto has four other moons - Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx, but Charon is by far the largest. It has half the diameter of Pluto and an eighth of the mass, which is pretty large in comparison to its parent body. Some scientists suggest it might not be a moon at all, but that Pluto and Charon form a binary system. The barycentre, or centre of orbit, is outside of Pluto.
5. Charon is tidally locked with Pluto which means anyone standing on Pluto would always see the same side of Charon - which is the case with our own moon, too.
6. Charon and Pluto orbit each other every 6.387 days.
7. Photos from the New Horizons spacecraft show that Charon is darker at the poles. Hence the geeks at NASA have nicknamed the area "Mordor". They think the variation in colour is due to seasonal changes, where some substances escape when the area is heated by the sun, leaving behind substances called tholins, which are reddish in colour. After a few million years the icy crust is covered by the tholins.
8. Tholins are organic macromolecules which could be the building blocks for life.
9. Charon has an unusual surface feature that looks like a mountain in a moat. Scientists don't know yet how this came about.
10. Charon may have been formed by a collision with another object around 4.5 billion years ago. The other object disintegrated and blasted off a big chunk of Pluto. The debris coalesced to form Charon. However, Charon and Pluto are sufficiently different from each other in terms of how icy and rocky they are, suggesting they may have been two separate objects which collided but didn't destroy each other, and were then caught in each other's gravity. If that happened, there was quite possible an exchange of gases between the two - methane, nitrogen and related gases would have been released from the atmosphere of Pluto and travelled the 19,000 km (12,000 mi) or so to Charon.

21st June: World Giraffe Day

World Giraffe Day was first celebrated in 2014. Here are ten facts about giraffes.

1. Stating the obvious, giraffes are tall. Pretty much everything about them is long. On average, giraffes are between 16 and 20 ft (4.8–6 m) tall; their necks or legs alone are about 6 feet long - taller than most people. They also have the longest tails of any land mammal. A giraffe's tail can be 8 feet long. Although their necks are long, they still have the same number of neck vertebrae as any other animal, including humans. They're just much bigger - about ten inches long.
2. A giraffe’s heart weighs around 11kg (25lb), compared to a human Heart which weighs between 0.2-0.45kg. The giraffe's heart is about two feet long.
3. They also have long tongues - around 20–21 in (50–53 cm) in length. A giraffe's tongue is dark Blue in colour, and this is thought to protect the tongue from the Sun while it is picking leaves off trees with it to eat. They spend a lot of time doing this as they need over 75 pounds of food a day.
4. They don't need to drink a lot, though. They get most of their moisture from their food and only need to drink Water every couple of days. This is just as well as although a giraffe's neck is long enough to reach leaves on a tree, it isn't long enough to reach the ground, so to drink, a giraffe has to spread its legs and stoop, not the best position to be in if a hungry Lion happens along. A giraffe's jugular vein has valves to stop all its blood from running to its head while it drinks.
5. Giraffes have one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, only needing about four hours a day. Most of their sleep requirement is met by brief naps, lasting as brief a time as a minute or even less, taken while standing up.
6. They give birth standing up, too, which means a baby giraffe starts life by falling over five feet onto the ground. It is able to stand and run within an hour of being born. Baby giraffes are often looked after in creches by other females while the mother goes off looking for food. The males don't participate in parenting at all. A couple more facts about giraffes breeding - Female giraffes often return to where they were born to give birth, and male giraffes test a female's fertility by tasting her urine.
7. We all know that a Dog goes woof, a Cat goes miaow, a sheep goes baa and a Pig goes oink - but what sound does a giraffe make? Until recently, it was assumed they didn't make any sound at all but now we know that they bellow, snort, hiss and make flute-like sounds. They also make many sounds which are too low in frequency for humans to hear.
8. The ancient Greeks thought giraffes looked like Camels wearing leopard's coats and that is how they got their scientific name of Giraffa camelopardalis. The pattern of each giraffe's coat is unique, just like a human fingerprint.
9. As well as reaching leaves in trees, the giraffe's neck also comes in handy for spotting predators at a distance and in males, for fighting. Male giraffes swing their necks in order to head butt other males, an activity known as "necking". Giraffes have small horns called ossicones which probably means being head butted by one would hurt. The longer and stronger necked males tend to win the fight and therefore get the females.
10. In ancient Egyptian art, they were depicted as creatures of great power and strength. In 46BC Julius Caesar brought a giraffe back to Rome after a war to show off to the people. Sadly, once they people had seen it, Caesar fed it to lions. 1500 years later, Lorenzo de' Medici was gifted a giraffe by the sultan of Egypt. This giraffe fared a little better - people in Florence fed it treats from their upstairs windows.

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20th June: West Virginia Admission Day

West Virginia Admission Day. West Virginia became the 33rd state on this day in 1863.

1. West Virginia was, in fact, one of only two states to be admitted to the Union during the Civil War (the other was Nevada). It is the only one created by proclamation of the President of the United States, and the only state created by carving out territory from another state - without that state’s permission. The state was originally going to be called Kanawha, but that idea lasted less than a month before the name was changed to West Virginia after Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.
2. It took West Virginia a while to decide what its capital was going to be. It was Wheeling, then it was changed to Charleston. Then they changed it back to Wheeling, and back to Charleston again. It's still Charleston at time of writing.
3. What did West Virginia ever do for us? Well, the first patent for a soda fountain was granted in 1833 to George Dulty in Wheeling; it was the first state to celebrate Mother's Day; Golden Delicious Apples were discovered here in 1775 (they are now the state fruit); the first electric railway in the world between Huntington and Guyandotte; and the first steamboat. On the down side, outdoor advertising and sales tax also started here.
4. Joining Golden Delicious apples as state symbols are the state tree - sugar maple, state animal - black bear, state flower - Rhododendron, state bird - Cardinal, state butterfly - monarch and state gem - Fossil Coral. West Virginia's nickname is the Mountain State and its motto is Montani semper liberi "Mountaineers Are Always Free."
5. Well, they're usually free. According to the crime index for 1997, West Virginia had the lowest crime rate in the country. Nevertheless, it was the first state to establish a prison exclusively for women - the Federal Industrial Institution for Women in Alderson. Diplomats from Germany, Italy and Japan were held at a spa resort in Allegheny Mountains in White Sulphur Springs during the second world war. Greenbrier was also the location of the nuclear bunker the US congress would hide out in in case of a nuclear attack.
6. One wonders how many of the women in the women's prison were there because they broke West Virginia's law that makes it illegal to dry your hair on a Sunday or send children to school with their breath smelling of Onions. Other wacky laws - men can have sex with any animal as long as it doesn’t weigh more than 40lbs but it is illegal to sleep on a train. In parts of the state it is forbidden to take a Lion, Tiger or leopard for a walk, even if it's on a lead and clergy are not allowed to spice up their sermons with jokes or funny stories.
7. West Virginia holds the record for “most towns named after cities in other countries” including Athens, Berlin, Cairo, Calcutta, Geneva, Shangai and many more. It also has a town called Mountain, which changed its name from Mole Hill. Weirton is another notable city because it stretches from one state border to another - the only city in the USA for which this is the case.
8. West Virginia is considered the southern most northern state and the northern most southern state. Perhaps not surprising, then, that it has been the scene of a few skirmishes during the US Civil War. The first major land battle fought between Union and Confederate soldiers in the Civil War was the Battle of Philippi on June 3, 1861; the Battle of Buffington Island near Ravenswood on July 19 a significant battle on water; and in 1863.Bailey Brown became the first Union solider to be killed in the conflict on May 22, 1861, at Fetterman,Taylor County.
9. The state's leading industry is tourism, but it used to be coal. 15% of the nations coal comes from West Virginia and it is home to the only house in the world to be built entirely from coal. Other things tourists might want to visit are the world's largest sycamore tree on the Back Fork of the Elk River in Webster Springs; the oldest brick street in the world in Charleston, dating back to 1870; or the New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville which is the second highest steel arch bridge in the US and the longest steel arch bridge (1,700 feet) in the world. Every October, people gather to parachute and bungee jump off this bridge.
10. West Virginia has the oldest population of any state. The median age is 40. Not surprising then that they had the oldest state governor in 1996 Cecil Underwood who was elected at the age of 74. Back in 1956 he was the state's youngest governor at the age of 34.

19th June: Salman Rushdie Quotes

Salman Rushdie was born on this date in 1947. Famous for having death threats leveled at him by extremists for writing The Satanic Verses, here are some things he said. Brexiters should note #8 and stop calling anyone who argues with them "enemies of democracy".

1. What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
2. A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.
3. Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.
4. One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.
5. It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.
6. Free societies are societies in motion, and with motion comes friction.
7. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.
8. A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument.
9. When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.
10. An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings.

18th June: Trouser Day

Trouser Day marks the occasion when British Infantry wore trousers for the first time. Here are a few fascinating facts about the history of trousers.

1. Trousers were invented in China. The oldest known trousers were found at the Yanghai cemetery in Turpan, Xinjiang, western China, dated to the period between the 13th and the 10th century BC. These trousers were made of wool and were probably made for horseback riding.
2. The word trousers was first recorded in English in 1625. Before that words like ‘trouse’, ‘trews’ or ‘strossers’ were used. Shakespeare only mentions trousers once, in Henry V, where he refers to them as ‘strait strossers’.
3. The wearing of trousers (as opposed to breeches, which reached to just below the knee) was at first standard attire for working people. Hence trousers became a symbol of the French Revolution as that is what most of the mob storming the Bastille were wearing. Trousers reaching to the ankles spread to all classes in France and male fashion innovators like Beau Brummell started wearing them.
4. As with most new fashions, the establishment didn't like them at first and tried its best to stop the fad. In the early 19th century, students at Cambridge were deemed to be absent if they showed up for lectures wearing trousers, and in Sheffield clergy were banned from wearing them, too. Even when the Duke of Wellington himself, a hero of the realm, turned up to his club wearing ankle length trousers, he was turned away.
5. Trousers had not been popular in ancient Rome, either. In 397 ad the wearing of trousers in Rome was a crime punishable by exile.
6. It took even longer for it to become acceptable for women to wear trousers. There is a Bible verse which forbids women from wearing "that which pertains to men" even though it doesn't specifically mention trousers. In 1919, a woman called Luisa Capetillo was sent to prison in Puerto Rico for wearing trousers in public. The charges were dropped but it wasn't until the second world war when women did men's work that trousers became acceptable mainstream wear for women. It was only in 2013 that a Paris bylaw forbidding women from wearing trousers unless they were holding the handlebars of a Bicycle or the reins of a Horse was officially revoked.
7. Trousers cause twice as many accidents as chainsaws in Britain; but The Great Texas Trouser Massacre somehow doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
8. Ever wondered how on earth trousers slung so low that one's underpants are showing got to be a fashion? Wonder no more. It started in US prisons where prisoners do not get issued with new trousers during their sentence but have to wear the ones they arrived with. The diet and exercise regime of prison often meant prisoners would lose weight, and since belts and braces are banned in case they are used as weapons or for suicide, prisoners end up with saggy trousers. Disaffected youths in the US started copying that look.
9. Ever wondered why trousers are referred to as "a pair of trousers"? This was because trousers evolved from knee-length socks, which in medieval Europe got longer and longer and eventually joined at the crotch, becoming a single garment but were still referred to in the plural.
10. The second world war had some influence on the styles of trousers. There was a shortage of fabric, so turn ups weren't allowed, and tailors could be prosecuted for making trousers too long, allowing a man's wife to turn them up when he got them home. Metal, leather and elastic were in short supply, too, so elasticated waists and belts were illegal, too. Boys under twelve weren't allowed to wear long trousers after 1942.