28 February: Talcum Powder

Today is Talcum Powder Day. Here are ten things you might not know about talc.

1. The chemical formula for talc is H2Mg3(SiO3)4 or Mg3Si4O10(OH)2. It is made from hydrated magnesium silicate.
2. It's soft. It can be easily scratched with a fingernail, and its softness defines the lowest level (1) of the Mohs scale of mineral hardness.
3. The word talc derives from Latin, and the Latin word derived ultimately from the Persian word for this type of mineral.
4. The world's biggest supplier of talc is a company based in France called the Luzenac Group, which produces 400,000 tonnes of talc per year, 8% of the world's production.
5. Talc is not soluble in Water, but is slightly soluble in dilute mineral acids.
6. We know it mainly as stuff to apply after a bath, but it has any number of other uses. It is used in the manufacture of Paper, paint, Crayons, electric cables, ceramics, and laboratory table tops.
7. It is used to coat the insides of inner tubes and rubber gloves during manufacture to keep the surfaces from sticking.
8. Most tailor's chalk, or French chalk, is actually talc.
9. In the European Union, the additive number of talc is E553b.
10. A word of caution. Some believe (and have sued talc producing companies accordingly) that using talc can cause cancer, although so far, no studies have completely proved it. Injecting drug users can get pulmonary talcosis, an inflammation in the lungs, as it is sometimes added to illegal heroin.

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February 27: National Kahlua Day

February 27th is National Kahlua Day. Here's all you need to know about Kahlua.

1. In case you don't know what it is, it's a coffee flavoured liqueur from Mexico which also contains Rum, corn syrup and vanilla bean.
2. The word Kahlua means “House of the Acolhua people” in the Veracruz Nahuatl language spoken before the Spanish Conquest. It was also a 1930s street slang word for Coffee.
3. It was invented in 1936 by a bunch of guys who got sick of their day jobs in Veracruz, Mexico and decided to open a bar. One of them had the idea of mixing arabica coffee with alcohol, and his friend, a chemist, perfected the recipe. By 1940, it was being exported to the USA.
4. Kahlua is the best selling coffee liqueur in the world.
5. If you've never tasted it, here is the description from the Kahlua website describing what it tastes like: "Its deep Brown colour is attractive and deep. Kahlúa Original offers enticing scents of bitter-sweet coffee bean and roasted chest-nut and multi-layered flavours of black coffee and sweet Butter."
6. Production of Kahlua is a slow process - it takes about seven years to make. The coffee is grown in the shade, so it takes longer to mature than if it was grown in the sun, and rather than rip apart the fruit to get at the coffee bean inside, it's placed in a bag until the flesh of the fruit falls off naturally. This takes about six months. Meanwhile, the base spirit, which is made from sugarcane and is similar to rum, is aged for seven years before it is combined with coffee extract, vanilla and caramel.
7. In the 1950s the drink was advertised using a series of Mayan statuettes which belonged to one of the employees who happened to collect them.
8. In the 1960s, the company had the (for the time) unusual feature of being run entirely by women. The female management team were known as "The Kahlua Ladies".
9. A 1 ounce serving of Kalúa contains 20% alcohol /42 proof, zero fat, 14 carbs, and 91 calories. Because it has coffee in it, it also contains caffeine - about 25% the amount you would find in a similar volume of coffee.
10. Cocktails made from Kahlua include the Black Russian and the B52. The Black Russian is a cocktail of vodka and coffee liqueur. Traditionally a Black Russian is made by pouring the vodka over ice cubes or cracked ice in an old-fashioned glass, then adding the coffee liqueur. This cocktail first appeared in 1949, when Gustave Tops, a Belgian barman, created it at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels in honour of Perle Mesta, then U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. The B52 is a layered shot made with Kahlúa, Baileys Irish Cream, and a Grand Marnier (or triple sec or Cointreau). The ingredients should separate into three distinctly visible layers due to their relative densities. This drink was invented in Canada in the 1970s. It may have been invented by Peter Fich, head bartender at the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta, who created several new drinks and named them after his favourite bands.

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26 February: Blue Jeans

February 26 is Blue Jeans day, because Levi Strauss, creator of the world's first blue jeans, was born in Bavaria on this date in 1829. So here are 10 things you never knew about blue jeans.

1. The word "jeans" derives from the Italian city of Genoa, which was known as Gênes in France. It was possibly as far back as the 1500s when denim was invented there to make uniforms for the Italian navy. The word "denim" derives from the French "de Nimes" because the fabric was also made in the French city of Nimes.
2. Why are jeans Blue? The simple answer is that they were first invented as work wear and were called "waist overalls" - blue was the colour deemed least likely to show the dirt. However, in the early days of jeans, there was also a brown "duck" shade of denim; but this fabric wasn't as comfortable to wear as the blue, and it was eventually dropped. The blue colour comes from indigo dye, which was an easily available plant based dye, although it is made synthetically nowadays.
3. Why do the front pockets have rivets? Again, a simple answer - they made the pockets stronger. Early jeans had rivets in the back pockets, too, but they tended to scratch things people sat on, like saddles and were dropped.
4. Levi Strauss jeans use Orange thread to match the pocket rivets. This is a distinguishable feature and is trademarked.
5. Levi Strauss never wore jeans himself. They were made as work wear for the lower classes, so, as a wealthy businessman, he didn't need them.
6. 37 sewing operations are required to make one pair of Levi 501 jeans.
7. The oldest known pair of Levi's jeans were found in 1997 at a California mine; they were over 100 years old. The jeans were sold at auction to a Japanese collector for $60 000. These are not the most expensive jeans ever, though. That accolade goes to a pair of Secret Circus jeans which cost $1.3 million and included 15 large diamonds in the design.
8. Approximately 450 million pairs of jeans are sold in the USA every year, and every American, on average, owns seven pairs.
9. That doesn't mean everyone loves them. They have been banned from schools, clubs and workplaces as a symbol of rebellion. George W. Bush banned jeans in the White House 6 days into his presidency. It comes as no surprise that jeans are banned in North Korea because the authorities there see them as a symbol of American imperialism.
10. Jeans can help solve crimes. When jeans are washed, the dye fades in a unique pattern, so every pair of jeans has its own "fingerprint" once it has been laundered. Police can analyse the unique wear patterns of denim jeans belonging to suspects, and compare them to photographs taken from crime scenes. So if you're planning to rob a bank, wear brand new jeans which haven't been washed!

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25 February: Anthony Burgess Quotes

John Anthony Burgess Wilson, – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was born on 25 February 1917. Here are some quotes to celebrate his birthday.

1. Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.
2. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.
3. It's always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you're going.
4. I conclude that there is as much sense in nonsense as there is nonsense in sense.
5. Sanity is a handicap and liability if you're living in a mad world.
6. The state is never so efficient as when it wants money.
7. We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.
8. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.
9. If you expect the worst from a person you can never be disappointed.
10. Keep away from physicians. It is all probing and guessing and pretending with them. They leave it to Nature to cure in her own time, but they take the credit. As well as very fat fees.

I Write Fiction, Too!

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February 24th: February

Today, Quotes about the month of February.

1. Pleasures newly found are sweet When they lie about our feet: February... praise of which I nothing know. William Wordsworth
2. The last full moon of February stalks the fields; barbed wire casts a shadow. Jane Cooper
3. China tea, the scent of hyacinths, wood fires and bowls of violets - that is my mental picture of an agreeable February afternoon. Constance Spry.
4. February is a suitable month for dying. Everything around is dead, the trees black and frozen so that the appearance of green shoots two months hence seems preposterous, the ground hard and cold, the snow dirty, the winter hateful, hanging on too long. Anna Quindlen
5. Late February, and the air's so balmy snowdrops and crocuses might be fooled into early blooming. Then, the inevitable blizzard will come, blighting our harbingers of spring, and the numbed yards will go back undercover. In Florida, it's strawberry season— shortcake, waffles, berries and cream will be pencilled on the coffee shop menus. Gail Mazur
6. February is merely as long as is needed to pass the time until March. Dr. J. R. Stockton
7. February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer. Shirley Jackson
8. Why, what's the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness? William Shakespeare
9. The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within. William C. Bryant
10. Late February days; and now, at last, Might you have thought that Winter's woe was past; So fair the sky was and so soft the air. William Morris

See also

Quotes about

December 

January 

November

I Write Fiction, Too!

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23rd February: Shropshire Day

Shropshire Day is celebrated today because it is the feast day of St Milburga, abbess of Wenlock Priory. Here are ten more facts about the county of Shropshire.

1. Shropshire is an unusual county in that it doesn't have any cities. There are a couple of major towns, however. The largest town is Telford, with the county town of Shrewsbury being the second largest. Other sizeable towns are Oswestry, Bridgnorth, Newport and Ludlow.
2. The origin of the name is the Old English Scrobbesbyrigscīr, meaning "Shrewsburyshire". An old name for the county is Salop, from the Anglo-French "Salopesberia", and while it is an archaic name, residents of the county are called Salopians even today.
3. Shropshire was the venue for the first meeting of the English Parliament - in Acton Burnell. Edward I brought his parliament together at a barn here, the ruins of which can still be seen today. The county also hosted the first modern Olympic Games, in Much Wenlock. In 1850, a local self improvement guru called William Penny Brookes launched annual games in the village, in an attempt to get the local population to follow healthier pursuits than drinking and fighting. The annual games in Much Wenlock grew in importance and Brookes was a driving force behind the launch of the modern Olympics in 1896.
4. Famous people from Shropshire include: Charles Babbage, early computing pioneer; Charles Darwin; Mary Beard, classicist; Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel; actor Pete Postlethwaite; Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, aka 'Clive of India'; Roy Wood, of the band Wizzard; 1980s pop group T'Pau and Wilfred Owen, First World War poet.
5. Shropshire's motto is Floreat Salopia, meaning "May Shropshire flourish", and the county flower is the round-leaved sundew (drosera rotundifolia).
6. The Shropshire town of Wem has a couple of claims to fame. Not only is it the home town of Wizzard's Roy Wood, it is one of the shortest place names in England, and is also the place where sweet peas come from. Wem resident Henry Eckford crossbred plants until he came up with the highly scented blooms we know today. Every July the town holds a sweet pea festival.
7. The world's first Skyscraper was built in Shropshire. Ditherington flax mill, on the outskirts of Shrewsbury, was the first multi-storey iron-framed building in the world. It was built in 1797 and is a listed building. Also in Shrewsbury is the tallest Doric column in the world, at 133ft 6ins high. Lord Hill's column is located outside Shropshire County Council's headquarters.
8. Shropshire is also famous for its fossils. There are more rocks of different ages here than any area of similar size in the world. Ludlow and Wenlock Edge have even given their names to geological periods. The world's oldest known complete fossil was discovered in Shropshire at Caradoc.
9. Shrewsbury - do you pronounce it "Shrewsbury" or "Shrowsbury"? The answer is, whichever way you like. Even the locals pronounce it both ways.
10. On the 10th of January 1982, the coldest temperature recorded in England was -26.1 degrees, in the Shropshire town of Shawbury.

More English Counties

Buckinghamshire 
Lancashire
Northamptonshire
Oxfordshire
Somerset 
Sussex  
Yorkshire 

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February 22: George Washington

George Washington was a key figure in the founding of America. He served as the first president, from April 30, 1789-March 3, 1797.

1. Although his date of birth is recorded as February 22, 1732, his date of birth was actually February 11, 1731. This is because he was born during the changeover from the Gregorian Calendar from the Julian calendar, meaning his birthday was moved by eleven days. To complicate matters even more, his birthday fell before the old date for New Year’s Day, but after the new date for New Year’s Day, leading to the year being changed, as well.
2. He left school at 15, because his mother couldn't afford to send him to college. He became a land surveyor, and during this career, created some 199 land surveys, including one of his half brother's Turnip garden. It was a skill which would prove useful in his later military career.
3. He was over six feet tall, and as a young man, had Red hair. He didn't wear a wig like many men of the time. The hair you see in his portraits is all his own, although he did powder it to make it White.
4. He was physically strong and an excellent horseman. Jefferson called Washington "the best horseman of his age". That said, he did suffer from any number of health problems throughout his life. Diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, dysentery, malaria, tonsillitis, carbuncle, pneumonia, and epiglottitis to name but a few. He also had a lot of dental problems, losing all his teeth by the time he was 57. John Adams claimed he lost his teeth because he used them to crack Brazil nuts, but historians today reckon it was more likely to have been due to the Mercury oxide medication he was given for his other complaints. It's thought he may have been suffering from toothache when he posed for the portrait used on the one dollar bill. And no, he didn't have wooden false teeth. He did have dentures but they were made from ivory, bone, and human teeth.
5. He was a dog lover, and bred Dogs; he cross-bred black and tan hounds with large French hounds, creating a new breed - the American Foxhound. He is known as the "Father of the American Foxhound," and kept more than 30 of them. He gave them names, too - Drunkard, Tipler, Tipsy, Tartar, Truelove, and Sweet Lips are among the names he gave his dogs. Washington also kept terriers, spaniels, and a Dalmatian called Madame Moose. I even found reference to an obscure fact about him that he once stopped a war to return a lost dog to the enemy, but only one source mentioned it. A nice story if it's true.
6. As well as Horse-riding and dog breeding, Washington's hobbies included dancing and attending theatre. He also spent a lot of time writing letters - the best estimates put the number of letters he wrote somewhere between 18,000 and 20,000. Some of his favourite foods were cream of Peanut soup, mashed sweet potatoes with coconut, and string beans with Mushrooms. He drank in moderation and in later life became a successful distiller of Whiskey. He gambled in moderation, too, keeping detailed records of his wins and losses.
7. We know from his letters that as a young man he was in love with Sally Fairfax, his friend's wife, and wrote love letters to her even after her marriage. At 26, he married a widow called Martha Dandridge Custis, and became step father to her two children. He didn't have any children of his own. Whether he was childfree by choice or infertile due to his numerous health issues isn't known - but if you're father of a nation and a breed of dog, who needs kids?
8. George Washington is the only American president to be unanimously elected to the office. Twice. He received all the electoral votes for both his terms in office. He is also the only president to go into battle while serving as president, when on September 19, 1794, he led the militia on a nearly month-long march west over the Allegheny Mountains to the town of Bedford.
9. Washington was named Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military in 1798, even though he was no longer president by then. It was an advisory role, and probably motivated by a need for a well-known and respected face to help boost recruitment to the army in case the French invaded. Washington's letters tell us that he was frustrated because, even in this kind of role, nobody told him much about what was going on. No-one will ever have a higher military rank than George Washington. In 1976 a law was passed making him the highest ranking U.S. officer ever: General of the Armies of the United States, posthumously. Nobody will ever outrank him.
10. He died aged 67 on December 14, 1799. The cause of his death is disputed. A couple of days earlier, he'd been out riding in freezing cold weather and didn't change out of his wet clothes before dinner. He did the same thing the following day despite a severe sore throat. He woke up that night unable to speak or swallow. The doctor was called in, and by Washington's own request, removed several pints of his Blood. Bloodletting was a common treatment in those days and Washington actually believed it worked. When it became clear it wasn't going to work in this case one of the three doctors present suggested an emergency tracheotomy but since this was a new and unfamiliar procedure the other two refused. Washington's last words were "'Tis well." He was greatly mourned, even by former enemies. Napoleon Bonaparte ordered ten days of mourning throughout France, and the British Royal Navy's Channel Fleet lowered their flags to half mast. Japanese Shinto priests in Hawaii still worship him as a god.

See also
Abraham Lincoln

Ronald Reagan

Theodore Roosevelt

US Presidents

I Write Fiction, Too!

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February 21: Crocuses

Today's plant is the White crocus, Crocus versicolor, which is dedicated to St Severianus. These pretty flowers are starting to appear about now, telling us spring is on its way. 10 things you might not know about crocuses.

1. They belong to the Iris family; there are around 80 or 90 species of crocus.
2. They'll grow pretty much everywhere - meadows, forests and mountain peaks. They're found in Southern Europe, Central Asia, China, Middle East and Africa, but was was first cultivated on the Greek island of Crete.
3. The word “crocus” comes from the Greek word króki, which means weft, the thread used for weaving on a loom. Some people call them the light bulb flower because the buds are shaped a little like light bulbs just before they blossom.
4. They are among the first flowers to appear in the early spring. The leaves and flowers have a waxy cuticle which helps protect them from frost.
5. In flower symbolism, the crocus represents youth, mirthfulness and glee. Although they come in many colours, there isn't a specific meaning attached to the different colours beyond the universal meaning of the colour, eg. white: purity; Yellow: joy.
6. There's an ancient Greek legend about how the crocus flower came about. Mercury (Hermes) and Krókos were playing with a Frisbee like toy, throwing it to each other when tragedy struck and Krókos got hit on the head. The wound killed him, and while he was dying, three drops of Blood dripped into a flower, creating the stamen of the crocus.
7. Some species of crocus bloom in the autumn and among these species is Crocus sativus, the one that produces the expensive spice, Saffron.
8. The Greeks and Egyptians used the scent of the crocus to dispel the smell of alcoholic drinks. The Greeks wove the flowers into a wreath to wear around the head, while the Egyptians would spray the perfume on wine glasses.
9. To the Romans, the scent was associated with love. They liked it so much they would spray it on people as they arrived at banquets. The flowers were associated with Valentine's Day and were said to bloom at midnight on 14 February. One legend speaks of the physician Valentine being imprisoned for praying for his patients. The jailer's daughter was blind, and Valentine sent her a note, together with a crocus. When she opened it, her sight was restored and the first thing she saw was the crocus and the note from Valentine, which, according to the legend, was the first Valentine card.
10. In India people used to believe that if crocus petals were laid on the couple's bed after the wedding ceremony, it would provide the couple with a good, solid and loving relationship. The scent has aphrodisiac properties, which no doubt helped, as well.

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20 February: Psychic Jokes

To celebrate the anniversary of the Society for Psychical Research, here are some one liners about psychics and fortune tellers.

1. I used to go to spiritualist night school - you know, gazing into crystal balls and all that stuff. But I gave it up. I couldn’t see any future in it.
2. I nearly had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met.
3. Why do we never see the headline, “Psychic wins lottery”?
4. Fortune teller: You will be poor and unhappy until you are 30. Client: And then? Fortune teller: Then you’ll get used to it.
5. The inept psychic attempted clairvoyance but just couldn't get intuit.
6. If they're psychic and I need them so much, why don't they just phone me?
7. People are making end of the world predictions like there's no tomorrow.
8. Two fortune tellers meet on the street. One says to the other, “You’re fine, how am I?”
9. A psychic friend’s parents have started a business school. They made a prophet.
10. What do you call a psychic midget who has escaped from prison? A small medium at large!

Fan of ghosts and psychics? I've written some books for you.

Death and Faxes

Several women have been found murdered - it looks like the work of a ruthless serial killer. Psychic medium Maggie Flynn is one of the resources DI Jamie Swan has come to value in such cases - but Maggie is dead, leaving him with only the telephone number of the woman she saw as her successor, her granddaughter, Tabitha Drake.

Tabitha, grief-stricken by Maggie's death and suffering a crisis of confidence in her ability, wants nothing to do with solving murder cases. She wants to hold on to her job and find Mr Right (not necessarily in that order); so when DI Swan first contacts her, she refuses to get involved.

The ghosts of the victims have other ideas. They are anxious for the killer to be caught and for names to be cleared - and they won't leave Tabitha alone. It isn't long before Tabitha is drawn in so deeply that her own life is on the line.

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon 

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle (Where you can use the "Look Inside" function and read the first few pages for free!)

Glastonbury Swan

Every few weeks, there is a mysterious death in Glastonbury. They seem completely unrelated - an apparent suicide, a hit and run, a drug overdose, a magic act which goes horribly wrong - but is that what the killer wants people to think?

The police are certainly convinced - but one of the victims is communicating to medium Tabitha Drake that the deaths are linked.

Who is killing all these people and why? 

This is what Tabitha has to figure out - before it is too late to save someone very dear to her.

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon

E-book Amazon Kindle

19 February: Butter Festival

Today in Buddhist Tibet, there is a Butter Festival involving elaborate sculptures of yak butter, butter lamps turning paper prayer wheels, puppet shows, etc. Afterwards, the butter is left to the Crows.

1. In the west, we mostly eat butter made from Cow's Milk, but cows are not the only, and certainly not the first, creatures whose milk has been used to make butter. Goats, sheep, yaks, Camels, Reindeer, Horses and water buffalo can also produce butter.
2. Butter is one of those foods which gets bad press as one of the most unhealthy foods you can eat, which is why Margarine has been so popular since the 1950s. Butter may not be as bad as you think. It has vitamins in it - A, D, E, and K. Butter made from grass-fed cows' milk also has CLAs, Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. About 30 percent of the fat in butter is mono-unsaturated fat, the same fat as in Olive oil.
3. Butter is usually about 16-18% Water, and if salted, the Salt content is about 2.5%. Salt was first added to butter to help preserve it.
4. It takes 21 pints of milk to make a pound of butter. It's made by agitating un-homogenised milk. This works because the milk contains microscopic globules of butterfat surrounded by membranes made from fat and protein. The membranes stop the fat from pooling together, but shaking up the milk breaks the membranes so the fat can join and separate from the rest of the milk.
5. Why is butter Yellow? The yellow colour initially came from the carotene in the cows' diet. Today it's as likely to be artificial colouring to make it look yellower. That is not such a new thing as you might think. During the Middle Ages, Marigold flowers were used to make butter more yellow.
6. The country which produces the most butter is India, followed by the USA, France, Germany and New Zealand. India doesn't export much of its butter, though, whereas New Zealand does. The country which consumes the most butter per person is France.
7. Ghee, a vital ingredient in Indian cuisine, is clarified butter, made by heating butter to its melting point and allowing it to cool; the remaining components separate by density and the pure butterfat can be poured off. In India, ghee is seen as a symbol of purity and is offered to the gods; there is a children's tale of a young Krishna stealing butter.
8. Butter becomes spreadable at about 15 °C (60 °F), which is warmer than the inside of the Fridge. Keeping it outside the fridge means it goes off quickly. Some fridges have a special butter compartment which is slightly warmer and may even have a small heater. Keeping butter wrapped extends its shelf life, in or out of the fridge. In ancient times, people had ingenious methods of storing butter so it wouldn't go rancid. In Ireland, they used to put butter in barrels and bury it in peat bogs, where it would keep for years because of the cool, airless, antiseptic and acidic environment of a peat bog. It would, however, develop a strong, peaty flavour. Barrels of ancient butter are still dug up by archaeologists today. It resembles grey cheese and isn't edible.
9. At one time, only poor people and barbarians ate butter. The Greek comic poet Anaxandrides coined the phrase boutyrophagoi, or "butter-eaters" to refer to Northern barbarians. In the middle ages butter was seen as a food only fit for peasants. It wasn't until the 16th century, when the Roman Catholic Church decreed people could eat butter during Lent, that it caught on with the middle classes.
10. People didn't just eat the stuff, either. Around the same time, it was used to burn in lamps instead of oil during Lent and when oil was scarce.

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February 18: Queen Mary I

Born on this date in 1516 was Queen Mary I, the queen of England before Elizabeth I. Here are ten things you might not know about her.

1. Mary I was the first queen regnant of England whose reign was not disputed.
2. She was the only child of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to survive to adulthood. Her mother had had four stillborn or short-lived children before Mary was born at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, London on February 18, 1516.
3. She could play the virginals (a type of harpsichord) by the time she was four and could read and write Latin by the age of nine. Henry doted on her when she was a child, boasting that she never cried. When it became obvious Catherine would have no more children, Henry sent Mary to Wales and gave her her own court there and royal prerogatives normally reserved for the Prince of Wales. Mary was Princess of Wales in all but official title - she was never invested as such.
4. However, the good relations with her father weren't destined to last. When Henry's marriage to Catherine went sour and he married the already pregnant Anne Boleyn, he demoted Mary from Princess to merely "Lady Mary" and even though Anne's child was another girl, Elizabeth, he named her his successor. Mary refused to acknowledge Anne as queen or Elizabeth as heir. Mary and Henry didn't speak to each other for three years. Once Anne had fallen out of favour as well, and Elizabeth also declared illegitimate along with Mary, Mary did return to court.
5. Records of the time showed she spent her money on clothes and gambling with cards. She had pale skin, although her cheeks were ruddy, pale blue eyes and red-gold hair.
6. Throughout her childhood, beginning when she was just two years old, attempts were made to marry her off. At two years old, she was promised to Francis, the infant son of King Francis I of France; at the age of six, she was contracted to marry her first cousin, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Both engagements were broken off. Henry suggested that Mary marry King Francis I himself, because he wanted an alliance with England. A marriage treaty was signed in which Mary would marry either Francis I or his second son Henry, Duke of Orleans, but the alliance came about anyway and the marriage proved unnecessary. Later, Mary was courted by Duke Philip of Bavaria but he was rejected for being Lutheran. There were also plans to marry Mary off to the Duke of Cleves, who was the same age, but in the end, Henry and the Duke's sister Anne of Cleves were married instead. Once she was queen, Mary began looking for a husband for herself, and eventually married Prince Philip of Spain. For him, it was purely a political match, but Mary actually loved him and was distraught when he left for Spain. The marriage wasn't popular in England, because Mary, as a woman, would by law have to surrender all her titles and goods to her husband - so they could have ended up with a Spanish king. Philip's father had granted him the crown of Naples and his claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem; so Mary became Queen of Naples and titular Queen of Jerusalem on her marriage.
7. Mary's brother, King Edward, didn't want her to succeed him because of religious differences - on the rare occasions during his reign that she attended court, they'd argue - one Christmas one such argument ended with both Edward and Mary in tears. He wanted to exclude Mary from the succession but was told he couldn't do that without disinheriting Elizabeth as well. It was Edward who declared his successor should be Lady Jane Grey. When Edward lay dying, Mary was called to court to visit him, but fearing a plot to have her captured and imprisoned, she didn't go. She went to East Anglia instead, from whence she orchestrated her campaign to win the throne. Less than a month after her brother died, Mary rode triumphantly into London with her half-sister Elizabeth and a procession of over 800 nobles and gentlemen. She was crowned the following October in Westminster Abbey.
8. Mary desperately wanted to produce an heir, but it wasn't to be. In 1544, possibly a result of her sheer desperation to have a baby, she suffered a phantom pregnancy. Everyone was so convinced Mary was pregnant that they put plans in place in case she died in childbirth, and called her sister Elizabeth out of house arrest to be a witness to the birth. Rumours circulated that Mary had given birth to a son, quickly followed by rumours that she'd never been pregnant at all. In July 1555, her abdomen receded. The pregnancy was dismissed as more likely to "end in wind than anything else". Mary was distraught, believing God was punishing her for tolerating heretics, and she became severely depressed. In 1557, after a visit from Philip, she again appeared to be pregnant, but again there was no child. Resigned to childlessness, Mary named Elizabeth as her successor.
9. Sadly, not only was Mary not pregnant, but may have been suffering from uterine cancer. She died aged just 42. Although Mary had stated in her will that she wished to be buried next to her mother, she was interred in Westminster Abbey in a tomb in which Elizabeth would also be buried.
10. Mary's persecution of protestants earned her the nickname "Bloody Mary".

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