31 March: Oklahoma! The Musical

On this date in 1943, Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma! opened on Broadway. Here are some facts you may not know about the show:

1. The musical Oklahoma! is based on a 1931 play called Green Grow the Lilacs, by Lynn Riggs, a part-Cherokee playwright who was born in Oklahoma. The play wasn't a massive success, but ten years later in 1941, Theresa Helburn, a theatre producer, saw its potential as a musical.
2. It was the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. When Theresa Helburn first contacted Rodgers about the project, he was working with Lorenz Hart. Oscar Hammerstein had been keen to set the play to music before, without any success, and told Rodgers if Hart ever dropped out, he'd be happy to collaborate instead. As it turned out, Hart wasn't very interested in the play - he wasn't inspired by the rural setting, and was in any case unwell. So Hammerstein took over.
3. The musical is set outside town of Claremore, Oklahoma Territory, in 1906. The plot concerns a farm girl named Laurie Williams trying to make her mind up between two men, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister farmhand Jud Fry. There is a sub plot concerning the romance between cowboy Will Parker and his fiancée, Ado Annie.
4. The title wasn't always Oklahoma! - at first, it was Away We Go!. A couple of pre-Broadway tryout productions didn't seem promising. Hammerstein's previous six shows had been flops; there were no famous people in it and while the audiences liked it, the reviews were mediocre. Rodgers and Hammerstein had faith in the show, however and decided to tweak it a little before the Broadway production. Away We Go! didn't feature the song Oklahoma!, but that song was added, and the show was re-named for it. It was a Broadway box-office smash and ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances.
5. Most of the reviews of the Broadway show were glowing. Only the New York Post was negative about it. "It all seemed just a trifle too cute", their critic wrote. She thought the score consisted of "a flock of Mr. Rodgers's songs that are pleasant enough, but still manage to sound quite a bit alike ... without much variety in the presentation," and the show was "very picturesque in a studied fashion, reminding us that life on a farm is apt to become a little tiresome."
6. Oklahoma! was the first of a post-war wave of Broadway musicals to reach London's West End. It opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on April 30, 1947 and ran for 1,543 performances. The British production, too wasn't without its teething troubles. A pre-London run opened a day late at the Manchester Opera House, after the ship carrying the cast, scenery, and costumes ran aground on a sandbank off Southampton.
7. Actors who have appeared in productions of Oklahoma! include Howard Keel, Hugh Jackman, Alfred Molina, Patty Duke, Margaret Hamilton, Maureen Lipman and Louise Plowright.
8. The title song became the official state song of the state of Oklahoma in 1953.
9. The 1955 film adaptation featured Shirley Jones in her film debut. It was directed by Fred Zinnemann and choreographed by Agnes de Mille.
10. It was the first film for which a soundtrack album was produced, although the first edition didn't feature all the songs. It sold over a million copies.

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30 March: Good Friday

Today is Good Friday 2018, so here are 10 celebrations and superstitions people around the world observe on Good Friday.

1. Good Friday is traditionally the time to sow Parsley. If it grows thick and strong, it brings prosperity to the mother of the household.
2. According to old superstition, those born on Good Friday have the power of seeing and commanding spirits.
3. In the church of Glentham, Lincolnshire, there is a tomb with a figure, popularly called Molly Grime. The figure used to be washed every Good Friday by seven old maids of the town, with water brought from Newell Well. Each old maid was paid receiving a shilling (5p) for her trouble. This was done because of of an old bequest connected with a local property. In about 1832, the property was sold and the custom was discontinued.
4. On Good Friday it was once customary in Dorset and Devon, for a clerk to carry to each house a few white, bitter-sweet cakes, bout one eighth of an inch thick, and about five or seven inches in diameter, as an Easter offering in exchange for a gratuity.
5. Before the Reformation in England, a dressed figure of Christ on a crucifix would be carried around the altar by two priests. They'd lay it on the ground and kiss its hands and feet with tears and sighs. The congregation would bring it gifts, such as corn and Eggs. The image was then buried, while incense burned. Flowers were placed on the grave.
6. Bread baked on Good Friday was kept by the family for the whole year. People believed crumbs from it dropped into water would help cure any ailment, but particularly diarrhoea.
7. Creeping to the cross is a Catholic Good Friday tradition in which people approach the altar rails to pay homage to the cross. In Europe, as late as the 16th Century, people ‘‘creeping to the cross’’ brought offerings of eggs, bacon and other foods. The custom derives from the veneration of the True Cross at Jerusalem.
8. Eggs feature in several Good Friday traditions from around the world. In Serbia, Easter eggs are traditionally put in vineyards to ensure a bountiful crop. The Tyrolese believe a Good Friday egg is fresh for a year, and cannot be broken even if thrown over a house. In parts of France, an egg laid on Good Friday, cooked, and inserted into an acorn, could be hung around a child's neck to cure stomach-ache.
9. If it rain on Good Friday or Easter Day, T’will be a good year of grass but a sorrowful year of hay. English traditional proverb.
10. A game of competitive marbles is played at Tinsley Green in a tradition dating back to at least 1600.

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29th March: The Terracotta Army

China's great Terracotta Army was uncovered on 29 March 1974, near the ancient capital of Xian. Here are some things you might not know about it.

1. The terracotta army consists of more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, and 670 horses. Some are not in uniform so are possibly spies.
2. It's not only soldiers - figures of musicians, acrobats, and concubines have been found as well, plus figures of birds such as cranes, and ducks.
3. Each figure is different. Each has unique facial features; some have Beards and different types of headgear. The soldiers stand at different heights depending on their rank, the generals being the tallest. Eight moulds were used to shape the heads, but after that, individual facial features and expressions were sculpted on by craftsmen using clay.
4. It is the largest archaeological find of its kind - nearly 56 square kilometers, and they haven't finished excavating it yet. There is thought to be a whole lot more to find, including the tomb of the emperor himself. In September 1987, the Terracotta Army was praised as the Eighth Wonder of the World by former French President Jacques Chirac.
5. The Terracotta Army was commissioned by China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, for his mausoleum. Construction began on the mausoleum and the army as soon as he ascended to the throne at the age of 13 in 246 BC. Rather like the ancient Egyptians, his tomb was kitted out with things the Emperor might need in the afterlife. Over 700,000 labourers worked on the project. They carried on building the soldiers for about 40 years.
6. A bit about Qin Shi Huang. On the one hand, it was he who unified the Chinese provinces and established the capital at Xianyang. Written script, a system of canals and roads, advances in metallurgy, standardised weights and measures and the early Great Wall came out of his reign. However, the emperor was a cruel man who would have scholars killed if they disagreed with him. Many of the workmen who built his tomb were killed so that the location of the tomb would remain a secret. Qin Shi Huang was afraid of death and sent thousands of people out to find the elixir of life for him. Most of them never came back, because they knew if they returned empty handed they would be executed. Qin Shi Huang believed mercury was the secret and took mercury tablets - and died at the age of 50 from mercury poisoning.
7. There are high levels of Mercury in the ground around the site. It's thought that even though he died from mercury poisoning, the emperor was so convinced mercury was the key to eternal life that he had flowing rivers of the stuff installed in his tomb.
8. The location of the tomb did remain hidden for thousands of years, only to be discovered by accident in 1974, by some farmers attempting to dig a well. The farmers found a pit with about 6,000 terracotta soldiers in it. The site was soon identified as the burial place of Emperor Qin, and excavations began almost immediately.
9. Soldiers must have weapons, of course, and sure enough, there are plenty of those in the tomb as well. There are around 40,000 bronze weapons, including battle axes, crossbows, arrowheads and spears. The weapons had been chrome plated, a technique that was first used in modern times in 1937, thus proving the ancient Chinese had a remarkable knowledge of metallurgy. The horses had saddles, as well, which challenged the accepted thought that horse saddles were invented by the Samaritans in 365AD.
10. The statues are 175–190 cm tall. Originally, they would have been painted in colourful lacquer paint, which has largely faded away.

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28 March: Washing machines

On this date in 1797 Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patented a washing machine. Here are ten facts you might not know about washing machines.

1. Nathaniel Briggs wasn't the first person to think of ways of washing laundry by machine. A drawing of an early washing machine appeared in the January 1752 issue of The Gentlemen's Magazine and in 1767 Jacob Christian Schäffer published a design for one in Germany. A British patent was issued in 1791. Briggs was the first to patent the idea in America.
2. The earliest designs were basically wooden boxes which had to be turned by hand. It was the 20th century before electric washing machines began to appear. Although Alva J. Fisher is often credited with this invention, there are other patents that pre-date Fisher's, so the actual inventor of the electric washing machine is unknown.
3. There is no existing description of Briggs's machine, thanks to the US Patent Office fire in 1836.
4. Washing machines account for about 22% of all household Water use. The average family does 8-10 loads of washing per week. The average load contains 16 different items and takes just under an hour and half to be washed and dried.
5. About 90% of all laundry is done by women, which has led to historians claiming that the washing machine has done more for women's liberation than birth control. Before washing machines, a woman would have to set aside a whole day just to do the laundry - now she can simply shove it in the machine and go off to work. Washing machines have also been credited with ending the Magdalene Asylums in Ireland, where young women were used as virtual slave labour doing laundry for people. The asylum's economic viability was undercut and they eventually closed. However, it's not all good news. Women may have become more isolated thanks to the washing machine. Before, women would gather at rivers or public washhouses to do their laundry together. Washing machines meant they were stuck at home on their own.
6. You can get front-loading and top-loading washing machines. The front load ones are 30-50% more efficient in terms of energy and water consumption.
7. British inventor James Dyson claims that washing clothes for 15 minutes by hand gets them cleaner than one hour in a washing machine. This is because hand washing flexes the material, which the machines cannot do.
8. Which country manufactures the most washing machines? China. 30,355,000 were made there in 2005. Italy and the USA are the next two biggest producers.
9. While the design of washing machines hasn't changed a lot since the early 20th century, improvements have been made. The early ones had two speed gearboxes, and no drum suspension, which was why they tended to "walk" across floors when in use.
10. Washing machine in need of a clean? Add a couple of cups of vinegar to an empty washing machine and run a wash cycle without any detergent or laundry.

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27th March: Florida

On this date in 1512 Florida was discovered - Florida was sighted by Juan Ponce de Leon, a Spanish explorer. Here are ten things you might not know about Florida.

1. It was Juan Ponce de Leon who gave the state its name. He called it 'La Florida', which is Spanish for "land of flowers".
2. Florida has the lowest high point of any US state. Britton Hill is only 345 feet above sea level. Florida’s mean elevation is only 100 feet. Only Delaware's is lower at 60 feet. Also, if you're anywhere in Florida, you're no more than 60 miles from the sea.
3. Florida is the only state which has two rivers with the same name. There is a Withlacoochee in north central Florida and a Withlacoochee in central Florida.
4. Florida is the largest producer of citrus fruit in the United States. Most of the fruit, 90%, is used to make juice. Hardly surprising then, that Florida's official state beverage is Orange juice and the state flower is orange blossom. The official state gem, on the other hand, is moonstone, which doesn't occur naturally anywhere in the state.
5. The American alligator is the state reptile - South Florida is the only place in the world where alligators and Crocodiles co-exist in the wild. The state bird is the mockingbird, the state mammal the Florida Panther, the state insect the Zebra longwing butterfly and the state tree is the Palmetto palm.
6. The world's first scheduled passenger service airline flight took place in Florida in 1914 when Tony Jannus flew passengers from St. Petersburg, Florida to Tampa. Pioneering in the field of flight continued more recently when Florida became the launch location for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs. The telephone area code for Cape Canaveral and Brevard County in Florida is 321, which was especially assigned to the area because of the space programme. It represents the countdown sequence immediately before launch. Also in 1959, Florida became the only place in the world to have its mail delivered by a cruise missile, fired from a U.S. Navy submarine. The mail consisted entirely of commemorative postal covers. Twenty-two minutes after launch, the missile arrived at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport, Florida. The mail was retrieved, sorted and routed in the usual way from a post office in Jacksonville. However, this is a rather expensive and not very safe way of delivering mail generally, so it didn't happen again.
7. Florida has a higher percentage of older people than any other state with 17% of the population over the age of 65. That is set to rise to 25% by 2030. The retirement industry is one of the biggest sectors of the economy, along with tourism. The full title of the official Florida state song is “Swanee River (Old Folks at Home).” As well as the beaches and over a thousand golf courses, Florida has Disney World, which attracts more visitors each year than any other US amusement park. It also has one of the most dived shipwrecks in the world, the Benwood, on French Reef in the Florida Keys.
8. The capital is Tallahassee but the largest city is Jacksonville, which is the largest US city in terms of area. Saint Augustine, Florida is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States, founded in 1565, by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Florida's first governor. Also here are the Shark Tooth Capital of the World (Venice) and the Fern Capital of the World (Pierson).
9. Two annual events worth mentioning are The Mug Race, which is the longest river sailboat race in the world at 38.5 miles, held on St. Johns River in Florida; and the Annual Interstate Mullet Toss, which takes place in The Flora-Bama Lounge and Package, which is based on the state line with Alabama. The bar is partly in Florida and partly in Alabama. The Mullet Toss is basically a competition where people throw a dead fish across the state line.
10. While in Florida, you must not: fall asleep under a hairdryer; have sex with a porcupine; kill deer while swimming; molest a trash can; have a bath or shower without wearing a bathing suit; sing in public in a bathing suit; break more than three dishes a day; or Fart in a public place after 6pm on a Thursday.

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26th March: Robert Frost

Robert Frost, the American poet was born on this date in 1874. Here are some Robert Frost quotes.

1. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.
2. In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
3. A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
4. Keep all your troubles in your own pocket. But, make sure that the pocket has a hole!
5. I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
6. Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
7. The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
8. Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
9. We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.
10. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

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25 March: Founding of Venice

It was on 25 March 421 that the City of Venice was founded. Here are ten things you might not know about Venice.

1. Nobody knows for sure when or why Venice was founded, although one theory is that people fled to the islands to escape Germanic invaders. Traditionally, the foundation date was set as the date of the first church, San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto, was founded, ie, at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421 (the Feast of the Annunciation).
2. Venice has 118 islands (at least one of which is man made - Sacca Fisola, built in the Sixties, by adding landfill to a patch of saltmarsh adjacent to Giudecca), 177 canals (including the famous S shaped Grand Canal, which divides the city in two) and 417 bridges (72 of which are private).
3. The city's name comes from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BCE and their name means "beloved", "lovable", or "friendly". A connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the colour 'sea-blue', is also possible.
4. A common sight and tourist attraction in Venice are gondoliers. There are about 400 of them in the city. They must have a licence to operate a gondola, and only three or four new licences are granted each year. A gondola is about 11 meters long and weighs around 600 kilos. The vast majority of gondoliers are men; it was only in 2010 that a woman managed to pass the strict qualification exam and get a licence. Her name is Giorgia Boscolo, a gondlolier's daughter. Not that women encroaching on a traditionally male preserve has been welcomed by existing gondoliers, not even Giorgia's father. “I still think being a gondolier is a man’s job,” he said, “but I am sure that, with experience, Giorgia will be able to do it.”
5. Gondola rides are notoriously expensive, so not the way to navigate the city in general. A small number are used as ferries for foot passengers (traghetti) crossing the Grand Canal at points where there are no bridges. Otherwise there are motorised waterbuses (vaporetti). Cars are not allowed in the city, or even Bicycles. Riding a bike anywhere in the city will result in a fine. Or you can walk, although there are some very narrow streets. There is a street in Venice which is only 53 cm. wide at chest level. It is called Calletta or Ramo Varisco.
6. The foundations of the buildings in Venice rest on submerged wooden piles. The piles penetrate a layer of sand and mud until they reach a much harder layer of compressed clay. Although they have been submerged for centuries, the wooden piles haven't rotted, due to the lack of Oxygen in the Water. The wood is alder, sourced from present day Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro.
7. It is well known that Venice is sinking by up to 2mm every year. This has caused people to move away in droves - the population has halved in the last fifty years. Some believe that by 2030, nobody will live there at all - it will be a ghost town visited by tourists only during the day. Efforts to stop the city from flooding are in process and said to be completed by 2018. The solution currently under evaluation is 78 hollow pontoons on the sea bed at the entrances to the lagoon. They can be filled with air when a high tide is predicted, and block water from coming in from the sea. However, a lot of money has been spent on this, and it may not work. Banning cruise ships has been suggested, too. Although this isn't a popular solution, some cruise lines are voluntarily staying away until a solution is found.
8. Venice was once a separate country. Between the end of the seventh century and 1797, it was the Republic of Venice, with wealth and prestige based on trade, although it did build fortifications to protect its interests. By the time Napoleon came to invade, though, it had declined and only had 11 ships left to try and fight him off. The Venetian dialect has left us with several common words, including arsenal, ciao, ghetto, gondola, lagoon, lido and regatta.
9. Venice is famous for carnival masks. The Carnival of Venice is thought to have started in the year 1162, after a victory in war, when people gathered in San Marco Square to celebrate. It was revived recently in 1979. In the olden days, masks were worn in Venice a lot. From October through to Shrove Tuesday and on Ascension Day, people were allowed to wear masks. Maskmakers (mascherari) enjoyed a special position in society, with their own laws and their own guild. The first mention of masks in Venice dates back the 13th century, when the Great Council made it a crime for masked people to throw scented Eggs, or ovi odoriferi. It was a tradition to fill eggshells with rose water perfume, and for young men to throw them at their friends or at young women they liked. However, there is always that small minority which ruins things - some eggs would be filled with ink or other damaging substances, leading to the practice being banned unless the thrower could be identified.
10. Famous people from Venice include Giovanni Bellini, Renaissance painter, Giacomo Casanova, Marco Polo, Titian and Antonio Vivaldi. Venice is twinned with Yerevan, Armenia, and Dubrovnik, Croatia.

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24 March: James I

On this date in 1603, James I, son of Mary Queen of Scots, united the English and Scottish crowns when he acceded to the throne following the death of Elizabeth I.

1. James was born on 19 June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle. He was the son of Mary Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Theirs was hardly a match made in heaven - Darnley was secretly working with Mary's enemies and had her private secretary, David Rizzio, murdered three months before James was born. Darnley himself was murdered in 1567 and Mary married the man many suspected was the killer, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell.
2. Mary's marriage stirred up unrest against her - rebels had her arrested and thrown into prison where they forced her to abdicate in favour of her son, who was just 13 months old at the time. Her illegitimate half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, was appointed regent.. There were to be three more regents before James came of age in 1578. At the age of 37, James became king of England and Ireland as well as Scotland, when Elizabeth I died without issue. James had a claim to the throne of England as a great-great-grandson of Henry VII. He ruled over all three kingdoms for 22 years after that.
3. His reign is known as the Jacobean era. The name James derives from the Hebrew name Jacobus. "Jack" was a nickname which derived from this. This may be why the British flag as we know it today, which originated during his reign, is nicknamed the "Union Jack".
4. So apart from the flag, what else did James' reign give us? The King James Bible, for one thing. James believed everyone should be able to read the Bible for themselves, and authorised its translation into English. It was published in 1611 and is still used today; and bonfire night, since he was the king Guy Fawkes and his friends plotted to kill.
5. James was a writer. He wrote several treatises on various subjects, from the age of 18, when he published Some Rules and Cautions to be Observed and Eschewed in Scottish Prosody. Later, he wrote The True Law of Free Monarchies and Basilikon Doron (Royal Gift), which supported the Divine Right of Kings. Since it was written as an instruction book for his heir, it also included some practical tips on how to be king. One example - "Hold no Parliaments but for the necesitie of new Lawes, which would be but seldome". In 1604 he wrote A Counterblaste To Tobacco describing smoking as “hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs”. He was obsessed with the threat posed by witches and wrote a tract on that, too, in 1597, called Daemonologie, which also touched upon vampires and werewolves.
6. His obsession with witchcraft probably started during his stay in Denmark, where witch hunts were already common. The North Berwick witch trials were the first major persecution of Witches in Scotland under the Witchcraft Act 1563. James attended the trials in person, and even tortured some of the alleged witches himself. Several people were convicted of using witchcraft to send storms against James's ship. This obsession may well have been what inspired the witches in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth.
7. Was he gay? There was speculation, but no conclusive evidence. As a young man, he showed little interest in women. At the time, he was praised for his chastity, but in later times this would help fuel rumours about his sexuality. As king, he knew he must marry and a marriage was arranged with Anne of Denmark, younger daughter of Protestant Frederick II, was 14 years old. They were married by proxy, after which Anne sailed from Denmark bound for Scotland. Stormy weather forced her ship to Norway instead, where Anne found herself stranded. James sailed from Leith with a 300-strong retinue to rescue her. After a proper wedding in Oslo the couple spent a few months in Scandinavia before sailing home. James seemed infatuated with his new wife; he wrote her poems and love letters; she was pregnant many times, although only three of their children survived to adulthood. His writings mention sodomy as an unforgivable crime. All the same, the rumours wouldn't go away. Throughout his life James had close relationships with male courtiers - historians noted how contemporary observers said he treated his favourites as most men would treat their wives or lovers. Restoration of Apethorpe Palace undertaken in 2004–08 revealed a previously unknown passage linking the bedchambers of James and George Villiers (later Duke of Buckingham), one of his favourites. Buckingham's own writings suggest that the two shared a bed, but are somewhat ambiguous. A lot of the rumours, however, originated with one of the king's bitter enemies, Sir Anthony Weldon.
8. He loved the outdoors, and hunting. He is said to have once killed every single deer in one forest. It's also said he spent more time on hunting than on affairs of state. He liked bear baiting and cock fighting, too - but disapproved of cutting trees down.
9. He died aged 58, after suffering poor health for several years. He had arthritis, gout and kidney stones; hod lost his teeth and drank heavily. He died at Theobalds House on 27 March 1625, soon after having a stroke. His eldest son, Henry, had died at the age of 18, so he was succeeded by his second son, Charles.
10. Bill Paterson, Patrick Malahide, Jeremy Irons. Robert Carlyle, Jonathan Pryce and Derrek Riddell are among the actors who have portrayed James I on screen.

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23 March: Near Miss Day - Asteroids

Near Miss Day Commemorates the day a huge Asteroid nearly missed hitting the earth.

1. An asteroid is defined as a small body orbiting the Sun which is composed primarily of rock or metal. The word asteroid was coined by the astronomer William Herschel in 1802, and means “star shaped.”
2. There are currently over 600,000 known asteroids in our solar system, and according to scientists, millions we don't know about. Yet. Most of them are located in the Asteroid Belt, between Mars and Jupiter.
3. The first asteroid to be discovered is also the largest - Ceres - discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801 and named after the Roman goddess of the harvest. Ceres is also the largest known asteroid at 933 kilometres (580 miles) across. On the other end of the scale, the smallest asteroid that we know of so far, at time of writing, is 6-foot-wide (2 meters) and has the designation 2015 TC25. It was observed when it made a close flyby of Earth in October 2015.
4. Only about 200 asteroids exceed 100 km in diameter. According to theory, asteroids are what is left of a planet which failed to form, prevented from forming by Jupiter's gravity. If all the solar system's asteroids ever did join together and form a planet, that planet would be smaller than Earth's Moon.
5. The average temperature of the surface of a typical asteroid is minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 73 degrees Celsius). The surface of most asteroids is thought to be covered in dust. Most asteroids are irregular in shape because they are too small to exert enough gravitational pull to become spherical.
6. About 75% of asteroids are Grey in colour and are probably made of clay and stony silicate rocks. 17% appear reddish or greenish, and are probably made of silicate materials and nickel-iron. The vast majority of the rest are Red and probably made of nickle-iron. There are other, very rare types, like the asteroid Vesta, which has a basaltic, volcanic crust.
7. The potentially dangerous asteroids are the ones which intersect with the Earth's orbit. These are known as Apollo objects. Occasionally, one may do what is deemed a close flyby of the Earth - though everything is relative. In September 2017, the near-Earth asteroid 3122 Florence passed Earth at 4.4 million miles (7 million km), or 18 times the distance to the moon. There are no known asteroids likely to pose a threat for quite some time. Only asteroids bigger than a quarter of a mile are capable of causing global disaster like the one that wiped out the Dinosaurs. Much smaller asteroids, or pieces of them, fall to Earth all the time. Around once a year there will be one which is as big as a car - but they usually burn up in the atmosphere. They cause bright fireball effects in the sky which someone will inevitably post on Youtube but no serious damage.
8. It could be thanks to asteroids that any of us are here at all. Scientists believe asteroid and comet collisions may have delivered the water-ice and other carbon-based molecules to Earth so life could evolve. Later collisions shaped which species evolved and which were wiped out.
9. Asteroids can have moons, just like planets do, and even ring systems. Others are binary systems, with two asteroids orbiting each other. Some have tails - there is an asteroid out there with six tails. The ones which pass close to Earth can be studied extensively. We now know that Florence, for example, has at least one big crater and two moons. (I don't know if the moons have been named but my suggestions would be Zebedee and Dylan. Apologies to those who don't get the 1960s UK cultural reference!)
10. Which brings us to asteroid names. At first, when they were thought to be planets, they had to be named after figures from mythology but the rules have changed several times and you can name an asteroid after virtually anything. There are asteroids named after celebrities, scientists, cities, rivers, mountains, organisations, even fictional characters like Star Trek's Mr Spock. There are seven asteroids named for the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia who were killed in 2003. The only thing the naming authority has ruled out is naming an asteroid after your pet. The strangest asteroid name I've come across is 18923 Jennifersass. One wonders if Jennifer was flattered or furious that someone thought she had a bum the size of a small planet! If you want to browse the meanings of the names given to asteroids, you can find many of them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meanings_of_minor_planet_names#Meanings_from_100,001_to_200,000 (though Jennifersass, sadly, wasn't listed).

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22nd March: The Beatles

On this date in 1963, 55 years ago, The Beatles’ first album, Please Please Me was released in the UK. Here are some things you might not know about the Fab Four.

1. The band went through several changes of name and membership since July 1957, when Paul McCartney, then 15, joined John Lennon's skiffle group, the Quarrymen. Johnny and the Moondogs, The Rainbows, Silver Beetles and British Everly Brothers were all names they briefly used before settling on the Beatles. No-one is quite sure where that name came from but the theories include that it was inspired by Buddy Holly's Crickets. Then band member Stuart Sutcliff suggested “Beetles” which also happened to be the name of a gang in the Marlon Brando film The Wild One. It's John Lennon who is thought to have changed the spelling to reflect beat music and the beat generation.
2. Everyone knows who the four Beatles were - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. There have also been a number of people referred to as "The Fifth Beatle" either because they were once members of the band or collaborated with them. John Lennon's friend Stuart Sutcliffe was the first “Fifth Beatle.” He was the bassist when they were a five-member band. He tragically died of a brain haemorrhage and was never replaced. Paul began playing the bass Guitar instead. Another was Pete Best, who was the drummer. He was fired and replaced by Ringo.
3. The band failed their first audition for Decca records on January 1, 1962 because the record company believed that “groups of guitars are on the way out”.
4. Although they could play guitar, keyboard and drums, and wrote songs, none of the Beatles could read Music. Paul once asked a girlfriend's mother to teach him, but didn't have the time or patience to continue with the lessons. They played everything by ear. This may be the reason for the often quoted story about when Paul woke up one morning with a tune in his head and had to come up with some nonsense lyrics so he wouldn't forget the tune. "Scrambled Eggs, oh my baby how I love your legs" were the first lyrics to Yesterday.
5. The fact that Paul was left-handed and John was right-handed helped the song writing process - Paul said in an interview that watching John play guitar was like looking in a mirror. Ringo was left-handed also; George was right-handed.
6. All four Beatles had a fear of flying.
7. Inspiration for songs came from numerous sources and not always what people assumed. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was thought to be all about drugs and was banned by the BBC, but it was actually inspired by John Lennon's four year old son's drawing of a classmate, a girl called Lucy Vodden.
8. A couple of songs are named for real places - Strawberry Fields Forever was named after a Salvation Army orphanage in Liverpool which had a wild garden that John and his friends played in as children. Penny Lane is named after an actual street in Liverpool. Since that song became a hit, the street sign was constantly being stolen. Liverpool City Council got so sick of replacing it that they now paint the street name on a wall instead.
9. Ringo's real name is Richard Starkey. His bandmates gave him the nickname "Rings" because he wore a lot of jewellery and that later evolved into "Ringo".
10. The Beatles were the first band to have the lyrics to all the songs printed on an album cover, on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967.

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

Like my author page on Facebook for news on new books and blog posts.

Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest

Check out my Writing blog