26 August: Prince Albert

Born on this date in 1819, Prince Albert was the husband of Britain's longest reigning monarch, Queen Victoria. They were married for 21 years until his death in 1861 at age 42. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was born on August 26, 1819 at Schloss Rosenau, in Bavaria, Germany, to Ernest III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. His full name was Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel.
2. He didn't see his mother after he was seven, because she committed adultery and she was exiled from court after the resulting divorce and forbidden to see her children.
3. He and Queen Victoria were first cousins, and had even been delivered by the same midwife, Charlotte von Siebold.
4. The first mention of a possible marriage between the two was in a letter from Albert's grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, in 1821. One of Albert's uncles was Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831. He thought getting the two cousins together was a great idea, too, especially since Victoria was going to become Queen of England. So he did a bit of matchmaking. He suggested to his sister, Victoria's mother, that she should invite Albert, his father and his brother, over to stay so the two could meet.
5. Not everyone agreed. William IV thought Prince Alexander, second son of the Prince of Orange, would be a much better match. The young Victoria, meanwhile, wrote in her diary about the eligible young men presented to her. Alexander, according to Victoria, was "very plain", while Albert was described as “extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and Blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful." Bingo. They married in 1840. He wasn't formally given the title of Prince Consort until 1857.
6. He was a reformer, a patron of the arts and interested in science and industry. In 1841 he became chairman of the Royal Commission, set up to promote the arts; in 1847, he was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and campaigned to update the curriculum there to include science and modern history as well as the traditional mathematics and classics. He also campaigned against child labour in factories.
7. He and Victoria had nine children, all of whom survived. It's possible this was down to Albert's enlightened ideas about how to run a nursery.
8. Albert organised the Great Exhibition of 1851 at the specially built Crystal Palace. The exhibition was very popular and attended by people like Charles Darwin, Samual Colt, Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens. Albert used the money it raised to establish the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Royal Albert Hall (originally known as Imperial College London) and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
9. In 1861, Albert's diplomatic intervention prevented a war between Britain and the United States. The incident was known as the Trent Affair, the forcible removal of Confederate envoys from a British ship by Union forces during the American Civil War. Even though Albert was gravely ill at the time (he would die a few weeks later) he intervened to soften the UK's response to the incident and averted a war.
10. He died, aged just 42, in December, 1861. The official cause of death at the time was typhoid fever – but he'd been suffering from abdominal pains for two years before that. Modern historians believe he may have suffered from Crohn's disease, renal failure, or abdominal cancer. Although he requested that there be no statues or memorials built, there are plenty, the most famous being the Albert Memorial in London. The towns of Lake Albert in Africa and Price Albert in Canada are named after him.

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Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian  movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home. 

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived.  Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth. 

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