9 April: The Mississippi River

On this date in 1682 the mouth of the Mississippi was discovered by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti. Here are 10 things you might not know about the Mississippi river.

1. Native Americans gave the river its name. They called it “Misi-ziibi,” meaning ‘Great River’ or ‘gathering of water'.
2. The river is 2,320 miles (3,730 km) long, which makes it the second longest river in North America (the Missouri is longer). To put that into context, a single drop of water takes 90 days to travel the length of it.
3. It flows from Lake Itasca in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. It passes ten US states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, defining some of their borders.
4. At its widest point, it's 11 miles wide.
5. 360 species of fish, 326 species of birds, 145 species of amphibians and 50 species of mammals live in and around the river.
6. That includes at least 60 different species of mussels. In the 19^th century, there was a rush on mussels which some historians compare to the California gold rush. People wanted them, not only for food but for their Pearls and shells. Buttons made from mussel shells was a big thing with 60 factories along the river's banks making mussel shell buttons.
7. The song, Ol' Man River is about the Mississippi.
8. Martin Strel, a Slovenian swimmer famous for swimming the length of entire rivers spent over 68 days swimming the Mississippi in 2002.
9. Major cities located along the Mississippi River include Minneapolis, Minnesota; St. Louis, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and New Orleans, Louisiana. There are 41 ports and harbours on the Mississippi, and over 170 bridges cross it.
10. The Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the Revolutionary War and recognised American independence, marked the Mississippi River as the western border of the new nation. To this day, it's still seen as the dividing line between the east and west of the USA.

My Books 

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The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny.