On this date in 1796, Tennessee was admitted to the union. 10 things you might not know about Tennessee.
- It’s
not known for sure where the name of the state comes from. It may
have been named after a small town called "Tanasqui" which
may have meant "meeting place", "winding river",
or "river of the great bend" – but nobody really knows.
- People
from Tennessee are sometimes referred to as “Butternuts” or
“Volunteers”. The latter comes from the fact that large numbers
of people from the state volunteered to fight in the war of 1812,
and the former dates back to the American Civil War when soldiers
from the area wore uniforms that were the colour of butternut
squash.
- One
thing the state is famous for is Music. The capital, Nashville, and
Memphis have well known musical connections, but the birthplace of
country music isn’t either of these, but another town, called
Bristol, where early recordings in the genre were made. A number of
famous singers hail from Tennessee, including Pat Boone, Miley
Cyrus, Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes, Tina Turner, Dolly Parton and
of course, Elvis Presley. The musical tradition is also reflected in
the fact that Tennessee has no less than nine official state songs,
and an official state rap, more than any other state.
- Other
state symbols include: flower – Iris; tree - tulip poplar; bird
-mockingbird; horse - Tennessee walking horse; animal - Raccoon; and
wild flower - passion flower.
- Graceland
in Memphis, former home of Elvis, is the second most visited house
in the US (the White House is first). Another house tourists can
visit whilst there is the world’s tallest tree house, which was
built by Minister Horace Burgess in Crossville, from recycled
materials. The house is about 100 feet tall and has an estimated
area of 10,000 square feet.
- Shelby
County, Tennessee, has more Horses than any other county in the USA.
- Tennessee
is home to the world’s largest artificial Ski area (five acres, in
Gatlinburg) and the world’s largest freshwater aquarium, home to
around 7,000 animals, including an electric eel which uses its
electrical discharges to post from its own Twitter account.
- By
law, women in Tennessee may not wear ankle bracelets, phone a man up
to ask him out, or drive a car without there being a man walking in
front waving a Red warning flag. Driving while asleep is an offence
for both sexes as is using a lasso to catch a fish. Even Frogs are
breaking the law if they croak after 11pm.
- There
are more caves in Tennessee than in any other state – around
10,000 of them, or 20% of the country’s caves. 90% of them are
privately owned. The Bats which live in the caves are of great help
to farmers because they eat insects and are said to be worth $313
million a year to agriculture in the state. Not only are there lots
of bat caves, but the tallest skyscraper in the state is the
617-foot (188 m) 33-story AT & T Building, colloquially known as
“The Batman Building” because it resembles Batman.
- The
town of Oak Ridge was founded in 1942, and was a military secret,
because the people who lived there were working on the Manhattan
Project, working to create the nuclear bomb. Even though most of
them had no idea what they were actually working on, they were
fenced in with guards at every exit. Two years after the war, it
became a regular civilian town.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
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31 May is the Feast
of Mary/ Flores de Mayo/Flowers of May, a commemoration of the Virgin Mary. Here are 10 facts about the mother of Jesus:
- The
name Mary evolved from the Egyptian language and is thought to mean
“beloved” or possibly, as a derivative of Miriam, “bitter”.
- The
Virgin Mary has been given a number of titles, which include Mother
of God, Queen of Heaven and Theotokos (God Bearer). “Madonna”
is usually used to refer to a depiction of Mary in art, eg. “Madonna
and child”.
- While
the Bible meticulously details Joseph’s lineage, we don’t know
much about Mary’s. Since she is stated to be a relative of
Zechariah and Elizabeth, it’s thought she may have been
a descendant
of
Levi and
Aaron. According to the apocryphal Gospel of James, Mary was the
daughter of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne.
- She’s
mentioned in the Quran as well as in the Bible. In the Quran, she
has an entire chapter named for her and is the only woman referred
to by her first name in the Quran. She
gets more mentions there than in the Bible. Muslims,
however, know her as Maryam.
- She
was present at the wedding when Jesus performed his first miracle,
turning Water into Wine. In fact, she even suggested to the
organisers that, when they ran out of wine, they should do whatever
Jesus told them to do.
- Apocryphal
writings
have more to say about what Mary may have done in her later life
than the Bible does. Hyppolitus of Thebes says that Mary lived for
11 years after the death of Jesus, dying in 41 AD. Some accounts say
she became a significant leader in the early Christian church. Some
say she went
to live in Ephesus, in modern day Turkey – there’s a house there
which is said to have been her home and is a destination for
pilgrims.
- Her
death isn’t described in the Bible. The Catholic church holds that
she was assumed, “body and soul” into Heaven and so never died,
as such.
- Mary
has appeared on the front cover of Time
magazine more than any other person.
- There
are many accounts of people having visions of Mary. Her message is
usually urging people to return to God and say the rosary. Three of
the best known such visitations are: 18 times to St Bernadette of
Lourdes, helping to set up a healing spring there; in 1830 to St.
Catherine Labouré in Paris, when she revealed the image of the
Miraculous Medal, promising special graces to anyone who wears it;
and six appearances to three young shepherd children in 1917 in
Fatima, Portugal.
- There
are also many accounts of miracles connected with her relics and
images. There are several accounts of statues of her which weep.
When Chartres cathedral in France burned down, only Mary’s relic –
“The Veil of the Virgin”– survived. It was protected by three
priests who were also miraculously preserved from the heat and
flames.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Available on Amazon:
Today is the name day for people called Ferdinand. Ferdinand is a Germanic name which means traveller or adventurer. Here’s a list of 10 famous Ferdinands.
 |
| Ferdinand Magellan |
- Ferdinand
Magellan: one Ferdinand who certainly lived up to his name as he
was the leader of the first expedition to sail around the world.
- Ferdinand
II of Aragon: famous for being the first king of a unified
Spain. He ruled jointly with his wife, Queen Isabella, famous for
sponsoring Christopher Columbus’s historic voyage in 1492.
- Ferdinand
de Lesseps: French diplomat known for developing the Suez Canal.
- Ferdinand
Marcos: Tenth president of the Philippines. He was married to
Imelda, who is famous for having over a thousand pairs of shoes.
- Ferdinand
von Zeppelin: German aircraft mogul, inventor of the Zeppelin
airship.
- Ferdinand
Joseph LaMothe:
Better known by his stage name, Jelly Roll Morton, an early,
influential jazz musician who went as far as to claim he invented
the genre.
- St
Ferdinand
III
of Castile:
Warrior king who conquered most of Spain and turned the mosques into
churches. Patron saint of engineers, rulers, magistrates, governors,
prisoners and the poor.
- Ferdinand
Porsche:
Founder of the Porsche car company and the first person to create a
hybrid car, the Lohner-Porsche. He’s also responsible for creating
the Volkswagen Beetle and the Mercedes Benz.
- Rio
Ferdinand:
Former England footballer, now TV pundit, one of the most decorated
English footballers of all time.
- Ferdinand,
Prince of Naples:
Fictional character in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, who falls
in love with Miranda. A moon of Uranus is
named after him.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Available on Amazon:
On this date in 1848
Wisconsin was admitted to the Union. 10 things you might not know about Wisconsin.
- The
state’s name comes from the Native American name for the Wisconsin
River, “meskonsing” which translates as “stream that meanders
through something Red” which probably refers to the sandstone
formations associated with the river. Frenchman Jacques Marquette
first
recorded
the name in 1673 and
over time, it evolved into the name of the state today.
- Wisconsin’s
nickname is the Badger State. Badger in this case is nothing to do
with the animal but rather the Lead miners who moved there from Cornwall in England in the 1820s who dug tunnels to sleep in.
- Wisconsin’s
state bird is the Robin, its state flower is the wood Violet, its
state song is “On, Wisconsin,” and its state motto is the
simple, yet powerful, “Forward.” Madison’s official bird,
however, is the plastic Flamingo – in honour of a 1979 student
prank in which 1,008 Pink flamingos were planted on the grass in
front of the dean’s office.
- It’s
the dairy capital of the US, producing more Milk than any other
state. Some individual Wisconsin towns lay claim to be world
capitals of other items: Wausau is the ginseng capital of the world;
Somerset is the inner tubing capital of the world; Monroe is the
Swiss Cheese capital of the world; Eagle River is the snowmobile
capital of the world; Sheboygan is the Bratwurst Capital of the
World; and Green Bay is the Toilet paper Capital of the World.
- The
capital is Madison. The oldest city in the state is actually Green
Bay which dates back to a small French reading post established in
1634. Green Bay is also known as “Titletown” because of the
success of its sports team, the Green Bay Packers.
- The
highest point in the state is Timm’s Hill at a height of 1,951
feet.
- The Ice cream sundae was invented in Two Rivers, Wisconsin in 1881.
Other notable Wisconsin inventions include the QWERTY keyboard and
the blender.
- Barbie is from Willows, Wisconsin. Real famous people from here include Harry Houdini, Frank Lloyd Wright, Georgia O'Keeffe, Orson Welles,
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Liberace and Mark Ruffalo.
- News
satire site The Onion started life as a satirical campus
newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, created by two of
its students, Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson.
- It
is illegal in Wisconsin to park your car for more than two hours
unless there is a Horse tied to it; wake a sleeping fireman; Kiss on
a train; play checkers in public or go out in public if you are
ugly. It’s also illegal for women to wear red in public.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Available on Amazon:
The Dionne Quintuplets, famous for being the first set of quintuplets to survive infancy and the only recorded identical quintuplets, were born on this date in 1934. Here are ten interesting facts about them.
- The
odds of quintuplets (let alone identical ones) is just 1 in
57,289,761. The New York Times once estimated that the chance
of identical quins would be one in a billion.
- The
Dionnes, Oliva-Édouard and Elzire already had five children when
the quintuplets were born and went on to have four more afterwards.
The family lived on a farm near the village of Corbeil in Ontario, Canada.
- Their
names, in order of birth, were: Yvonne Édouilda Marie, Annette
Lillianne Marie Allard, Cécile Marie Émilda Langlois, Émilie
Marie Jeanne, and Marie Reine Alma Houle.
- It’s
believed there was actually a sixth baby, which was miscarried in
the third month of Elzire’s pregnancy.
- They
were delivered by Dr. Allan Roy Defoe with the help of two midwives,
Aunt Donalda and Madame Benoît Lebel. The quintuplets' total weight
at birth was 13 pounds, 6 ounces (6.07 kg). Their individual weights
were not recorded. For the first days of their lives they had to be
watched constantly, fed sweetened Water every two hours and kept
warm in front of an open stove.
- The
first inkling the media got of the unusual birth was when the
quintuplets father called the local paper to ask how much they’d
charge for announcing the birth of five babies at once. The news
soon spread and people began offering assistance and advice. A
hospital sent two incubators. There
was a darker side to the publicity, however, when Chicago's Century
of Progress exhibition got in touch wanting to put the babies on
display. It wasn’t unusual back then for babies in incubators to
be put on display as tourist attractions. Dr Defoe and the family
priest actually persuaded the Dionnes to agree to this. A few days
later, the Dionnes changed their minds and tried to claim they
hadn’t signed the contract. The exhibitors disputed this and as a
result, guardianship of the babies was signed over to The Red Cross for two years, to make sure the quintuplets were well cared for.
- At
just a few months old, they were moved from their home to a purpose
built compound across the road from their parents’ house and lived
there until they were nine years old. It
was essentially a zoo with an outdoor play area where tourists could
come and watch the girls at play through one way screens. There was
accommodation for the nurses who took care of them and the police
there to guard them and the whole compound was surrounded by a
barbed wire fence. They had little contact with the outside world
and only saw their parents and siblings occasionally. They lived to
a rigid routine which included private tutoring, meals and prayers.
Eventually, the money
earned from the tourists
allowed for a 20 room house to be built for the entire family.
- Living
together as a family wasn’t as idyllic as you might think. In
later years the surviving quins said that their parents often
reminded them of the trouble they’d caused by simply being born.
They had less privileges and more chores than their siblings and
were punished more severely. They even alleged that their father had
sexually abused them. When they reached 18, they left home and had
little contact with their parents afterwards.
- So
what did they all do when they grew up? Émilie
became
a nun, Annette trained as a nurse, and eventually became a
librarian. The other three married and had children, including one
set of Twins.
- Émilie
died at the age of 20 from a seizure, and Marie at 35 from a blood
clot on the brain. Yvonne died at the age of 67. The other two, at
time of writing, are still alive.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Available on Amazon:
On this date in 1930 the Chrysler Building first opened to the public. Here are 10 things you might not know about it.
- The
address of the Chrysler Building is 405 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, New York City. It is located at the intersection of Lexington Avenue
with East 42nd Street.
- The
Chrysler Building is 319 meters (1047 ft) tall and has 77 floors.
- It
was designed in an Art Deco style by William Van Alen. The spire was
designed to resemble the radiator grille of a Chrysler car and the
eagle gargoyles were inspired by the hood ornaments on the cars.
- The
building is not named after the Chrysler car company, although its
headquarters was based there for a couple of decades. Rather it was
named after Walter Chrysler, who used his own money to pay for it
rather than company funds.
- It
was almost called the Reynolds Building, as it was originally the
brainchild of one William Reynolds, best known for developing the
Dreamland amusement park on Coney Island. When his amusement park
burned to the ground in 1911, Reynolds set out on a new project –
to build the tallest building in the world. It was he who first
rented the land the building stands on and engaged Van Alen as the
architect. However, he ran out of money a month after construction
began. That was when Walter Chrysler stepped in and bought the
project.
- It
was the tallest building in the
world
but only for a few months. At the time the Chrysler Building was
being planned and built with the aim of being tallest, John Raskob,
the founder of another car company, General Motors, had also set out
to build the tallest building in New York. Chrysler, therefore, kept
the height of his building under wraps so Raskob’s architects
couldn’t ensure they built higher. Chrysler even hid a rod in the
spire so that he could make his building even taller at the very
last minute. Erection
of the spire took just 90 minutes. Once
the Chrysler Building was complete, however, Raskob and his people
did some calculations and worked out that they could add some extra
storeys to their building, so in due course, the Empire State
Building became the tallest building in New York. In
2019 it was the 11th
tallest building in New York.
- The
building has about four million bricks and 400,000 rivets. There are
3,862 windows. The
spire, contrary to a popular urban myth, is not made from Chrysler
hubcaps.
- There
was originally an observation deck on the 71st
floor, but it closed in 1945 and turned into offices. This was
because people started going to the observation deck in the Empire
State Building instead, because not only was it taller but offered
better views from an open air deck rather than through small
windows.
- There
also used to be an exclusive club called the Cloud Club, where New
York’s elite could get a sneaky drink during prohibition. It
existed until the 1970s, when it too closed and was turned into
office space.
- Its
owners at time of writing are RFR Holding, a real estate company who
bought it in 2019 for $150 million. While it is currently purely an
office building, RFR Holding are considering turning it into a
hotel.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Available on Amazon:
On this date in 1967 The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band LP was
released. 10 things you might not know about this classic album.
- The
title of the album was inspired by little Salt and Pepper packets
that came with an airline meal. Paul McCartney and tour
manager/assistant Mal Evans were flying home from Kenya and were
given packets marked "S and P" with their meal. McCartney
somehow extrapolated "Sergeant Pepper" from salt and
pepper as he played with the words. He added "Lonely Hearts
Club Band" and decided it would be a crazy name for a band
"because why would a Lonely Hearts Club have a band?"
- It
took the Beatles 700 hours to record the album, compared with 10
hours for their first album, Please Please Me.
- At
the time, the popularity of the Beatles had been waning somewhat
because they had retired from performing live (hence Sgt Pepper was
never performed live) and they were under pressure to produce a big
hit single. They took two songs they'd recorded for the album,
Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane and released
them as a double A side single. Because it was the practice at the
time not to include singles as album tracks, those two classics
didn't make the cut for the album.
- Another
song, It’s Only a Northern Song, didn't make the cut either
but was included on the soundtrack to the group’s 1969 film Yellow
Submarine.
- Ringo
Starr didn't write any songs for the album and so was left out of a
lot of the technical discussions on how the songs would be recorded.
This meant a lot of waiting around for him – he spent the time
learning to play chess. He did, however, have a say in the lyrics he
was to sing. He refused to sing "What would you do if I sang
out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me?"
because fans had been throwing jelly babies on stage for years
because he said he liked them, and thought if he sang those words,
he would literally get tomatoes thrown at him wherever he went.
- Some
facts about the tracks: John Lennon‘s song Being for the
Benefit of Mr. Kite! was inspired by an 1843 circus poster.
She's Leaving Home was inspired by a newspaper article Paul
McCartney read about a 17 year old who went missing for 10 days. The
same teenager won a miming contest on the TV show Ready Steady
Go! on which McCartney was the judge. Fixing a Hole was
said to have been inspired by Paul McCartney's DIY projects at his
house in Scotland.
- Several
of the songs were banned by the BBC because of alleged references to
drugs in them. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was thought to
be about LSD, although John Lennon insisted it was based on a
drawing by his son Julian. The BBC also thought A Day In The Life
promoted "a permissive attitude toward drug-taking"
because of the lines "found my way upstairs and had a smoke"
and "Four thousand holes in Blackburn" which the BBC
interpreted as injection holes in a junkie's arm. As a result of the
BBC's bans, three songs were omitted from the album when it was
released in South Asia, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
- The
cover was created by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, who won the 1968
Grammy for Best Album Cover. Haworth was the first woman to win in
that category. The band's original list of historical figures to
appear included Jesus Christ (not allowed because it might re-ignite
the hoo-hah over John Lennon's claim that the Beatles were more
popular than Jesus), Ghandi (ruled out because he might spark
another controversy) and Hitler (who is actually there but hidden
behind the Beatles). Elvis Presley wasn't considered at all because
he was deemed "too important and too far above the rest even to
mention.” Mae West at first refused to let her image be used,
because, she said, “What would I be doing in a lonely hearts
club?” However, the Beatles wrote to her and she relented. Actor
Leo Gorcey was painted out because he requested a fee.
- Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was
the first album to have the lyrics printed on the cover and to have
tracks which merged seamlessly into the next. This meant there was a
continuous flow of Music rather than short silences between tracks.
- Just
before the backwards talking at the very end, there is a
15-kilohertz high-frequency whistle that humans can't hear, but Dogs can.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Available on Amazon:
25 May is Africa
Day, so here are 10 things you might not know about the continent of Africa:
- Africa
is the second largest continent in the world (after Asia), covering
6% of the Earth’s surface if you include all the islands off its
coast.
- It’s
also the poorest and least developed continent with a continental
GDP that accounts for just 2.4% of global GDP. 40% of Africa’s
adults are illiterate – two thirds of these are women. There are
fewer people in Africa with access to The Internet than there are in New York City.
- The
northernmost point of Africa is Iles de Chiens, an island belonging
to Tunisia. The northernmost point on the mainland is Ras ben Sakka
in Tunisia. The southernmost point is Cape Agulhas in South Africa.
The westernmost point is Santo Antão, Cape Verde Islands. On the
mainland it’s Pointe des Almadies, Cap Vert Peninsula in Senegal,
and the furthest east is Rodrigues, Mauritius or, on the mainland,
Ras Hafun in Somalia.
- 16%
of the Earth’s population lives here – that’s around 1.3
billion people. It’s also the youngest continent in terms of its
population’s median age, which is 19.7 as opposed to the world
wide median of 30.4.
- How
many countries are there in Africa? The simple answer is 54 –
there are 54 internationally recognised states. However, there are
also two self-declared states which are not internationally
recognised at time of writing –Somaliland, which declared itself
independent from Somalia, and Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic,
south of Morocco. There are two dependent territories – Saint
Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, which belongs to Britain and
French Southern and Antarctic lands which belongs to – you guessed
it – France. Then there are eight territories which are
administered as parts of countries outside of Africa. These include
the Canary Islands and Madeira.
- The
largest country in Africa is Algeria. Nigeria has the largest
population.
- Africa
is believed to be where the human race began, around 7 million years
ago, spreading out to populate the entire planet in two “Out of
Africa” waves of migration.
- Nobody
is sure exactly how many native languages are spoken in Africa but
most estimates are between 1,250 and 2,100, though it could be as
many as 3,000. The most widely spoken language is Arabic, followed
by English, French and Swahili.
- The
highest mountain in Africa is Kilimanjaro in Tanzania at
19,340ft/5,895m. The lowest point is Lake Asal, which is in Djibouti
and is 153m/502ft below sea level.
- Africa’s
major rivers are the Congo, Nile, Niger, Orange, Limpopo and
Zambezi.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Available on Amazon:
We're now in the Gemini
zodiac sign. Here are 10 things you might not know about it.
- Gemini
is the Latin word for Twins.
- The
sign of Gemini is represented by the twins, Castor and Pollux, also
known as the Discouri.
- The
two brightest of the 85 stars within the constellation which can be
seen by the naked eye, are Castor and Pollux. Pollux is the brighter
of the two. Join these up with the other bright stars and it looks
like two stick figures holding hands.
- The
Medusa Nebula and the Eskimo Nebula (named because it looks like the
head of someone wearing a parka) are also situated within the
constellation of Gemini.
- Gemini
is an air sign, ruled by the planet Mercury.
- Gemini
has a number of birthstones, including agate, Pearl, citrine and
white sapphire.
- Things
ruled by Gemini include communication, writing, versatility,
adaptability, ideas, curiosity, diversity and capriciousness. In the
human body, Gemini rules the lungs, arms and hands.
- People
born under this sign are said to be sociable with a thirst for
knowledge and natural curiosity. They are adaptable, brilliant at
multi-tasking but can find it hard to concentrate on just one thing.
They are easily distracted and can be thought to be superficial.
They love to talk and share ideas. They love to be mentally
stimulated and hate to be bored.
- NASA’s
Project Gemini was so named because the space capsule could carry
two people.
- Famous
people born under this sign include Marilyn Monroe, Stevie Nicks,
Helena Bonham-Carter, Mike Myers, Alanis Morissette, Colin Farrell,
Kanye West, Donald Trump and Queen Victoria.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
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Bifocals
Birthday Celebrates Ben Franklin's invention of the new glasses. In 1785 Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter that he had invented
bifocals, making it unnecessary to carry two pairs of glasses.
- While Benjamin Franklin is often credited with the invention of bifocal
glasses, Having written a letter on 23 May 1785 stating
he was “happy in the invention of double spectacles”,
so he’d not have to carry around two pairs of glasses, there is
historical evidence to suggest that he may have got the idea from
his friends in Britain, who’d been wearing them since the 1760s.
Hence
he would have been an early adopter of the technology rather than
its inventor, and his words mean that he was pleased with the
invention rather than that he was pleased with himself for inventing
them.
- Franklin
may well be wearing bifocals in a painting of him by Stephen Elmer
which dates to 1777.
- The
idea of split lenses had been suggested as early as 1683, though not
necessarily for the same purpose as bifocals as we know them.
- Early
bifocal glasses were quite fragile because they were essentially two
different lenses mounted together in a single frame.
- In
1908, Dr. John L. Borsch Jr. patented a way of fusing the two
different lenses together.
- It
was in 1955 that the “seamless” bifocal lens was invented by
Irving Rips.
- Trifocal
lenses are a thing, too, with three different regions – distance,
reading and intermediate (approximately arm’s length). These were
invented by John Isaac Hawkins in 1827. They’re relatively rare
nowadays as most people who need them opt for progressive lenses
with a seamless gradient of focus.
- They
can take some getting used to. Wearers have to get used to a smaller
field of view when reading or using a computer. Moving the eyes in
order to read can cause headaches or dizziness in some people until
they get used to moving their entire head or whatever they are
reading, instead.
- Since
2006, researchers have been working on glasses with lenses which can
change their focus at the push of a button.
- Bifocal
lenses even occur in nature. The larvae of the diving beetle have
two retinas, allowing them to switch their focus from distant to
close up. This helps them catch their prey of Mosquito larvae.
MY LATEST BOOK!
Killing Me Softly
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena.
Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.
Available on Amazon:
Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.
