20 January

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 20 January:

Cleopatra's Needle

1. This date in 1896 was the birthdate of George Burns, US actor and comedian who lived to be over 100. His films include Oh, God! In which he played the title role.
2. In 1893, The Kingdom of Hawaii became a republic as the monarchy was overthrown; white businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
3. In 1989, Ronald Reagan became the first US president elected in a "0" year, since 1840, to leave office alive.
4. In 1958, a St. Louis radio station KWK finished its "Record Breaking Week." Station management had banned all rock and roll music from the airwaves. The disc jockeys gave every rock and roll record in the station library a "farewell spin" before smashing them. The station manager, Robert Convey, called the ban "a simple weeding out of undesirable music."
5. In 1982, Ozzy Osbourne tried to bite a bat’s head off during a concert in Des Moines, Iowa. The Bat wasn’t having it and bit him. He was hospitalised and treated for rabies.
6. In 1973, the Preteth Gallery in Washington, closed sculptor Carl Andre's American Decay exhibit. The sculpture was made of five hundred pounds of cottage cheese covered in ten gallons of ketchup in an area 12 feet by 18 feet. The reason it closed? It stank.
7. Another cheesy anniversary: in 1964, the Wisconsin Cheese Foundation started making the "World's Largest Cheese" - a 34,591 pound cheddar.
8. In 2006, a bottle-nose whale was spotted swimming in the River Thames, the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913.
9. In 1936, Edward VIII became the first British monarch to fly in a plane. He was a passenger in a flight from Sandringham to London on the death of George V.
10. In 1878, Cleopatra's Needle, the 3,500-year-old obelisk still standing in London, arrived there from Egypt. ‘‘Cleopatra's Needle’’ is the name given to two Egyptian obelisks, formerly at Alexandria, Egypt. The other one is in New York. In fact, they pre-date Cleopatra.

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The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

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