Saturday, 19 February 2022

20 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 20 February:

  1. On this date in 1966, Cecilia Cummins was born. She was the youngest of the five children of Carolyn and Ralph. Cecilia had four older siblings who were born on 20 February: Catherine in 1952; Carol in 1953; Charles in 1956; and Claudia in 1961. The odds against five single siblings sharing the same birth date are 17,797,577,730 to one.
  2. In 1924, the world’s heaviest Twins, weighing in at 27lb 12oz, were born in Arkansas.
  3. In 1999, the body of Michael Sunday Ejume, aged 26, an experienced skydiver, was found in woods with a gunshot wound to the chest after he parachuted from 14,000ft (4,267m) in Georgia. His body. A receipt for a 9mm handgun, bought the day before the jump, was found in Ejume's apartment, suggesting he'd shot himself on the way down. The gun was not found, but as Detective Danny Logan said, "From that altitude, it would probably go a foot deep in the ground."
  4. An example of the butterfly effect? On this date in 1817, at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, a promising young actor named Junius Brutus Booth, played Othello to Edmund Kean’s Iago to see which of the two was the nation’s finest actor. Booth lost, and being a bit of a sore loser, cleared off to America in a huff. In due course, he had a family there, and his sons became leading actors. The younger of the two was John Wilkes Booth, who would assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
  5. In 1949, the first International Pancake Race was held in Liberal, Kansas. This annual event, which takes place each year on Shrove Tuesday, is a race between the women of Liberal and the women of Olney, Bucks, England. Wearing dresses and aprons, and scarves on their heads, the women run a 415 yard, "S" shaped course. Each woman carries a pancake in a skillet and must toss the pancake three times during the course of the race. The fastest pancake racer is Sheila Turner from Liberal, who ran the race in 58.5 seconds in 1975.
  6. In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in the Mercury capsule Friendship 7. The residents of Perth, Australia greeted him by switching their house lights on in unison.
  7. In 1998 Tara Lipinski, aged 15, of the US won the ladies' figure skating title at Nagano, becoming the youngest gold medallist in Winter Olympics history.
  8. A sighting of Spring Heeled Jack occurred on this date in 1838 in Limehouse, east London. Lucy Scales and her sister Margaret were walking home from their brother's house at around 8:30PM, when Spring Heeled Jack reportedly jumped out in front of Lucy and spat blue fire into her face. Written accounts of the incident stated that Lucy was ‘blinded’, although whether it was temporary, permanent or simply a figure of speech is not known. After the attack, witnesses claimed that Spring Heeled Jack jumped from the ground to the roof of a house and made his escape.
  9. The world was supposed to end on this date in 1524 according to Johannes Stoffler, who predicted that a great flood would submerge the Earth. It didn't.
  10. In 2002, at two minutes past eight in the evening, the time was 20:02, 20/02, 2002. This type of symmetrical moment has only ever happened once before. The last occasion was at 10:01am on January 10, 1001. It won't happen again until 9:12pm on December 21st 2112, the date and time will read 21:12 21/12 2112.


A superhero love story:

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.


Available from Amazon:

Paperback


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