10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 14 March:
Albert Einstein |
- Two men born on this date in 1844 were King Umberto I, of Italy, and a restaurant owner from Monza, also in Italy. When King Umberto visited the restaurant for dinner, the King noticed that he and the restaurant owner were virtual doubles, in face and in build, and they got chatting. During their chat, they discovered some more amazing coincidences: Their shared birthdate; they were both born in the same town; they'd both married women called Margherita; the restaurateur had opened his restaurant on the same day that King Umberto was crowned King of Italy. It didn't end there. On 29 July 1900, King Umberto learned that the restaurateur had died in a mysterious shooting accident; as the King expressed his regret at the news, he was assassinated by an anarchist in the crowd.
- In 1879, Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist, widely regarded as one of the most influential and best known scientists and intellectuals of all time, was born. He didn't learn to speak until he was 4 years old but soon made up for lost time. He was 27 when he came up with the Theory of Relativity. He said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
- "On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep — but forever." So said Engels at the funeral of Karl Marx, who'd died in 1883 at the age of 64. The two men co-wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Marx wrote Das Kapital in 1867, but died before completing the final volume, in poverty in London.
- In 2002, for the Queen's Golden Jubilee, Preston, Newport, Stirling, Lisburn, and Newry were awarded city status. 10 years later at the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Chelmsford, Perth and St Asaph received the same honour.
- On this date in 1973 Are you being served?, a comedy about an old fashioned department store, was first broadcast. The cast included the very camp John (“I’m free”) Inman and Wendy Richard (Miss Brahms) who went on to play the rather less glamorous Pauline in Eastenders.
- In 1918, the first seagoing ship to be made of concrete was launched at Redwood City, California. The ship was named Faith and cost $750,000 to build.
- There were 13 people in space for the first time on this date in 1995. American astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to travel to space on a Russian rocket as he and two cosmonauts blasted off aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, headed for the Mir Space Station.
- In 1891, the submarine Monarch laid the first underwater telephone cable along the English Channel bed to prepare for the first telephone links across the Channel.
- In 1945, the heaviest bomb of World War II, weighing in at 22,000lb and dubbed "Grand Slam," was dropped by the Royal Air Force's Dambuster Squadron on the Bielefeld railway viaduct in Germany.
- On this date in 1861 Big Ben malfunctioned. It chimed 10 times at 4 o'clock and 12 times at 5 o'clock. A rumour went around that this was a sign of a death in the royal family. Within a day it was announced that the Duchess of Kent, Queen Victoria's mother, was dying.
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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