10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 13 April:
- This date in 1570 saw the birth of Guy Fawkes, instrumental in The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 to blow up the English Parliament and King James I.
- This date in 1519 was the birth date of Catherine de Medici, queen consort of Henry II of France, and regent for King Charles IX. She is credited with the invention of the corset, as during the 1550s she enforced a ban on thick waists at court.
- A fictional event: it was on this date in 1387 that a party of 29 pilgrims assembled at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, preparing to travel to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The following morning the tellers of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales began their journey.
- In 1970, Apollo 13 was disabled by an explosion in space. The crew aboard Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, radioed Mission Control with the immortal words, "Houston, we've got a problem." A tank containing liquid oxygen had burst, crippling the spacecraft. The explosion left the crew, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert, and Commander Jim Lovell, stranded for four days more than 200,000 miles from Earth. Against all odds, the astronauts circled around the Moon and headed back to Earth, where they splashed down safely.
- In 1979, the world's longest doubles ping-pong match ended after 101 hours.
- In 1998, a Swiss couple was arrested for shepherding while intoxicated after they brought five Sheep onto a public bus in Zurich.
- Staying with sheep for a moment, in 1964 New Zealander Colin Bosher sheared a record 565 sheep in one day.
- In 2001 Edward Walker, an overweight and drunk burglar, got trapped in a kitchen window in Swansea.
- In 1821, a criminal named John Horwood was hanged in Bristol for the murder of Eliza Balsam. Horwood’s claim to immortality is that his body was donated to medical science, and his skin was used to bind the anatomist’s account of the post-mortem, which may be found on the shelves of Bristol’s record office.
- In 1999, Nikita, a sturgeon given to Bergen aquarium in Norway by Khrushchev in 1964, died prematurely at the age of 38. An aquarium worker had allowed salt water to enter the tank. Were it not for this fatal mistake, Nikita could have lived another century.
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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