Sunday 10 April 2022

14 April

 10 weird and wonderful things that happened on 14 April:

  1. In 2000 Stephen Hyett, of Haverhill, Suffolk, died at the age of 38. Six years previously, he'd survived a pioneering transplant in which his stomach, liver, kidney, pancreas, duodenum and small bowel were all replaced. On this date, he died from head injuries after falling off a chair while changing a light bulb.
  2. In 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending a comedy play called Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Booth, who injured his leg escaping from the theatre, was later cornered in a barn and shot dead.
  3. It's a good day for discovering elements. In 1902 Marie and Pierre Curie isolated the radioactive element Radium, and in 1961 element 103, Lawrencium, was discovered.
  4. In 1931, the Ministry of Transport issued the first Highway Code. It cost 1d and included signals for drivers of horse drawn carts to make with their whips.
  5. It was a good day for publishing. In 1828, the first edition of Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, which had taken 22 years to prepare, was finally published. It introduced 12,000 new Words that had never before been included in any dictionary. In 1841, Edgar Allen Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue was published, and in 1859, Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two CitiesJules Verne’s classic, Around the World in Eighty Days, began serialised publication in Paris newspaper Le Temps, on this date in 1872. And in 1939, Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was published.
  6. In 1929, the Monaco Grand Prix was first run, 78 laps round the streets and harbour of Monte Carlo. Mr. W. Williams won.
  7. This date in 1360 was dubbed "Black Monday" in Britain, a day which was allegedly “so full dark of mist and hail and so bitter cold that many men died on their horsebacks.”
  8. In 1912, Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia on its maiden voyage. Rescue ships picked up 706 survivors but 1,517 souls went down with the ship at 2:20 am the following morning.
  9. In 1989, police in Huddersfield revealed that violent prisoners were being held in a bright Pink cell which seemed to have a calming effect. The colour was named Baker-Miller Pink after the police chief and psychologist who thought up the idea.
  10. In 2000, a world record custard pie fight took place in the Millennium Dome. 3,312 flans were flung in 3 minutes.



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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