1 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 1 November:

Scene from Othello

1. Born this date in 1762 was Spencer Perceval, British statesman and Prime Minister. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.
2. Also born on this date, in 1887, was Laurence Stephen Lowry, painter famous for painting scenes of life in the industrial districts of northern England during the early 20th century. He is best known for urban landscapes with many human figures (the matchstick men of the 1970s hit song).
3. In 1999 the director of a French zoo was crushed to death by a Hippopotamus in rut. Jean Ducuing was cycling around the park in Pessac, near Bordeaux, when Komir, a seven-year-old randy male hippo, charged through an electrified fence. Posters for the zoo featured a picture of Komir with M Ducing's head in his mouth.
4. In 1889, North and South Dakota entered the union as the 39th and 40th states.
5. It's been a day for premiers of Shakespeare plays. In 1604, Othello was first presented at Whitehall Palace in London. In 1611, The Tempest was first presented, also at Whitehall Palace in London.
6. In 1848, W H Smith opened their first railway bookstall at Euston Station, the start of Britain’s first multiple retailer.
7. In 1871, composer Gustav Mahler, aged 20, wrote that he'd become a vegetarian. He said he thought it would regenerate the human race if everybody stopped eating meat.
8. Barbed Wire was invented by Joseph F. Glidden on this date in 1873.
9. Martin Shenton fell down 109 stairs at the Ashton Memorial in Lancaster on this date in 1988, and walked away uninjured. He was a stunt man and staged the whole thing for charity. He was sponsored per step in his fall and he not only helped out the charity, but also set the record for the world's longest fall down stairs.
10. In 1999, a cleaner at Buckhurst Hill mistook a gooey plastic Alien Egg toy for a human foetus, and called Transport Police, who took it to Whipps Cross Hospital.

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31 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 31 October:

1. This date in 1795 saw the birth of John Keats, romantic poet, whose poems include Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to Psyche and To Autumn.
2. In 1926, Harry Houdini died aged 52. After cheating death many times in his daring stage act, he succumbed to peritonitis and gangrene after a punch in the gut from a deranged fan nine days earlier. The fan had been wondering if Houdini were able to withstand stomach hits as had been reported. The answer was clearly no.
3. Bow Wow Wow vocalist Annabella Lwin celebrated her 16th birthday on this date in 1980 by playing a concert at London's Rainbow Theatre. One of her backing vocalists was known as Lieutenant Lush, who went on to become Boy George.
4. Universal Studios Hollywood opened at night for the first time in 1986, to give fans a scary Halloween experience. The night included Dracula, the Mummy, King Kong, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Wolfman.
5. In 1888, John Boyd Dunlop patented the first pneumatic bicycle tyre. Dunlop was a veterinarian rather than a tyre expert; he ended up inventing this because of his son’s tricycle. He noticed that the boy was encountering difficulty and discomfort while riding over cobbled ground. Dunlop realised this was due to the solid rubber tyres and began looking for a way to improve his son's experience. He hit on the idea of filling a rubber tube with air to give it cushioning properties.
6. In 1988, singer Debbie Gibson held a seance at her Halloween party to contact the spirits of Liberace and Sid Vicious.
7. An IRA bomb exploded at the top of the London Post Office Tower near the revolving restaurant on this date in 1971. The building has been closed to the public ever since.
8. In 2002, Hildur Runa Hauksdottir, mother of pop star Bjork, ended a hunger strike protesting against plans by a US company to build an Aluminium smelter and hydroelectric plant power plant in the Icelandic wilderness.
9. In 1995, William Warren, an Oklahoma prisoner, sued the authorities for his right to wear women’s nylon knickers, since white Cotton was bad for his health. He claimed being forced to wear it was a “cruel and unusual punishment”.
10. On this date in 1982, the Thames Barrier, part of London's flood defences, was raised for the first time.

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There is a whole new universe of superheroes to discover in my novels. The Ultraheroes Universe includes at least one alternative dimension, good guys, bad guys, secrets, romance and more.

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30 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 30 October:

1. In 1997, Petkin Pet Care Systems introduced slimming pills for Cats and Dogs.
2. Silent film star Ramon Novarro died on this date in 1968 aged 69. During a robbery at his home he was beaten to death with an Art Deco dildo.
3. In 1925, John Logie Baird used a tea chest, an empty biscuit box, darning needles, piano wire, motorcycle lamp lenses, old electric motors, cardboard scanning discs and glue, string and sealing wax to achieve the first television pictures of a dummy's head. He then persuaded an office boy, William Taynton, 15, to sit in front of the camera and become the first live person to be captured on TV.
4. Orson Welles's radio adaptation of HG Wells's War of the Worlds broadcast on CBS radio on this date in 1938. The adaptation used fake news reports, which caused panic in the US and at least one death through heart failure as many listeners were convinced that Martians had really landed. He ended up with $750,000 in lawsuits filed against him.
5. Sense and Sensibility: A Novel (in three volumes) By a Lady was published by Thomas Egerton on this date in 1811.
6. In 1952, Clarence Birdseye sold the first frozen Peas.
7. In 1990, crews working on the Channel Tunnel met for the first time when French workers drilled a pilot hole through to the British side of a service tunnel. The island of Britain was connected with the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age.
8. In 1945, the US government announced the end of Shoe rationing.
9. In 1996, teachers at Manton Junior School went on strike rather than teach a particularly disruptive pupil named Matthew Wilson.
10. In 2001 Derek Holt sold the Scottish Island of Giga to 110 residents. The community trust spokesman was called Willie McSporran.

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29 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 29 October:

1. In 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, once a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I (he named Virginia after her), was beheaded at Whitehall. He'd been falsely accused of treason and sentenced to death commuted to imprisonment, but after 13 years had been released to try and find the legendary Gold of El Dorado. He failed, and returned without it, which turned out to be an extremely bad move. As was common at the time, his head was embalmed and presented to his wife. She carried it with her at all times until she died 29 years later.
2. In 1945, the first Ballpoint pen went on sale at Gimbels Department Stores 57 years after it was patented. It sold for $12.95 and made a profit of $500,000 in the first month.
3. The first broadcast of Keeping up appearances starring Patricia Routledge as the obsessively snobbish Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet), always out to impress her neighbours and those she considered important took place on this date in 1990.
4. In 2000, J.J. Tranfield finished putting together the world's longest sausage. It measured 36.75 miles or 59.14 kilometres.
5. In 1986, the final section of the M25 around London was opened.
6. Discovery launched on this date in 1988, carrying John Glenn, 77, back into orbit and making him the oldest man in space.
7. In 1969, computers at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute were first connected – the beginning of The Internet.
8. In 1964 the Star of India, the world's largest sapphire, and other jewels were stolen from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The alarm system and night guards were stopped years earlier for economic reasons, and the jewels weren't insured. The Star and most of the other gems were recovered in 1965; three men were convicted of stealing them.
9. In 1927, Russian archaeologist Peter Kozloff uncovered the tomb of Genghis Khan in the Gobi Desert.
10. In 1986, Staffordshire fire breather Reg Morris blew a 31ft flame from his mouth.

I write Fiction, too.

There is a whole new universe of superheroes to discover in my novels. The Ultraheroes Universe includes at least one alternative dimension, good guys, bad guys, secrets, romance and more.

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28 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 28 October:

 

1. On this date in 1998 Jonathan Capewell, 16, died from inhaling deodorant fumes because of his obsession with personal hygiene, an inquest heard. He was so obsessed with smelling nice that he'd cover his entire body in spray deodorant at least twice a day.
2. The glove puppet character Sooty, with Harry Corbett, made his first appearance on BBC television on this date in 1949.
3. Ernest Hemingway won Nobel prize for literature on this date in 1954.
4. In 1996, Steve MacDonald, aged 24, became the first blind man to paddle a canoe around the British mainland.
5. In 312, Roman emperor Constantine defeated the army of Maxentius, a contender to the throne, at Milvian Bridge. He'd seen a vision of the cross, inscribed with the words, "In this sign conquer." Constantine became a Christian soon after, the first Roman emperor to embrace the Christian faith.
6. In 1929, the Dow Jones dropped 38.33 points, or 12.82%, to 260.64. The US Stock Exchange collapsed, starting the Great Depression, and a world economic crisis.
7. In 1636, America's first university was founded. Harvard was named after John Harvard, the English-born Puritan minister who bequeathed £779 and a 300 volume library.
8. In 1884, The Times of London reported that in a life boat on the open sea, a cabin boy named Richard Parker had been eaten by the three surviving crew members of the wrecked vessel Mignonette. In 1838, Edgar Allen Poe had published a story called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym which told of a shipwreck in which a sailor was eaten. His name was also Richard Parker.
9. In 1886, The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland, in the presence of its sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, as a monument to democracy. France had paid for the statue, the US for the pedestal. The statue took 9 years to complete and was presented by France to the US to mark the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The dedication was celebrated by the first ticker tape parade in New York.
10. In 1997, a judge in Perugia dismissed charges of fraud against a registered blind man who was found to have a driving licence. The man said he had travelled to Lourdes the previous December and been cured.

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There is a whole new universe of superheroes to discover in my novels. The Ultraheroes Universe includes at least one alternative dimension, good guys, bad guys, secrets, romance and more.

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27 October

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 27 October:

1. In 1858 Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US was born. He was the first president to ride in a plane, drive in a car and ride in a submarine; the first president to travel outside the US, and inspired the teddy bear. Teddy became president at 42, following the assassination of William McKinley. He was so obsessed with conservation that he banned Christmas Trees from the White House. He said, "In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
2. Also born on this date, in 1728, was Captain James Cook, English naval officer whose voyages in the Endeavour led to the discovery of Australia, New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands. Thanks to Cook’s understanding of diet no member of his crew ever died of scurvy.
3. In 2000, a member of a religious group was run down while standing in the middle of Interstate 55 in Illinois trying to convert passing motorists.
4. Scientists announced the discovery of the Myanmar snub-nosed Monkey on this date in 2010.
5. In 1909 Captain Ralph Van Deman's wife made a four minute flight, making her the first woman to ride in an aeroplane. The pilot was Wilbur Wright.
6. A term equivalent to our ‘flying saucer’ was used by the Japanese approximately 700 years before it came into use in the West, on this date in 118. Ancient documents describe an unusual shining object seen tonight, as a flying “earthenware vessel.”
7. In 1936, Wallis Simpson, the future Duchess of Windsor, was divorced from her husband Ernest, leaving her free to marry King Edward VIII.
8. In 1925, Fred Waller received a license from the US Patent Office for water skis.
9. In 2000, a Pig, flying first class on US Airways Philadelphia to Seattle, as a therapeutic companion to a passenger, tried to enter the cockpit.
10. In 1997, six people were hospitalised in Singapore after being hit by a runaway trolley of soft drinks in a hypermarket.

I write Fiction, too.

There is a whole new universe of superheroes to discover in my novels. The Ultraheroes Universe includes at least one alternative dimension, good guys, bad guys, secrets, romance and more.

For more information visit My Books Page

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26 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 26 October:

1. Lori Jean Keevil-Mathews, a 33 year old insurance agent, was crushed to death by a giant yellow Umbrella on this date in 1991. The umbrella was part of the artist Christo's outdoor art installation which consisted of 1,760 Yellow 488lb umbrellas lined up on Interstate 5 in California.
2. Paul the Psychic Octopus died on this date in 2010 at the age of 2. Born in Weymouth, England, Paul lived in a tank at the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany. Paul became internationally famous for correctly predicting the winner of Germany's matches at the 2010 World Cup.
3. In 1977, there was the first UK broadcast of Happy Days, comedy set in the 50s starring Henry Winkler as the Fonz.
4. The first World Congress of Housewives was held in Buenos Aires on this date in 1995.
5. In 1785, America received its first Mule in Boston as a gift from King Charles III of Spain.
6. In 1929, it was announced that all London Buses would be Red.
7. This date in 1623 was the day of ‘the Fatal Vespers’. About 300 people crammed into an upper room of the residence of the ambassador of France to England, at Blackfriars, to hear Jesuit priest Father Drury preach. Drury and about 100 of the congregation were killed when the floor collapsed. It was seen by many to be God’s judgement against Jesuits, rather than too many people weighing down a dodgy floor.
8. The "Gunfight at the OK Corral" took place in Tombstone, Arizona on this date in 1881. Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and "Doc" Holliday shot it out with Ike Clanton's gang. Three members of Clanton's gang were killed; Earp's brothers were wounded but survived. No one recalls exactly what the fight was about.
9. In 1990, Sean Shannon recited Hamlet’s soliloquy in 24 seconds (647.5 words a minute).
10. The first Madrid Marijuana Cup was held on this date in 1997, but the cup was not awarded as, after sampling all the entries, the judges were too stoned to declare a winner.

I write Fiction, too.

There is a whole new universe of superheroes to discover in my novels. The Ultraheroes Universe includes at least one alternative dimension, good guys, bad guys, secrets, romance and more.

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25 October

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 25 October:

1. This date in 1881 saw the birth of Pablo Picasso, Spanish/French painter whose works include Guernica. He is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement.
2. In 1920, King Alexander of Greece died from Blood poisoning shortly after being bitten by a pet Monkey. He was 27.
3. In 1936, the first radio request programme was broadcast in Germany on this date in 1936. It was called You Ask – We Play. The first British request programme was From My Post Bag in May 1939.
4. The first edition of Private Eye, the British satirical magazine, was published on this date in 1961. Other titles considered for the magazine were The Flesh is weekly (possibly rejected because the magazine was fortnightly) The Yellow Press and The Bladder.
5. In 1938, the Archbishop of Dubuque denounced the new-fangled "swing" music. Its cannibalistic rhythms, he said, are the first step along the "primrose path to Hell."
6. At 11 a.m. on this date in 1854, Lord Cardigan led the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. An ambiguous order from the commander, Lord Raglan, led Cardigan’s cavalry to charge the Russians while fire came from three different sides. As one of the generals was heard to remark as the soldiers suffered heavy casualties, ‘C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre’.
7. In 1996, Tony Smith was ordered to pay £150 for throwing Freddie, a Chilean Rose Spider at Kevin Knight, who was having an affair with his wife. Freddie was harmless but looked like a tarantula.
8. In 1992, Tiny Tim's Ukulele was stolen from a Des Moines, Iowa, hotel lobby. It was found hours later in a rubbish bin.
9. Microsoft Windows XP operating system went on sale on this date in 2001 with a slogan which had been rapidly changed due to events the previous month. "Learn to fly" had been changed to changed to "Yes you can" after the terror attacks on 9/11.
10. Meanwhile, in Dublin's O'Connell Street Nelson's Pillar monument, dating to 1808, was demolished and blown up. A granite time capsule was found in the foundations, but it was empty. The contents had been stolen.

I write Fiction, too.

There is a whole new universe of superheroes to discover in my novels. The Ultraheroes Universe includes at least one alternative dimension, good guys, bad guys, secrets, romance and more.

For more information visit My Books Page

For even more information visit My website