10 weird and wonderful events which happened on 23 November:
- Born this date in 1888 was Harpo [Arthur Adolph] Marx, one of the Marx Brothers. He wore a curly wig, and never talked during performances (although he often blew a horn or whistled to communicate), and he played the harp.
- In 1963, the first episode of Doctor Who, the world’s longest running sci-fi TV series, was screened in Britain. The first Dr Who was played by William Hartnell, and Ann Ford was his first female companion. The producer, Sydney Newman, thought the Daleks, designed by Ray Cusick, were ‘bug-eyed monsters’ and totally wrong for the series. The first episode was interrupted and postponed because news of US President John Kennedy's Assassination broke.
- In 1889, the first jukebox invented by Louis Glass appeared in San Francisco, at the Palais Royale Saloon. The contraption consisted of an Edison tinfoil phonograph with four listening tubes, no loudspeakers, and a coin slot for each tube. A nickel purchased a couple of minutes of Music.
- This date in 1998 was National Dunking Day. Scientist Len Fisher used the Washburn equation, which was originally designed to assess blotting paper, to calculate the maximum dunking times for various Biscuits: 8 seconds for a digestive, 3 seconds for a ginger nut.
- In 1654, French mathematician Blaise Pascal narrowly escaped death at the Neuilly-sur-Seine bridge. His Horses plunged over the parapet and the carriage would have gone with them, but the reins broke and the coach was left hanging over the edge. Pascal and his friends emerged unscathed, but the philosopher, terrified by the nearness of death, fainted and remained unconscious for over two weeks. When he recovered, Pascal had a profound religious conversion. He abandoned his study of science, having realised that "the Christian religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other aim than him."
- In 1973 it rained ducks in Arkansas when hail knocked more than 100 ducks from the sky.
- The first recorded strike for better working conditions and pay took place on this date in 1170 BC, in Egypt, by labourers working on a pyramid.
- In 1852, the first Pillar Boxes were erected in St Helier, in the Channel Islands where, according to a Post Office surveyor sent over to inspect postal facilities, ‘there were no receiving offices for people in the distant parts of the town’. The surveyor later became famous as the novelist, Anthony Trollope.
- In 1937, The Toronto Daily Star reported that an Inuit village had vanished. Fur trapper Joe LaBelle had contacted the police to report a chilling discovery. While running a trap line, LaBelle snow-shoed out to an isolated Eskimo village on the shores of Lake Anjikuni, only to discover the entire population – man, woman, and child—had vanished from their huts and storehouses. Inspector Pierre Menard of the RCMP confirmed the village had indeed been found abandoned under most strange circumstances. “In our search, we discovered undisturbed foodstuff, gear, and provisions but no sign of the villagers. Not a single footprint or track.” But the most disturbing discovery of all: the Eskimos’ ancestral graves were had been excavated and emptied.
- In 2000, Rutherford Appleton Laboratories near Didcot set the world record for the smallest ever advert. A website address, guinnessworldrecords.com, in a font only slightly wider than a human hair was layered on evaporated gold onto film, mounted on a silicon band and fitted to a bee’s leg. (Is this website the bee’s knees?)
New!!
A Superhero love story.
Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.
It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.
Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.
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