14 February; Locks

On Valentine's day, 10 facts about Locks – often used as a symbol of love and attached to bridges.

1. Love locks are padlocks attached to fixtures such as Bridges, gates, and monuments by sweethearts to declare their love for each other is permanent. This practice may have originated in Serbia. In some popular tourist locations, such padlocks are treated as a nuisance by local authorities. The weight of huge numbers of them has even been known to undermine the structure of a bridge.
2. Before there were mechanical locks, people would use the sailor’s Gordian knot to keep doors closed. It was possible for the person who'd tied it to tell if it had been tampered with. Another primitive lock might have been a slab of wood which would fit into a slot.
3. The oldest known lock dates back 4,000 years and was found in ruins near Ninevah.
4. The Egyptians were the first to use pin locks, about 3,000 years ago. These locks were awkward to open as the keys would be very large and heavy and only a grown person, probably a man, would be strong enough to use it. They were generally made from wood. It was usually only the very wealthy and powerful who had access to such locks.
5. It was the Romans who started making locks from metals like Iron or bronze. They would wear the keys as rings on their fingers.
6. Pavlovo Arts College in Russia holds the Guinness World Record for the largest padlock. The lock and key weighs 916 lbs, and features intricate engraving, and a crest. The lock measures more than 56 inches tall and 41 inches wide.
7. At the other end of the scale, a Russian locksmith claims to make the smallest lock and key sets in the world. Pavel Kulikov creates tiny locks; the smallest are barely visible to the naked eye. Kulikov is credited with making a padlock so small that it fits around the eye of a Needle. It is reported to weigh a hundredth of a gram yet it still functions like a normal lock.
8. The word lock derives from the German world loch, meaning hole. The prefix pad, as in padlock, is of unknown origin.
9. The famous escape artist Harry Houdini started his career as a locksmith. Houdini started work in a locksmith’s shop when he was 11 and quickly learned how to pick any lock available at the time. In 2014, a parrot appropriately named Magic managed to pick the padlocks his owner put on his cage after he'd escaped several times. Magic has been referred to as Houdini’s spirit animal.
10. King Louis XVI was fascinated with locks. He liked to make them just for the fun of it and had a forge for the purpose at Versailles. He mentored by professional locksmith Francois Gamain who later betrayed him during the French Revolution. Catherine the Great was also a fan of locks and had a massive collection. She was even known to have them made to give as gifts. It is said she once pardoned a locksmith who fashioned a necklace for her.

Character birthday

Theodore Brent, Electric Blue’s father.