1 February: The Everly Brothers

Don Everly, one half of the Everly Brothers, was born on this date in 1937. 10 things you might not know about the Everly Brothers:

1. Don was born in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. He was the older of the two. Phil was born 19 January 1939 in Chicago, Illinois.

2. Their parents were Isaac Milford 'Ike' Everly, Jr, a former coal miner who had turned guitarist, and Margaret Embry Everly. She was just 15 when she married Ike, who was 26.

3. The family moved to Shenandoah, Iowa, where the brothers spent most of their childhood. Their father had a radio show there, on which he would sing with Margaret.

4. Before long, the brothers joined the line up, singing as Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil. With their parents, they were known as The Everly Family.

5. Their first record was a flop. It was called Keep a-Lovin' Me. The song was written by Don. This led to them being dropped from Columbia Records.

6. Later, they were introduced to Archie Bleyer, who was looking for artists for Cadence Records. They signed and recorded a song called Bye Bye Love, which had been rejected by thirty other artists. It was a big hit for the Everlys and was their first million seller.

7. Some of their other songs include: All I Have To Do Is Dream, Wake Up Little Susie, Cathy's Clown, ('Til) I Kissed You, Crying In The Rain, Ebony Eyes and On The Wings Of A Nightingale.

8. Despite being brothers. They didn’t always see eye to eye. When Don released a solo album in 1971, Phil declared that it was "like cheating on a marriage". A couple of years later, they announced that the show at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California in July 1973 would be their last. Don had had a few drinks when he walked on stage, and he messed up a few songs before Phil lost his temper, smashed his guitar and stormed off, leaving Don to finish the show alone. They would not work together again for ten years.

9. They agreed to get back together for a reunion show at the Royal Albert Hall in London on September 23, 1983. The concert was a success, and so they started recording together again.

10. The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and Simon & Garfunkel were all influenced in their early days by the Everly Brothers. The Beatles even referred to themselves as "the British Everly Brothers".

31 January: Animals in Space Day

Today is Animals in Space Day. A wide variety of animals have been launched into space, including Monkeys and apes, Dogs, Cats, tortoises, Mice, Rats, Rabbits, fish, Frogs, Spiders, quail eggs, and insects. On Animals in Space Day, here are some notable animal space travellers:

1. The first animals sent into space were fruit flies aboard an American rocket on 20 February 1947 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. The fruit flies were recovered alive.

2. Albert II, a rhesus monkey, became the first monkey, first primate, and first mammal in space on 14 June 1949. Sadly, a parachute failure meant he didn't survive the experience.

3. On 22 July 1951, the Soviet Union launched the dogs Tsygan and Dezik into space. These two dogs were the first living higher organisms successfully recovered from a spaceflight.

4. On 3 November 1957, the second-ever orbiting spacecraft carried the first animal into orbit, the dog Laika, launched aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2 spacecraft (nicknamed 'Muttnik' in the West). Laika died during the flight, as was expected because the technology to return spacecraft from orbit had not yet been developed.

5. The first rabbit in space was Marfusha, on board a Soviet R2 rocket in July 1959.

6. France launched a cat called Félicette into space on 18 October 1963. Félicette was recovered alive after a 15-minute flight and a descent by parachute.

7. On 14 September 1968 the Soviet Union launched Zond 5, containing the first tortoises in space, which were also the first animals in deep space and the first to orbit the Moon.

8. The first spiders in space were garden spiders called Arabella and Anita, sent to Skylab in 1973.

9. In 1975 ten Newts were sent into space with part of their front limbs amputated. This was in order to study how their limbs regenerated in space which would help understand how humans might recover from space injuries.

10. Probably the most intrepid animal space travellers, however, are tardigrades, also known as water bears. In September 2007, European Space Agency discovered that these creatures were able to survive 10 days of exposure to open space with only their natural protection. There have even been tardigrades on the moon; in 2019 the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet crashed into the Moon during a failed landing attempt. With several thousand tardigrades on board. Initial reports suggested they could have survived the crash landing.

30 January: Around the World in 80 Days

On this date in 1873 Around the World in 80 Days was published. 10 things you might not know about this book:

1. The book is set in the year 1872.

2. It’s about a man named Phileas Fogg, who made a bet with his friends at the Reform Club in London that he could circumnavigate the globe in eighty days or less, or he’ll pay them £20,000. The book tells the story of how he does it, along with his his newly employed French Valet Passepartout.

3. Illustrations connected to the novel often picture Hot air balloons, but Fogg and Passepartout never actually use one. They consider it at one point, but decide against it. The association with balloons dates from the 1956 film starring David Niven. That said, Jules Verne did write about people travelling in a balloon in another book, Five Weeks In A Balloon, which was published in 1863.

4. The story first appeared as a serial in a French Newspaper, Le Temps, before it was published as a book. The serial was synchronised with the dates of Fogg’s journey. Although on the date Fogg was due to return to London there wasn’t an instalment, the final chapters, announcing his success, appeared on 22 December 1872.

5. Some of the paper’s readers at the time believed the journey was actually taking place and made bets themselves on whether Fogg would succeed.

6. In the book, Fogg thinks it’s a day later than it actually is because he’s forgotten to subtract a day on crossing what is now the International Dateline. However, this is a bit of a plot hole, because, even though the Dateline didn’t yet exist, it would have been obvious when he landed in San Francisco on what he thought was a Sunday and found the streets rather busier than you’d expect on the Sabbath, and the train timetables would have given it away, too.

7. A man called George Francis Train may have been Verne’s inspiration as he had travelled around the world in 80 days for real in 1870. He’d even done some of the things Fogg did, such as hiring a private train and being imprisoned. Train once said, "Verne stole my thunder. I'm Phileas Fogg."

8. On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly set sail to beat the fictional record set by Jules Verne in his novel, Around The World In Eighty Days. She managed it in 72, and wrote a best selling book of her own, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days.

9. There’s a prize, called the Jules Verne Trophy, which is awarded to yacht crews which break the world record for circumnavigating the globe. The current record is 45 days, 13 hours, 42 minutes and 53 seconds. Each time the record is broken, a ceremony is held in which the old record holder hands the Jules Verne Trophy to the new winner.

10. In film and TV, actors who have portrayed Phileas Fogg include David Niven, Steve Coogan, Pierce Brosnan and David Tennant.

29 January: Anton Chekov

On this date in 1860, Anton Chekhov was born. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was born in Taganrog, a port on the sea of Azov in southern Russia. He was the third of six children.

2. His father ran a grocery store and also directed the parish choir. Anton sang in his father’s choirs. His father was abusive, though, and Chekhov described his childhood as “suffering”.

3. Chekhov attended the Taganrog Gymnasium (since renamed the Chekhov Gymnasium). At fifteen, he was held back a year because he failed an exam in ancient Greek, but his writing talents had already begun to manifest. While at school he edited humour magazines and wrote amusing captions for cartoons.

4. In 1876, Chekhov's father was declared bankrupt after being cheated by a contractor he’d employed to build a new house. He fled to Moscow, where two of his sons were at university, in order to avoid debtor’s prison. Anton was left behind to finish his school education, which he now had to pay for himself. He took various jobs including private tutoring, catching and selling goldfinches, and selling short sketches to the newspapers. He sent any spare money he had to his family.

5. He finished school in 1879, when he joined his family in Moscow and attended medical school. He qualified as a doctor and continued working as a physician even when he became a successful writer.

6. The money he earned from writing allowed him to treat some patients for free. Medicine was his first career and writing a hobby. He once said “Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I am bored of one, I spent the night with the other.”

7. In 1890, he visited a penal colony on Sakhalin Island, north of Japan. He spent three months there interviewing thousands of convicts and settlers for a census. It was an arduous journey involving trains, boats and horse-drawn carriages, and had a detrimental effect on his health.

8. On 25 May 1901, Chekhov married Olga Knipper, an actress who’d appeared in one of his plays. It was a quiet wedding as Chekhov hated weddings. They lived apart for much of the time as by this time, Chekhov was living in Yalta, a town on the Black Sea, which had a mild climate, for the sake of his health, and Olga spent a lot of time in Moscow pursuing her acting career. They wrote to each other regularly.

9. He wrote four classic plays, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. His speciality was short stories. He wrote 574 of those, and one novel, The Shooting Party, published in 1884.

10. He died of tuberculosis at just 44 years old.

28 January: Poverty Awareness Month

January is Poverty Awareness Month, so here are ten quotes about being poor:

1. Lack of money is the root of all evil. George Bernard Shaw

2. Poverty of course is no disgrace, but it is damned annoying. William Pitt the Younger

3. I've always been after the trappings of great luxury. But all I've got hold of are the trappings of great poverty. Peter Cook

4. You lose your manners when you’re poor. Lillian Hellman

5. Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. James Arthur Baldwin

6. Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is. Benjamin Franklin

7. I have enough money to last me the rest of my life – unless I buy something. Jackie Mason

8. I’m so poor I can’t even pay attention. Anon

9. I have no copper in my purse, I have no silver either, And all my gold is on the furze That shakes in windy weather. Christina Rossetti

10. Lots of people worry about nothing – when it’s in the bank. Anon

27 January: People called Ingrid

Today is the name day for people called Ingrid. Ingrid is a feminine given name meaning "beloved; beautiful". 10 famous Ingrids:

Ingrid Bergman

1. Blessed Ingrid of Skänninge: Swedish abbess venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. She founded Skänninge Abbey, a nunnery belonging to the Dominicans, in 1272. Her feast day is on September 2.

2. Ingrid Bergman: Swedish actress often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history.

3. Ingrid of Sweden: Queen of Denmark from 1947 until 1972 as the wife of King Frederick IX.

4. Ingrid Pedersen: Swedish-American aviator. She was the first female pilot to fly over the North Pole.

5. Ingrid Burley: American singer, rapper and songwriter.

6. Ingrid Giraffe: from the animated television series My Gym Partner's a Monkey.

7. Baroness Ingrid Daubechies: Belgian physicist and mathematician known for her work with wavelets in image compression.

8. Ingrid Rüütel: Estonian folklorist and philologist. From 2001 to 2006 she was the First Lady of Estonia, married to President Arnold Rüütel.

9. Ingrid Jonker: South African poet and one of the founders of modern Afrikaans literature. Her poems have been widely translated into other languages.

10. Ingrid Avellan Cortez: from the Spy Kids film trilogy.

26 January: Demeter

Haloea, an exclusively women’s festival, sacred to Demeter, according to some sources, took place around now. Here are 10 facts about Haloea and Demeter:

1. Although festivals sacred to Demeter would have taken place in summer, the festivals eventually became sacred to Dionysus, god of wine, as well, which meant it shifted to December or January when he was celebrated. It also meant Wine became an important part of the festivities.

2. It seems Haloea was a time for women to get together and have a good time. Much wine was consumed along with phallic shaped food. Phallic shaped figurines would be buried in the ground to promote crop fertility and there was a fair amount of naughtiness: dancing, singing rude songs and Lesbian sex.

3. Demeter is the Greek goddess of the harvest, grains and the fertility of the earth. She was also goddess of sacred law, the cycle of life and death, health, birth, and marriage.

4. Her Roman equivalent is Ceres.

5. Demeter was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, and sister to Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus.

6. Her lovers included Iasion, Oceanus, Karmanor, Triptolemus, and Zeus. Yes. Her brother. He was the father of Persephone. Demeter’s other children were Despoina, Arion, Plutus, Philomelus, Eubuleus, Chrysothemis and Amphitheus I.

7. The myth she’s best known for is when her brother Hades abducted Persephone and carried her off to the underworld. Demeter searched for her and was overcome with grief, so things stopped growing. Zeus intervened and sent Hermes to the underworld to get Persephone back so that things would grow again. Hades let her go, but gave her a Pomegranate as she left. Once she ate the seeds, it meant she was bound to the underworld for part of the year.

8. Demeter is said to have taught humankind how to grow corn.

9. Demeter turned the Sirens into half-bird monsters for not helping her daughter Persephone when she was abducted by Hades.

10. Demeter is usually depicted wearing a wreath made of ears of corn. Her symbols are Cornucopia, Wheat,  torch, Poppies and Bread; animals sacred to her are Pigs, serpents, geckos, turtledoves, cranes and screech Owls.

25 January: Haggis

It’s Burns Night, so here are ten facts about the staple of a Burns Night supper: Haggis.

1. What is haggis, anyway? Well, it’s not, as around a third of American visitors to Scotland believe, a small Scottish animal with longer legs on one side, so that it can run around the steep hills of the Scottish highlands without falling over. Sorry, but that’s a lie the Scottish people made up to take the mickey out of tourists. It’s actually a savoury pudding made of Sheep’s heart, liver and lungs. The meat is minced, mixed with Onion, Oatmeal, suet, spices and Salt. The mixture is then traditionally packed into a sheep’s stomach and boiled. Hence it is also classified as a type of Sausage.

2. It’s thought that haggis originated in the days of Scottish cattle drovers. When the men left the Highlands to drive their cattle to market in Edinburgh, their wives would prepare food for them to eat on the journey. They used whatever ingredients they had to hand (which may well have been offal, since when a laird had an animal slaughtered, he’d give the offal to the workers) and packaged them in a sheep's stomach so the meal would be easy to carry.

3. There are a couple of theories as to the origin of the word. Many say it comes from the Old Norse word höggva, meaning to cut or hit, the same root as the Old French word hacheiz, meaning “minced meat.” Makes sense in relation to a dish made of chopped up stuff. The alternative theory is that it comes from a different Old French word, agace, meaning "magpie", because it’s made up of odds and bits, and Magpies like to collect odds and bits.

4. Haggis is Scotland’s national dish, thanks to Robert Burns’s poem Address to a Haggis written in 1786. It starts "Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!" However, more haggis is sold in England than in Scotland. The dish is particularly popular in London. It’s also popular in Ireland and Hong Kong, but not in the USA as it’s been banned there since 1971 because it contains sheep’s lung which is a banned ingredient. This ban hit other traditional foods as well as haggis, but it came to be known as the “haggis ban.”

5. It’s thought that the ancient Romans and Greeks ate a dish similar to haggis.

6. Ideally, a haggis should “gush” when a knife is stuck into it. The best way to achieve this is to cook it by boiling, but with care as it could burst. When a haggis is boiled the insides, or “entrails” as they are described in the poem, swell up and stretch the outer casing.

7. Haggis hurling is a thing. It’s a sport played at the Highland Games alongside caber tossing. In June 2011, Lorne Coltart set the record, lobbing a haggis 217 feet.

8. Hall’s of Scotland made the world’s largest haggis in 2014, weighing 2,226 lb 10 oz— as heavy as a small car.

9. Since 1984 it’s been possible to buy a vegetarian haggis. This substitutes pulses, nuts and vegetables for the meat. Oats, Barley, Lentils, split peas, adzuki beans, kidney beans, borlotti beans, nuts, Mushrooms, onions, and Carrots might also be included. Vegetarian haggis now accounts for between 25% and 40% of haggis sales.

10. Haggis is quite versatile and can be used as an ingredient for other dishes. You can get haggis burgers, haggis pakora (common in Indian restaurants north of the border) or haggis Pizza. An option served in restaurants all year is is Chicken Balmoral, which is chicken breast stuffed with Whiskey-soaked haggis and wrapped in Bacon. In addition you can get haggis flavoured crisps and Ice cream.

24 January: Ferns

According to old almanacs, today’s Plant was the Flowering fern. Here are 10 things you might not know about ferns:

1. Flowering fern is actually a misnomer as ferns do not have Flowers or seeds, but reproduce by means of spores from sporangia on the undersides of the fronds. These are distributed by the wind or on the fur of passing animals.

2. The flowering fern is also known as the royal fern. It’s native to Europe, Africa and Asia, growing in woodland bogs and on the banks of streams. It is called the flowering fern because its fertile fronds resemble flowers.

3. In Slavic folklore, ferns are said to bloom on one night a year, midsummer. Anyone who manages to find a fern blossom guaranteed to be happy and rich for the rest of their life, or are guided to hidden treasure.

4. In Wicca, a dried fern can be thrown into a fire to exorcise evil spirits, or smoke from a burning fern is thought to drive away Snakes. There’s also a myth that eating ferns can bestow the power of invisibility.

5. Only many species of fern, like bracken, one of the most common ferns, are toxic, so don’t try that at home.

6. The smallest fern in the world grows in water and is called Azolla Cristata and usually grows from 1/5 to 2/3 inches (0.5 to 1.5) cm. In Asia, it is specially grown and used as an effective fertilizer for Rice fields.

7. The largest ferns are like trees. Dixonia Antarctica is native to Tasmania, Australia (not Antarctica as that’s the only place on Earth where you won’t find any ferns). They can grow up to 15 meters and have a trunk up to 2 meters in diameter.

8. The study of ferns is called pteridology.

9. Ferns have been around for millions of years and pre-date the Dinosaurs. In fact, when the dinosaurs came along, the herbivore varieties would dine on ferns.

10. The fern is a symbol of New Zealand.

23 January: Thriller

On this date in 1984, Michael Jackson’s Thriller single was released. 10 things you might not know about it:

1. Thriller is a disco-funk song set in the key of C# minor, with a moderate tempo of 120 beats per minute.

2. It was written by the English songwriter Rod Temperton, who had previously written Rock with You and Off the Wall for Michael Jackson Temperton wrote the lyrics within "a couple of hours". He wrote Vincent Price’s bit in the taxi on the way to the studio for the recording session.

3. When Temperton started writing the song, he called it Starlight, Starlight Love or Starlight Sun. Quincy Jones didn’t like the title title, so Temperton came up with Midnight Man. Then he got a better idea, and the rest is history.

4. Thriller was the last of seven US Top 10 hits from the Thriller album. It wasn’t originally going to be released as a single, because Epic Records saw it as a novelty song.

5. The video was directed by John Landis and premiered on MTV on December 2, 1983. In the video, Jackson becomes a zombie and performs a dance routine with a horde of the undead. It was the first music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry.

6. The words at the end were spoken by Vincent Price, who managed to record his part in two takes. However, despite Thriller being one of the best selling records of all time, Price as paid less than $1000 for his contribution, and when he tried to raise this with Michael Jackson, the singer refused to take his calls.

7. Price's rap includes the line "Must stand and face the hounds of hell." This was inspired by the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

8. Jackson, who was a Jehovah's Witness at the time, insisted on a disclaimer at the beginning of the video reading: "Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult."

9. The album and video versions differ. On the album, the song begins with a series of spooky sound effects.

10. In 2008, it reached #35 in the UK after 1,227 people gathered in Nottingham on Halloween to perform the dance dressed as zombies. It has been a staple of the UK charts at Halloween ever since.

21 January: Hercule Poirot

On this date in 1921, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot made his first appearance in the UK when the novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published. Poirot stars in 33 novels, 51 short stories and 1 original full-length play by Agatha Christie. 10 things you might not know about Hercule Poirot

1. His name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poiret, a retired French police officer living in London. Christie admitted that she was also influenced by Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

2. Hercule Poirot is a retired Belgian police officer turned private detective. In case you’ve ever wondered why a retired Belgian policeman is solving murders in English country houses, Christie created the character around the time of the first world war, when the invasion of Belgium was the reason for Britain getting involved. Large numbers of Belgian refugees came to England, of which Poirot was one.

3. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot’s old friend Hastings describes him thus: "He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an Egg, and he always perched it a little on one side…The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police." He uses a special preparation called ‘Revivit’ to conceal his grey hair.

4. The Poirot family home is in Spa, Belgium, though some believe he was born in a village called Ellezelles in the Belgian province of Hainaut. Not much was ever revealed about his childhood, except he came from a large and not very wealthy family, and he had a younger sister called Yvonne.

5. He has a sensitive stomach and suffers from sea sickness and air sickness when flying.

6. He’d almost certainly be diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder today. He’s known to have refused to eat an irregularly shaped loaf of bread, and cannot bear the fact that hen’s eggs aren’t all the same size (“What symmetry can there be on the breakfast table?") He is also particular about his personal finances, preferring to keep a bank balance of 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence.

7. Poirot has been portrayed many times on screen. Actors who have played him include: Charles Laughton (the first to play him on stage in 1928), Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, David Suchet, John Malkovich, Kenneth Branagh, Alfred Molina and Orson Welles.

8. When asked what her favourite Poirot novel was, Agatha Christie, after some deliberation, declared it was probably Murder on the Orient Express. However, Christie got thoroughly tired of writing about Poirot and described him as a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". However, since he was extremely popular with her readers, she refused to kill him off.

9. ITV had no such scruples, and did kill him off, from complications of a heart condition at the end of Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. He died, incidentally, at Styles Court, the location of his first appearance back in 1921. He was the first fictional character to have an obituary published in the New York Times. The front page headline read 'Hercule Poirot is dead. Famed Belgium detective, Hercule Poirot, dies.'

10. Hercule Poirot's first spoken words were 'Mon ami, Hastings!' His last spoken words (addressed to Hastings) were, 'Cher ami!'

22 January: Ruddigore

The Premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore took place on this date in 1887. This is my personal favourite having participated in a production of it as a student. 10 things you might not know:

1. The full title is Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse.

2. It was the tenth of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas.

3. The opening night wasn’t a great success. The audience compared it unfavourably with The Mikado, which preceded it. Some people actually booed and others heckled: “Take off this rot!” and “Give us back The Mikado.”

4. At this point the title was spelled Ruddygore, which didn’t help. Prudish Victorians thought it sounded too much like “bloody” which to them was a heinous swear word. So an "i" was substituted for the "y".

5. Gilbert himself admitted later that he’d considered changing the title completely to Kensington Gore, or Robin and Richard were two Pretty Men. Sullivan and Carte persuaded him to leave the title alone and merely alter the spelling.

6. The plot concerns a line of baronets living under a curse. The first baronet burned a Witch and as she died, she cursed him and his line, to the effect that if the baronet did not commit a crime every day he would die in agony, thus forcing every inheritor of the title to become a villain. Until one heir, Ruthven, runs away and lives as a simple farmer called Robin Oakapple to avoid the curse and leave his younger brother saddled with it. Robin is making romantic advances to a girl named Rose Maybud, but just as he seems to be getting somewhere, he’s ratted out by a sailor, Richard, who knows the truth. He comes home from sea and takes a fancy to Rose himself.

7. Robin is forced to become the latest villainous Murgatroyd and is haunted by his ancestors whose paintings come to life to taunt him. His brother, meanwhile, is free to pursue his childhood sweetheart, Margaret, who went mad after he, as the bad baronet, dumped her. Ruthven figures out how to foil the curse. If he deliberately fails to commit a crime each day, it’s tantamount to suicide. Suicide is a crime, so job done. He can live a virtuous life, marry Rose and live happily ever after.

8. Gilbert ranked Ruddigore along with Yeomen of the Guard and Utopia, Limited as one of his three favourite Savoy operas.

9. There have been numerous references in literature. The novels Murder and Sullivan by Sara Hoskinson Frommer and Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood are both set during a production of Ruddigore. The Ghosts' High Noon by John Dickson Carr was named for the song in Act 2. Isaac Asimov refers to it as well in a story called Runaround, in which a robot sings another song from the score, There Grew a Little Flower.

10. Ruddigore is usually set in the Regency period, but there has been a production set in the 1940s, the golden age of cinema in which incorporates film genres of the time, such as hard-boiled detective dramas, film noir, screwball comedies, and movie musicals and incorporates dialogue from classic movies.

20 January: Pins

Today is the feast day of St Sebastian, patron of pin makers. 10 things you might not know about pins:

1. Saint Sebastian is the patron of pin makers because he was sentenced by Diocletian to die by being tied to a stake and shot with arrows. He’s also the patron saint of archers, as it happens. Although he was shot full of arrows and left for dead, the arrows didn’t kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and found he was still alive. She took him home and nursed him back to health.

2. Pins have been used since Paleolithic times. Pins made of thorns and bone have been discovered dating back to this time. The Sumerians used pins made from iron and bone, not only to pin clothes but also to hold the pages of books together.

3. A pinners guild was first established in London in 1356.

4. John Ireland Howe of Derby, Connecticut invented a pin making machine in 1832. The factory he set up could produce 72,000 pins per day by 1839.

5. A pin is usually just over an inch long.

6. There are 3 predominant pin head finishes: T shape, ball head, and flat head.

7. The maxim, 'See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck' isn’t really about pins at all, but pennies. The rhyme was to extol the virtues of thrift, and the lesser known second line is ‘see a pin and let it lie, bad luck you'll have all day.’

8. Pincushions first appeared in the middle ages. Up until then, pins and needles would be stored in containers made of bone, ivory or Silver. A common shape for a pincushion is that of a Tomato. This arose because putting a ripe tomato on the mantle of a new home ensured prosperity and warded off evil spirits. Which was a potential bummer for a superstitious person who moved house outside of tomato season. Hence they made fabric tomatoes and stuffed them with sawdust. It wasn’t long before the women of such households discovered they were great for sticking pins into.

9. The infamous Pendle witch trials in 1612 started over a row about pins. A young woman named Alizon Device had need of some pins but no money to buy any, so she found an elderly pin seller called John Law, and asked if he’d give her some pins for free. He refused, so she cursed him. It just so happened that Law collapsed soon after from an apparent stroke. Whether it was stress from the argument, or the nocebo effect (if someone believes in a curse, it works, the opposite of the placebo effect) we’ll never know but it was the trigger for a whole lot of women being accused of witchcraft and executed.

10. While on the subject of witchcraft, sticking pins in a poppet or voodoo doll in order to cause harm to another person is a common spell. It wasn’t the only use a witch might put pins to, however. She (or he, let’s not be sexist here) might put them in a witch bottle, along with other sharp objects like thorns, Needles and broken Glass and fill the bottle up with urine. If cursed by another witch, they could “fire” the bottle and send the curse back at its sender.

19 January: The Archers

Today is Archery day. Archery has been covered already, so today I’m going to present ten facts about the world’s longest running Radio drama, the British radio soap, The Archers.

1. It was first broadcast nationwide on 1 January 1951. The first lines spoken were by Dan and Doris: Dan: "And a happy new year to you all." Doris: "A very happy new year, Dan." Dan: "Thanks, mother. If it's as good as the last 'un I'll be satisfied." Prior to that, though, there was a pilot episode which was broadcast on the Midlands Home Service on 29 May 1950. Back then, it was promoted as "an everyday story of country folk".

2. The creator of the show was Godfrey Baseley, who had produced Dick Barton for the BBC. It was originally intended to be a dramatised public information programme to help farmers increase production when food was still rationed in the UK. To this day there is still a lot of detail about what is going on on a farm at the current time of year.

3. The theme tune is Barwick Green from Arthur Wood’s suite My Native Heath. In 1972, the Somerset folk group The Yetties recorded a version which now accompanies the Sunday omnibus edition. Incidentally, Billy Connolly once suggested that this tune should be the UK National Anthem.

4. One of the suggested names for the village in the show was Little Twittington, but Ambridge was chosen in the end. Ambridge is in the fictional county of Borsetshire. The local ale is called Shires, regional Cheese is Borsetshire Blue and the Borchester Beauty is a variety of Apple. The village even has its own fake history: the parish church, St Stephen's, dates back to AD540, dedicated to St Stephen in 1291; and is recorded in the Domesday Book as "The Prior of St Mary's, Worcester, holds Ambridge with one berewick." The main farms in The Archers are Brookfied Farm, Bridge Farm, Home Farm and Grange Farm, and the pub is called The Bull. Incidentally, there’s a clear case of Nominative Determinism here as there has been a cook there called Freda Fry.

5. It takes just eight days to record five weeks of episodes, with each 13 minute episode taking two hours to record. The recording takes place in Birmingham, which is 20 miles from Ambridge. Most of the cast read their lines, apart from Ryan Kelly, who plays milkman Jazzer McCreary. He is blind and so he learns his lines beforehand.

6. Some of the sound effects you might hear include rustling straw (a box of reel to reel tape); a farm gate closing (an ironing board being collapsed swiftly. Incidentally, they’ve been using the same one since the 1950s); a lamb being born (the sound effects person squelching their hand in a pot of Yogurt, then throwing a wet towel on to some old audio tape). To make the sound of a cup of Tea being poured, freshly boiled water is used, because cold water has a different density and makes a different sound. This is Britain after all, and listeners would be able to tell the difference!

7. Phil Archer, portrayed by Norman Painting, may be the character with the longest storyline. Originally involved as an agricultural storyline researcher for The Archers of Wimberton Farm, he turned his hand to acting and ended up in the Guinness Book of Records for playing the same role, without a break, for more than 50 years. This isn’t to say he didn’t want a break. He also wrote some of the scripts, 1,198 to be exact, between 1966 and 1982 under the pen name Bruno Milna. He tried several times to kill his character off but presumably some editor somewhere always vetoed it. He was a composer, too. He wrote Phil Archer's favourite hymn, Waiting for a Wonder, and played the organ on air when Phil was playing the organ.

8. The first Archers birth was on 16 February 1951, when Peggy Archer (now Woolley) gave birth to her son Tony. The first death was on 22 September 1955 when Grace Archer died after trying to save her Horses from a fire. 20 million people listened to that episode. BBC executives claimed it was pure coincidence that this episode was broadcast on the night ITV was launched. The first woman to be sent to jail in Ambridge was Susan Carter, on December 23, 1993 for harbouring her brother after an armed robbery. Some listeners actually appealed to the Home Secretary to help get her out. The first major disaster was in 1952 when a jet crashed into a lower field of Brookfield Farm. The first murder in Ambridge is yet to happen. It’s a much safer place to live than Midsomer, then.

9. Storylines are planned up to 20 years in advance. Yes, there are people out there who know what will happen in the Archers in 2044! That said, scriptwriters have the flexibility to re-write episodes at the last minute in response to real life events. The 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth, the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother and the engagement of Prince William have all prompted last minute changes to the script.

10. Guest stars appearing as themselves have included Princess Margaret, Sir Bradley Wiggins, John Peel, Sir Terry Wogan, Britt Ekland, Dame Edna Everage, Alan Titchmarsh, and the Pet Shop Boys. Elvis, Madonna and Marilyn also appeared. They were the names of three peacocks who used to live at The Bull.

18 January: Lima, Peru

On this date in 1535, Francisco Pizarro founded Lima, Peru. 10 things you might not know about Peru’s capital city:

1. Lima is the fifth largest city in South America. It covers a total area of 2,672 square km (1,032 square miles) and has a population of around 10 million people.

2. The name comes from the Quecha word Limaq, which means "talker" or "speaker". There was once a famous oracle based in the area. The oracle was destroyed by the Spanish and replaced with a church, but the name persisted.

3. Pizzaro named his new city “The City of Kings” or “La Ciudad de Los Reyes”. This might have been because it was founded around the time of the Epiphany holiday (in the Julian Calendar) also known as Three Kings Day. Others claim that he actually named the city in honour of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and his mother, Joanna of Castile.

4. It is situated on a desert strip squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains. This means it is the second largest desert city in the world after Cairo in Egypt. 80% of the Water supply comes from the Rimac River, which runs across Lima, although without canals built by ancient civilizations water supply would potentially be even more of an issue. As it is, 8% of the population has no access to drinking water.

5. Lima never actually experiences heavy Rain – only drizzle.

6. It’s the only South American capital to be built overlooking the sea.

7. A huge wall was erected around the entire city in 1658 to defend Lima from pirates.

8. One of the world’s smallest churches can be found here. The 17^th century Chapel Our Lady of the Rosary – Nuestra Señora del Rosario is located in Rimac in downtown Lima and measures 4.8 metres (16 ft) wide, 11.8 metres (39 ft long) and 9.7 metres (32 ft) tall.

9. There is a museum in the city dedicated to the Spanish Inquisition. (Bet you weren’t expecting that!)

10. Black Vultures, or gallinazos as the locals call them, are very common here. The city authorities make use of the birds by fitting cameras to them in order to catch people who fly tip or dump illegally.

17 January: Muhammad Ali

This date in 1942 saw the birth of Muhammad Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay). 10 facts about him:

1. The boxer Muhammad Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky and was originally named Cassius Clay after his father, who had in turn been named for a white abolitionist. The original Cassius Clay was a wealthy 19th-century planter and politician who published an anti-slavery newspaper. However, there was evidence that in spite of arguing against slavery, Clay kept slaves on his family estate. At least part of Ali’s reason for changing his name was to dissociate himself from that.

2. He got into boxing after his Bicycle was stolen as a child. The police officer he reported the crime to happened to be a boxing trainer, who suggested the boy took up boxing.

3. He was embroiled in a court case lasting for years because he refused to serve in the Vietnam War. By this time he had converted to Islam and refused on religious grounds. He was arrested and stripped of his boxing license and heavyweight title. On June 20, 1967, he was convicted of draft evasion and banned from fighting. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned his conviction in 1971.

4. During his suspension from boxing, Ali took up acting in New York for a brief time and starred in a Broadway show called Big Time Buck White. The play ran for five nights at the George Abbot Theatre in New York.

5. In 1976, Ali recorded The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay, an album made to warn children about consuming too much Sugar.

6. He was a writer and artist as well. Despite having dyslexia, he wrote several bestselling books about his career, including The Greatest: My Own Story and The Soul of a Butterfly. He’d compose verses with which to taunt his opponents in the ring and hence earned the nickname the ‘Louisville Lip’. In 1963, he recorded a spoken word album called I Am the Greatest. In 2021, 26 of his drawings and arts were placed on auction and sold for close to $1 Million.

7. He threw his Olympic gold medal in a river in 1960. Returning home from Rome, he was refused service in a diner because of his race, even though he was wearing the medal he’d won for representing his country at the time. He wrote in his autobiography that he was so angry about it that he threw the medal off a bridge into the Ohio River. He was given a replacement medal when he lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

8. He starred in a DC comic in 1978, in which he defeats Superman and saves the world.

9. In 1981, when a man threatened to jump from the ninth story of a building in L.A. Ali’s friend Howard Bingham called the boxer, who lived nearby. Ali successfully talked the man down from the ledge.

10. In 1984, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, which can result from head trauma. He was 42. He died in 2016 aged 74. His headstone reads "Service to others is the rent you pay for your room in heaven".