5 November: Versailles

On this date in 1789 a crowd of angry women, protesting about the price of bread, gathered in the marketplaces of Paris. They were joined by revolutionaries and in due course thousands of people marched on the Palace of Versailles. This was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. And a good excuse to present 10 facts about the Palace of Versailles.

1. The Palace of Versailles is located in the Yvelines département, Île-de-France région, northern France, 10 miles (16 km) west-southwest of Paris. It attracts over 8 million visitors a year. Since 1979 the palace has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

2. It started life as a hunting lodge for Louis XIII and his family. He enjoyed hunting and wanted a place to stay in the country rather than have to travel home in the dark. His son Louis XIV, “the Sun King” installed the Court and government there in 1682 and set about transforming the place in to the palace it is today. Every detail of its construction was intended to glorify the king. The entire property is laid out from East to West, following the daily path of the Sun.

3. The gardens were designed by André Le Nôtre and took 40 years to create. The gardens covered more than 30,000 acres, with 400 sculptures and 1,400 fountains. There were so many exotic plants and Flowers that the combined smells were said to make people in the nearby town feel sick. That didn’t stop members of the public from coming to visit the gardens, which were open to the public. There was a strict dress code, although if you didn’t own the right kind of clothing you could rent an outfit for the duration of your visit.

4. It was the location of the first Toilet in France. It was installed for Marie Antoinette and was known as the “lieu anglaise” or “place of the English”. This may well be where we get the English slang word “loo” from. However, nobody else had an en suite. Everyone else had a chamber pot. Made from Silver, of course. These were emptied out of the windows. It was said people carried leather Umbrellas in the courtyards to avoid being hit by something nasty.

5. The fountains caused problems. Versailles was not located near a river so sourcing the Water for them wasn’t easy. Artificial ponds had to be created, but even they didn’t provide enough water to keep the fountains going 24/7. Hence the gardeners devised a secret whistling code in order to warn each other when the king was walking in the gardens, so that as he approached, the fountains could be turned on and off again when he’d passed by, allowing him to think it was all working perfectly. Eventually, to have enough water for everything to work as planned, they had to pump water from Seine. Some of the fountains still use the same hydraulics network today.

6. Inside, the palace has 2153 Windows, 1200 fireplaces, 700 rooms (although sources differ and some say over 2,000 rooms) and 67 staircases. Everything used to construct and decorate the Palace was created in France.

7. Which brings us to the Hall of Mirrors. This room contains 357 mirrors and is flanked on opposite ends by the Salon of Peace and the Salon of War. Impressive as it is, it was designed merely as a passageway to get from one room to another and wasn’t a venue for ceremonies. The mirrors, however, posed a problem for the designers in their quest to make sure everything in the palace was made in France. This was because at the time, Venice was the only place making mirrors. So, they lured some of the mirror makers to France. Venice wasn’t happy about this and ordered all the mirror makers who’d gone to France executed for giving away the secrets of mirror making. The treaty that ended World War I, the Treaty of Versailles, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors.

8. The palace was so huge that there was quite some distance between the kitchen and the king’s dining room. Hence the meals would have left the kitchen piping hot but would have been cold by the time they reached the king. The sheer amount of marble used in the palace didn’t help, making it so cold in winter that it has been said that in March 1695, Wine froze in glasses on the King’s table.

9. Marie Antoinette had a rustic village built in the grounds which it was said was for her to go and play at being poor with her ladies, doing their own cleaning and cooking for themselves. Officially, though, it was a working farm and may equally have been a place for royal children to learn about farming.

10. In 1789, the French Revolution forced the royal family to return to Paris. The golden gate of the palace was destroyed by revolutionaries (there is a replica there now, installed in 2008) and many of the artworks were moved to The Louvre. The palace itself wasn’t ransacked however. Rather the king’s servants saw it as a chance to do repairs. It was never again a royal residence. It became the Museum of the History of France in 1837 by order of King Louis-Philippe.

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4 October: Flutes

Today is Toot your Flute Day. 10 things you might not know about flutes:

1. Various materials have been used to make flutes throughout history, including reed, Bamboo, wood, Glass and bone. One of the earliest flutes ever found was made from a juvenile cave bear's femur, with holes bored into it. This dates back 43,000 years ago.

2. Today, flutes are made from metal, usually Silver or nickel. Gold, platinum, grenadilla and Copper might also be used.

3. A flute produces sound when a stream of air directed across a hole in the instrument creates a vibration of air at the hole. Any open tube that you blow into is technically a flute, even an empty coke bottle.

4. The material a flute is made of wood or metal changes its sound. The thickness of the metal also changes the sound.

5. A person who plays the flute is called a flute player, a flutist, a flautist, a fluter, or a flutenist.

6. Flutes have been called a number of different names through the ages. The earliest written reference to a flute is from a Sumerian-language cuneiform tablet dated to c. 2600–2700 BC. The first known use of the English word flute in writing is by Geoffrey Chaucer, at around 1380, in his poem, The House of Fame.

7. The Hindu god Krishna is said to have created the world by playing a flute, and Hindus believe the flute preaches love and freedom.

8. Despite being made of metal and not using a reed, the flute belongs in the woodwind section of the orchestra.

9. A standard concert flute is around 26 inches long and has a range of about 3 octaves (roughly between C4 and C7). There are 2-4 flutes in an orchestra. There might also be a piccolo, which is a half-size version of a flute which sounds one octave higher than the standard concert flute. The word piccolo means “small” in Italian.

10. The flute requires more breath than any other instrument, including the Tuba.

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3 October: Kevin Day

 Today is National Kevin Day. Here’s a list of famous Kevins:

1. Kevin Bacon: American actor. Known for his leading man and character roles. Films include National Lampoon's Animal House, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13 and X-Men: First Class.

2. Kevin Archer and Kevin Rowland: Members of the band Dexy's Midnight Runners.

3. Kevin Keegan: English footballer and coach.

4. Kevin Spacey: American actor whose films include Working Girl, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, A Time to Kill and L.A. Confidential.

5. Kevin Rudd: 26th Prime Minister of Australia.

6. Kevin Costner: American actor whose films include The Untouchables, Field of Dreams, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Bodyguard and Dances with Wolves.

7. Saint Kevin: Irish saint who founded Glendalough abbey in the Kingdom of Leinster in the 6th century.

8. Kevin the Teenager: character created and played by the comedian Harry Enfield, known for complaining, “It’s so unfair!”

9. Kevin Sorbo: American actor whose credits include Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Andromeda.

10. Kevin Kline: American actor. His films include Sophie's Choice, A Fish Called Wanda, Cry Freedom, Chaplin and The Pink Panther.

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2 October: Radon

This date in 1852 was the birthdate of Sir William Ramsay, chemist who co-discovered radon. 10 things you might not know about Radon:

1. Radon is a noble gas with the symbol Rn and atomic number 86.

2. It is colourless and odourless.

3. Radon is created by the breakdown of radium and is a step in the decay chains of Uranium-238 and thorium-232.

4. There are 33 known isotopes of radon. Rn-226 is the most common of these. It has a half life of 3.825 days and is therefore the only naturally occurring isotope likely to be released into the atmosphere from the rocks where it is created. Even though it has a short half life, it’s not going to disappear any time soon because the elements that create it are abundant and have half-lives of at least several billion years.

5. Radon is present in the Earth's crust at an abundance of 4 x10-13 milligrams per kilogram.

6. Its melting point is202 K (−71 °C, −96 °F) and its boiling point is 211.5 K (−61.7 °C, −79.1 °F).

7. Although radon was observed as early as 1899 it was Ramsay and his colleague Robert Whytlaw-Gray who isolated it and determined its melting temperature and approximate density. In 1910, they determined that it was the heaviest known gas. They initially called the element niton but this changed to radon in 1923 after Radium, one of its sources.

8. It is a health hazard, even though as a noble gas it is inert and doesn’t easily form chemical compounds. The risk to health comes from the products of it breaking down, substances called "radon daughters" which can stick to things, like dust particles and the inside of a person’s lungs. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer and the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.

9. Before people knew this, radon was often used as a medical treatment, including for cancer. In the early 20^th century it was commonly used in spas with patients encouraged to bathe in it, inhale it and drink it. Water from springs with radon in them was bottled and sold, although by the time the customer bought it, thanks to radon’s short half life, it probably didn’t have any radon in it.

10. Radon is everywhere outdoors and in natural water sources but usually in such low concentrations it’s not a problem. If it accumulates in an enclosed space, such as a building or a mine, then it might be a problem. Every building contains radon but the levels are usually low. It is higher in areas where there’s a lot of granite. It’s possible to test for it and if the level is higher than desirable, the problem can be fixed with simple building works.

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