8 April: Dana Name Day

In Latvia, today is the name day for people called Dana. Dana is a unisex given name. In Arabic, it means 'the most perfectly sized, valuable and beautiful pearl' In Persian, it means 'wise'. It is also occasionally used as a feminine version of Daniel or a short version of other names. 10 famous Danas:

1. Dana Scallon (pictured): known mononymously as Dana, Irish singer and politician. Won Eurovision in 1970 with All Kinds of Everything.

2. Dana Andrews: American film actor who became a major star in film noir and Westerns.

3. Dana: South Korean pop singer.

4. Dana White Jr.: American businessman, the CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a global mixed martial arts organisation.

5. Dana Scully: one of the main characters on the television show The X Files.

6. Dana Carvey: American comedian who has appeared as a cast member of Saturday Night Live and in the Wayne's World movie series.

7. Dana Plato: American actress who played Kimberly Drummond on the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes.

8. Dana Franklin: Protagonist the novel Kindred by Octavia E Butler. A 26-year-old African-American woman writer, married to a white writer named Kevin. She repeatedly travels in time to a slave plantation in antebellum Maryland.

9. Dana Delany: American actress who starred as Katherine Mayfair in Desperate Housewives and also provided the voice of Lois Lane in Superman: The Animated Series. She has the longest tenure of playing Lois Lane, having portrayed the character for 17 years.

10. Dana Owens: also known as Queen Latifah, American rapper, singer and actress.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

7 April: 97

 Today is the 97^th day of the year. 10 fun facts about 97.

1. 97 is the only prime number in the 90s and the highest prime number less than 100.

2. Jack Reacher likes the number 97 for just this reason and it forms the last two digits of his ATM card PIN in the novel Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child.

3. The 10-97 police code means "arrived on the scene".

4. 97 Klotho is a main-belt Asteroid discovered by Ernst Tempel in 1868. It is named after Klotho or Clotho, one of the three Moirai, or Fates, in Greek mythology.

5. It’s the atomic number of Berkelium, a synthetic chemical element which has the symbol Bk and is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California.

6. The A97 is a major road in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It runs south from Banff on the north coast to its junction with the A93 road at Dinnet.

7. British logician, mathematician, and philosopher Bertrand Russell lived to be 97.

8. "Process 97" was the fictional secret formula in the film The House On 92nd Street.

9. The seventh word of the seventh line of Shakespeare's Sonnet XCVII (97) is “prime”.

10. 97 is the decimal unicode number representing the Latin lowercase "a".

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

6 April: Hula Hoops

On this date in 1987 Roxann Rose set the record for continuous revolution of a hula hoop (90 hours). 10 facts about hula hoops:

1. Roxann Rose’s record has since been broken and at time of writing the record holder is Jenny Doan who hula hooped for 100 hours.

2. There are also records for hula hooping on one leg (Leanna Fernandez (UK) - 2 hours, 30 minutes, 19 seconds in 2021); hula hooping in plank position (Reger Maffei (USA) - 7 minutes, 41.28 seconds in 2024); spinning the most hoops at once (Marawa Ibrahim (Australia) 200); The most people hula-hooping simultaneously (4,183 by the Department of Health and the Ministry of Public Health in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2013. The hula hoops remained in continuous motion for two minutes); and running a half marathon while hula hooping (two hours and 29 minutes by Tamara "Tats" Ward (UK) in 2025.

3. Items resembling modern hula hoops have been used since at least 500 BC.

4. The Native American Hoop Dance is a form of storytelling dance using hoops as props.

5. The modern hula hoop was inspired by Australian children playing with Bamboo hoops as the owners of an American toy company, Wham-O, happened to be driving past. They went home and made similar toys for their own children, who loved them. Even adults at cocktail parties were keen to have a go, especially when they’d imbibed a few cocktails! This told Wham-O that they had a hit on their hands and began selling them in 1958. It became a craze. More than 20 million people bought them in that year.

6. The name hula comes from the Hawaiian dance which uses similar hip movements.

7. Not all countries embraced the craze as America did. Indonesia banned them because they “might stimulate passion”; Japan forbade them on public streets; China called hula hoops “a nauseating craze” and in the Soviet Union, the hoop branded a “symbol of the emptiness of American culture.”

8. Hula hooping is nowadays a popular fitness activity with hula hooping included in the Nintendo Wii exercise package. That said, British Medical Journal has reported that the hula hoop was responsible for an increase in back, neck, and abdominal injuries.

9. At the height of the craze there were hit songs about hula hoops: one by Georgia Gibbs and another by Maureen Evans.

10. Hula Hooping Girl, a 2020 street art painting by Banksy in Nottingham portrays a young girl hula-hooping with a bicycle tyre.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

5 April: Mallorca

Today is the feast day of St Catherine Tomás, Patron of Mallorca (also sometimes spelled Majorca in English). Ten facts about the island:

1. It’s the largest of Spain's Balearic Islands, and the seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.

2. The name of the island comes from an old Latin phrase ‘insula maior’ which translates as ‘larger island’, which was often mispronounced and that evolved into its modern name.

3. The capital is Palma, where around half the population live.

4. Its highest peak is the Puig Major (1445 metres) which is also the highest mountain in the Balearic Islands.

5. In 2011, Mallorca’s Serra de Tramuntana mountain range was awarded World Heritage Status by UNESCO for being an area of great Physical and Cultural significance.

6. There is a cathedral there which was built on the site of a mosque, so its orientation is towards the southeast rather than the usual Christian east to west alignment. Construction started on La Seu cathedral began in 1230 and continued for 400 years. In recent times, Antoni Gaudi made some additions.

7. There’s also a castle which is unusual because it’s built in a perfect circle. Castell de Bellver was built in the 14th century.

8. The island has been an inspiration to creative people of many kinds. Frederic Chopin spent some time here on his doctor’s advice. While he didn’t have the best possible time, he got a lot of composing done, working on the Preludes, Op. 28, his Ballade No. 2, Op. 38; two Polonaises, Op. 40; and the Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39. Agatha Christie stayed in Palma and Port de Pollença and was inspired to write a short story collection called Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories. The artist Joan Miro and the poet Robert Graves chose to settle on the island.

9. Mallorca has a traditional dance called Ball dels Cossiers which dates back to the 13th or 14th century. Three pairs of dancers, usually male, defend a "Lady," who can be played by a man or a woman, from a demon or devil.

10. In the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries there was a renowned school of cartographers, cosmographers, and navigational instrument makers called the "Catalan school". Their work with maps and navigational instruments made the discovery of the New World possible.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

4 April: Maps

 Today is National Reading a Roadmap Day. 10 facts about maps:

1. The study of maps and mapmaking is known as cartography, and a person who makes maps is known as a cartographer.

2. People started making maps at least 16,500 years ago. We know this because there is a map of stars in the French caves of Lascaux. The first road map is believed to be one called the Turn Papyrus Map. It was created in Egypt in around 1160 BC, showing ways to get around bends in rivers.

3. There is no such thing as a perfectly accurate map of the world. This is because the Earth is a sphere and maps are flat, so any representation will be distorted to some extent. The one we are most familiar with is called the Mercator projection, which was invented in the mid 16th century by a cartographer called Gerardus Mercator. It’s most useful for sailors as it shows exactly where you’d end up if you set sail from any coastline, but many of the land masses are completely the wrong size. North America and Europe look much bigger than they actually are. Greenland and Africa are shown as pretty much the same size when Africa is actually about 14 times bigger. Someone needs to explain this to Donald Trump: there’s 14 times less oil and minerals there than he thinks!

4. Another projection is the Dymaxion, or Fuller, map, which was created by Buckminster Fuller around 1943. He put a world map on an icosahedron, or 20-sided polygon, and flattened it.

5. Maps also frequently show places that don’t exist. Sometimes this is down to a mistake. In 1798, James Rennell drew the first map of Africa which wrongly included a mountain range called the Mountains of Kong which didn’t exist, but the mountain range appeared on maps of Africa for over 100 years. Many ancient cartographers believed the fictional city of El Dorado was real for centuries, and included it on maps as recently as 1808.

6. Sometimes fictitious places were included on purpose, so map makers would know if someone else had simply copied their map instead of putting the work in. The London A to Z had a fictitious street. Another example was created by Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest Alpers who used an anagram of their initials to name a fake town called Agloe, which they placed near the Catskill Mountains in New York as a trap. You can almost see these two rubbing their hands together and the dollar signs lighting up in their eyes when Rand McNally put Agloe on one of their maps. However, Rand McNally had the last laugh because someone, seeing the town on the original map, had built a general store there, and a real community had sprung up around it. Agloe had become a real town. In the modern age, even Google maps adds fake places. Argleton, England was discovered on Google Maps in 2008, but was later removed from Google Maps.

7. Also, places that do exist are sometimes left off on purpose – like military bases, in case the map ends up in enemy hands. American geological survey maps don’t include nuclear waste dumps, either.

8. Maps usually show north at the top, which could lead to the assumption that early explorers saw the northern hemisphere as more important or it was reflecting the position of the North Pole on the top of the planet. However, it might actually have been a convention that started in Korea with the Kangnido map, created in 1402 by a Korean astronomer named Kwon Kun. It’s believed he put North at the top because looking North was associated with looking at the emperor. European maps in the middle ages often put east at the top as it suited them back then to “orient” the map looking east (towards the Orient) to make sure they had it the right way up. Orient comes from the Latin word for East, ”oriens” and it evolved into the modern word orientation.

9. In 1891, a group of countries created the International Map of the World Initiative with the purpose of creating a worldwide standard for maps. Wars and depressions kept scuppering it, although it was still a thing up until the 1980s, but has since dropped off the radar.

10. During WWII, maps were smuggled into prisoner of war camps to help prisoners escape. There were Monopoly sets with silk maps concealed inside the playing board along with other helpful items like real money hidden in the piles of Monopoly money, and a playing piece which was a working Compass. There were also multi-layered Playing cards which, when soaked in Water, revealed a map.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

3 April: Dugongs

Today is World Aquatic Animal day, so here are some facts about an aquatic animal I’ve not covered yet – dugongs.

1. Dugongs belong to the order Sirenia, which also includes their cousins, the Manatees. Dugong dungon is the only living dugon in the order. The only other true species of dugong, Hydrodamalis gigas, was hunted to extinction in 1767, just 36 years after its discovery. Dugongs are also related to Elephants.

2. There is a 5,000-year-old wall painting of a dugong, apparently drawn by Neolithic peoples, in Tambun Cave, Malaysia.

3. The word "dugong" derives from the Visayan language. It doesn’t, as is commonly thought, mean "lady of the sea". Other common names include "sea cow", "sea pig", and "sea camel".

4. They are strictly vegetarian, the only completely herbivorous marine mammal on the planet. Their diet consists mainly of seagrass which they tear up by the roots using their lips, leaving a bare trail behind them. Their grazing habits are one reason for them being known as sea cows. An adult dugong will eat up to 30 kilograms of seagrass a day, and if seagrass is scarce, they’ll eat algae.

5. Mature males and older females have tusks. It’s possible to tell by the rings on a dugong’s tusks how old it is. Dugongs can live up to 70 years.

6. They are sociable animals and live in groups of up to 200. They communicate with each other using chirps, whistles, barks and other sounds that echo underwater.

7. They can mate at any time of year. A group of males will pursue a female: the “following phase”. This is followed by the “fighting phase”, which is what it says on the tin: the males fight each other for the female and the female may fight off unwanted males as well. Finally there is the “mounting stage” which is also what it says on the tin, where several of the males will get lucky. Female dugongs only produce one calf every 2.5 – 7 years and are pregnant for 13 – 14 months.

8. There is a myth in some parts of the world that dugongs were once human women, and that they cry when they are butchered or beached. It is therefore bad luck to kill one, so they don’t get hunted for food in these areas. In other places, however, dugong meat is said to have aphrodisiac properties and is considered a luxury food. In some places, the tusks were used as sword handles.

9. They have been hunted, or trapped in fishing nets enough to make them endangered. Australia has created a number of dugong protection parks where it is illegal to hunt them, even for Aboriginal Peoples.

10. It is tricky and expensive to keep dugongs in captivity, because the seagrass that they eat is hard to grow in an aquarium.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

2 April: 92

It’s day 92 of 2026! Here are 10 fun facts about the number 92.

1. 92 is the atomic number of Uranium.

2. +92 is the international dialling code for Pakistan.

3. British film-maker Peter Greenaway uses the number 92 a lot in his films. This number has special association with Greenaway's creation, Tulse Luper. An example is The Falls, Greenaway’s 1980 film which takes the form of a mock documentary in 92 parts. The world has been struck by a mysterious incident called the "Violent Unknown Event" and the survivors have names that start with “Fall”. The documentary concerns 92 of the entries in a directory of the survivors.

4. 92 Undina is a main belt asteroid discovered by Christian Peters in 1867 and named for the heroine of Undine, a novella by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué.

5. The Saab 92 was the first production car from Saab.

6. London bus route 92 runs between Ealing Hospital and the IKEA store in Brent Park.

7. "92" is a Serbian-language song by Elena Risteska.

8. A92 is an Irish drill collective based in Drogheda. Named after the postal code of Drogheda town, A92 was formed in 2020 and went viral following the release of "Plugged in Freestyle".

9. The A92 is a major road that runs through Fife, Dundee, Angus, Aberdeenshire, and Aberdeen City in Scotland.

10. In numerology a person under the influence of 92 is a compassionate and tolerant teamworker. They are concerned about the welfare of humanity and may be drawn to teaching. 92 generally has a pleasing personality with a gentle manner.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

1 April: Quotes about fools

Happy April Fools Day! 10 quotes about fools:

1. The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so dull of doubts. Bertrand Russell

2. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Alexander Pope

3. He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. Chinese saying

4. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln

5. The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. Winston Churchill

6. I have great faith in fools; self-confidence, my friends call it. Edgar Allen Poe

7. The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools. Larry Niven

8. It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak. Neil Gaiman

9. If it is ones lot to be cast among fools, one must learn foolishness. Alexandre Dumas

10. Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. Mark Twain

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

31 March: Red Rum

On this date in 1978 the racehorse Red Rum retired from competition. 10 things you might not know about Red Rum.

1. His name comes from the names of his parents. His dam was Mared and his sire Quorum.

2. He was born on 3 May 1965 at Rossenarra Stud in Kells, County Kilkenny. His dam’s owner, Martyn McEnery, had taken her to Balreask Stud, near Dublin airport and paid £251.12s for the stud fee and Mared’s board for two weeks.

3. His first ever race was at Aintree, at the Grand National meeting, though not in the big race itself. The result was a dead heat with a filly also bred at Rossenarra Stud. It was on this day that he first came to the attention of Donald “Ginger” McCain, who would later become Red Rum’s owner and trainer, although the first time the horse came up for sale, he didn’t bid as Red Rum was at that time being touted as a sprinter and McCain’s speciality was steeplechasers.

4. McCain was a second hand car dealer who trained horses from stables behind his car showroom in Birkdale. He got engaged to his wife Beryl on Grand National day and married her on Grand National Day two years later. Hence they were always at the National, celebrating their anniversary. His lifelong dream was to train a National winner. He was, as he’d say, always on the lookout for “one good horse”. McCain eventually bought Red Rum in 1972 on behalf of a businessman called Noel Le Mare whose lifelong ambition was to own a Grand National Winner. Le Mare paid 6,000 guineas for the Horse.

5. There was a problem, however. When they got Red Rum home, it looked like, as a car dealer might say, they’d been sold a lemon; for Red Rum was lame. Le Mare had already commented that Red Rum backwards spelled “murder” and that had to be a bad sign. It turned out the horse had pedolostisis, a debilitating and thought to be incurable bone disease, the equine equivalent of arthritis and bone spurs. However, there was one cure and that was training on a beach and in the sea. McCain knew this, having seen working horses recover from it after working on the beach. He was also the only trainer in England who exercised his horses on a beach. As it happened, Red Rum loved the sea and would go in up to his chest any chance he got – and it did the trick. His lameness disappeared.

6. Comedian Lee Mack was a stable boy before he became famous, and the horse on which he took his first riding lesson was Red Rum.

7. Red Rum is the only horse to win both the Aintree Grand National and the Scottish Grand National in the same season in 1974. That said, Aintree seemed to be Red Rum’s favourite course where he gave his best performances, often doing less well at other venues.

8. Red Rum won the Grand National in 1973, 1974 and 1977, finishing second in 1975 and 1976. He was all set to give it another go in 1978, but the day before the race it was discovered he had a hairline fracture which could have led to collapse of the bone if he’d taken part in the race. So he was retired, although he would return to Aintree as a celebrity horse and lead the opening parade after that. In retirement, he earned more from merchandise, opening supermarkets, a roller coaster and switching on the Blackpool Illuminations, than he’d ever won in prize money. Since he was a gelding, his owners missed out on another potential goldmine they could have earned from stud fees.

9. Red Rum lived to the grand old age (for a horse) of 30. The McCains kept him at their country home in Cheshire until he died on 18 October 1995. He was buried beside the winning post at Aintree, where his epitaph reads “Respect this place, This hallowed ground; A legend here, His rest has found; His feet would fly, Our spirits soar; He earned our love, For evermore.” There is also a statue of him at Aintree.

10. A Merseyrail train and a fire engine in Southport were named after him.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

30 March: 89

Today is the 89^th day of the year. Here are 10 fun facts about the number 89.

1. If all the elements in the Periodic Table were placed in alphabetical order, at the top of the list would be Actinium (Ac) which has the atomic number 89.

2. Hellin's law is an empirical observation (before fertility treatments were commonplace) that Twins occur once in 89 births, triplets once per 89 twin births, and quadruplets once per 89 triplet births, and so on.

3. The height of the pedestal under the Statue of Liberty is 89'.

4. The longest verse in the KJV Bible is Esther 8:9 with 89 plus one words.

5. The Michaelmas daisy usually has 89 petals. It is the largest naturally occurring Fibonacci number in flowers.

6. In Rugby, an "89" or eight-nine move follows a scrum, in which the number 8 catches the ball and transfers it to number 9 (scrum half).

7. The pattern on the underside of the wing of the butterfly Diaethria neglecta resembles the number 89.

8. 89 Julia is a large asteroid discovered by French astronomer Édouard Stephan in 1866. It is believed to be named after Saint Julia of Corsica.

9. London bus route 89 runs from Lewisham Station to Forest Road / Slade Green Station.

10. In numerology, 89 energy resonates with building things, generally with a humanitarian objective, such as large structures that benefit society and last a long time. People under the influence of the number are efficient and skilled managers.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

29 March: John Tyler

This date in 1790 was the birthdate of the 10th president of the United States, John Tyler. Ten facts about him:

1. He was the first vice president to become president without an election, on the death of his predecessor William H Harrison in 1841. The US Constitution wasn’t clear about what should happen if a president died in office. Some, like John Quincy Adams believed the vice president should be an acting president, but Tyler declared that he was president and nobody was able to challenge it successfully. His opponents referred to him as “His accidency”.

2. Tyler fathered more children than any other American president. He married his first wife, Letitia Christian, on his 23rd birthday in 1813 and they had eight. Letitia died of a stroke in September 1842 and in 1844 he married Julia Gardiner and had seven more with her. Julia was 30 years his junior and five years younger than his eldest daughter, who wasn’t well pleased about the marriage. There’s speculation that he could have fathered even more with his slaves and then sold the babies. Hence there are a number of African American families today who claim to be his descendants although none of them have been able to prove it.

3. He claimed to be against slavery, but he’d grown up on a plantation and kept slaves himself, never freeing any of them. He believed it was up to individual states to decide whether slavery should be legal, not the federal government. We don’t know how well he treated his slaves, but historians surmise he treated them well and wasn’t violent towards them.

4. Tyler studied law with his father, gaining admission to the bar in 1809. He was only 19 at the time, and therefore too young to be eligible, but the admitting judge didn’t ask his age.

5. His presidency was somewhat turbulent. He’d defected from the Democrats to run with Harrison as a Whig, but when he became president, the Whigs decided they didn’t trust him and threw him out. For the remainder of his presidency, Tyler was, as he himself said, a man “without a party.” He was the only American president whose party expelled him while he was president.

6. He was also the only president to have had virtually all of his cabinet resign in protest over his veto of a tariff bill; all but his Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, resigned in protest.

7. He was influential in Texas’s journey to statehood. Though the Senate refused to ratify a treaty which would have made Texas statehood possible, Tyler did manage to get them to agree to an annexation bill which he signed three days before he left office.

8. In 1844 he entered the election, but since the Whigs had thrown him out and the Democrats didn’t support him either, he entered as a member of his own party, made up of people loyal to him. His candidacy attracted little support and in August 1844 he withdrew and the winner of that election was James K. Polk.

9. Tyler retired to a Virginia plantation which was called Walnut Grove, but Tyler renamed it Sherwood Forest because he saw himself as being outlawed by the Whig party and therefore identified with Robin Hood.

10. He died of a stroke in 1862 at the age of 71. Tyler's death was the only one in presidential history not to be officially recognised in Washington, because of his allegiance to the Confederate States. Confederate President Jefferson Davis organised a grand funeral even though Tyler had asked for a simple one. His coffin was draped with a Confederate flag, making him the only U.S. president ever buried under a flag not of the United States.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

28 March: Radio Caroline

Radio Caroline Began broadcasting on this date in 1964. 10 things you might not know about Radio Caroline.

1. The station was born at a time when pop music got very little air time on BBC Radio. Young people wanting to listen to pop Music on the radio could only do so for about an hour a week, as The BBC catered mainly to older audiences.

2. It was founded by a musician and manager from Ireland, called Ronan O'Rahilly, who had applied to the BBC to get them to play a record by one of his contracted artists, one Georgie Fame, and been turned down.

3. O'Rahilly obtained a former Danish passenger ferry called Fredericia which he took to the Irish port of Greenore to be fitted out as a radio ship. She was then renamed MV Caroline and her port of registry changed to Panama. She was the first of a number of ships used to broadcast the station. Others were used as a result of mergers with other offshore stations or replacements for ships that were wrecked or seized. Other vessels included Mi Amigo and Ross Revenge. The latter was a former fishing trawler which had (91 m) high mast, the tallest on any ship in the world.

4. Why Caroline? We don’t know for sure, but there are three different theories. One was that O'Rahilly was inspired by a picture he’d seen of Caroline Kennedy, playing with her brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., in the Oval Office. Another theory is that it was named after someone O'Rahilly knew, probably Caroline Maudling, daughter of the British government minister Reginald Maudling. The third theory is that it wasn’t named for a real person at all, but a concept of a target audience. For a time, Radio Caroline shared an office with a music magazine, Queen, whose target audience according to its editor was "a twenty something, non intellectual who had left school at 16, and was a ‘good time’ girl called Caroline." Which, it was decided, was also the target audience for the radio station.

5. Some big names in the broadcasting world started their careers on Radio Caroline. They include Tony Blackburn, Simon Dee, Tony Prince, Spangles Muldoon, Johnnie Walker, Dave Lee Travis, Tommy Vance and Emperor Rosko. For one weekend in 1965 the regular DJs were joined by a singer called Sylvan Whittingham, who visited to promote her new single and then couldn’t leave due to a storm. She spent the time mucking in and helping to present programmes and create jingles.

6. In 1967, the UK Government enacted the Marine, &c., Broadcasting (Offences) Act 1967 which essentially meant companies weren’t allowed to advertise on it, which caused serious financial problems and several offshore stations, for want of a better word, went under. Caroline, however, simply moved to Dutch waters, out of the law’s jurisdiction. They stayed there until 1974, when the Netherlands enacted a similar law, at which point they moved to Spain.

7. The first programme was pre recorded and presented by Chris Moore. The opening show on the Ross Revenge was presented by Tom Anderson, who had been the one to broadcast the final goodbye from the sinking Mi Amigo in 1980.

8. There was once a murder associated with the station. In 1965, Caroline was in negotiations to take over another station, Radio City, which broadcast from a Second World War marine fort called Shivering Sands Army Fort, off the Kent coast. One Major Oliver Smedley entered into a partnership with Radio City's owner, Reginald Calvert, and had a more powerful transmitter installed on the fort. This transmitter didn’t work. Calvert didn’t pay for it and Smedley withdrew from the deal. Smedley later took a bunch of workmen to the fort to repossess the transmitter as it would still have useful parts. Calvert wasn’t happy about that and showed up at Smedley’s house asking for the transmitter back. There was a fight which ended with Calvert being shot dead. Smedley was charged with Calvert's murder, later reduced to a charge of manslaughter. The jury acquitted him.

9. As well as pop music, Radio Caroline used to broadcast shows by American Evangelists, who would pay handsomely for late night slots, perhaps hoping to reach young pop fans. This helped make ends meet during the time when advertising was outlawed.

10. Radio Caroline still exists today, but it’s not broadcast from a ship these days. The station now broadcasts on 648 AM across much of England and DAB radio in certain areas, and you can also listen to it 24 hours a day on The Internet.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

27 March: Raymond Name Day

Today is the name day for people called Raymond. Raymond is a male given name of Germanic origin, meaning counsel and protection. It is frequently shortened to Ray. 10 famous Raymonds:

1. Ray Bolger: actor who played the Scarecrow in Wizard of Oz.

2. Saint Raymond of Penyafort patron of canon lawyers and of all lawyers in Spain.

3. Ray Bradbury: American science fiction and fantasy author best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451.

4. Raymond Reddington: main character in the TV series The Blacklist.

5. Raymond Burr: Canadian actor who portrayed the title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.

6. Ray Charles (pictured): American singer, songwriter and pianist.

7. Ray Park: British actor, martial artist and stuntman best known for as Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Solo: A Star Wars Story.

8. Raymond Briggs: English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist, and author best known for The Snowman and Fungus the Bogeyman.

9. Ray Romano: actor who played Ray Barone in Everybody loves Raymond.

10. Raymond E. Feist: American fantasy writer.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

26 March: Robert Frost

Robert Frost, the American poet, was born on this date in 1874. Here are 10 facts about him.

1. He was born in San Francisco; both his parents were teachers. He was named after Confederate General Robert E Lee, a hero of his father’s.

2. Frost’s father died of tuberculosis when he was 11 years old, leaving them with just eight dollars. Hence the family moved to Massachusetts to live with his grandparents.

3. Frost had two unsuccessful attempts at getting a college degree. He went to Dartmouth College but only lasted two months before dropping out, saying, "I wasn't suited for that place." He tried again at Harvard, but by this time he had a wife and child and dropped out to support them. Harvard bestowed an honorary degree on him in 1937.

4. His wife’s name was Elinor Miriam White and they were childhood sweethearts, having met at school. In fact, they shared the title of class valedictorian when they graduated in 1892. He proposed to her after he sold his first poem (My Butterfly, to the New York Independent newspaper in 1894, for which he got paid $15 which at the time was a substantial sum, about twice the weekly salary he earned as a teacher) but she insisted on waiting until she finished college. His poem, The Subverted Flower, was inspired by her.

5. His most famous poem, The Road Not Taken, was actually written as a bit of a joke. Frost used to go hiking with a friend, Edward Thomas. Thomas was often indecisive about which way to go, would spend a lot of time deliberating and then regretting that he’d not chosen the other route.

6. Another of his poems is called Fire and Ice, and this one was an inspiration to JRR Martin who admits the poem was an influence and that he lifted the title for his book A Song of Ice and Fire. Martin said, "Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardour and all of these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is … you know, that kind of cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books.” Indeed.

7. John F Kennedy was also a fan, which led to Frost becoming the first poet to read at a presidential inauguration. The poem he used at the event was not the one he’d intended to read. He’d written one called Dedication and had it typed out, but the sun was so bright he couldn’t read the words because of the glare, so ended up reciting The Gift Outright because he knew it by heart.

8. He is the only poet to win the Pulitzer Prize four times. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 31 times.

9. As well as poetry, he wrote a few plays including A Way Out, and The Cow's in the Corn: A One Act Irish Play in Rhyme.

10. He died in 1963 at the age of 88. The inscription on his tombstone is “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world,” which is the last line of his poem The Lesson for Today.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/