28 June: Earrings

Today is International Body Piercing Day, so here are some facts about the most common jewellery worn in piercings: earrings.

1. The wearing of earrings goes back a long way. Earrings made of Gold, lapis lazuli, and carnelian were found in ancient sites in Lothal, India, and in a Sumerian Royal Cemetery at Ur from the Early Dynastic period. Gold, Silver and bronze hoop earrings were worn in the Minoan Civilization (2000–1600 BCE).

2. They were often primarily worn by men rather than women. Friezes from the Persian Empire during the Achaemenid dynasty (550–330 BC), show warriors wearing earrings. Otzi the Iceman had pierced Ears and so did Tutenkhamen.

3. Fashions changed over the ages. In the middle ages, women wore headdresses which covered the ears, so earrings went right out of fashion. By the 16^th century, earrings were back with Pearl earrings being especially popular. They were worn by men during this era, too. Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake all wore gold earrings. The Victorians considered piercings vulgar and inappropriate, so they went out of fashion again in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Earlobe stretching, common in indigenous cultures for thousands of years, began to appear in Western society in the 1990s.

4. Some ancient peoples believed that evil spirits could get into a person’s body through its orifices, so some early earrings would have been amulets to keep demons out of a person’s ears.

5. Ancient doctors believed that earrings cured headaches and improved eyesight.

6. Sailors wore them almost like badges or medals. A sailor who’d crossed the equator, sailed all around the world, or survived a shipwreck would be entitled to an ear piercing. They’d often choose gold earrings as a kind of funeral plan – they could be used to pay for their burial when they died.

7. In India, babies often have their ears pierced soon after birth. In the West, cheap ear piercings have been offered by jewellery stores aimed at young women. In Ancient Egypt, they were possibly only worn by children, which was evidenced by the fact that Tutankhamun’s mummy wasn’t wearing any despite having pierced ears, although there were some buried in the tomb. The burial mask's ears were perforated, but the holes were covered with golden discs.

8. The term "ear piercing" usually refers to an earlobe piercing. Piercings elsewhere on the ear are often referred to as "cartilage piercings". These take longer to heal than the earlobe variety.

9. 13 April is National Silly Earring Day.

10. Finally, some earring related world records. The record for the largest collection of earrings is held by American Carol McFadden who started collecting them in 1952 and in 2006 had 37,706 different pairs. In 2020, Ramkumar Sarangapani of Dubai created the largest pair, which measure 200 cm (78.74 in) in height and were designed as a replica of the Dubai Frame. GRT Jewellers in India created the heaviest earrings ever, to mark their 60th anniversary. They weighed in at 3.527 kg (7 lbs 12 oz) and are made of 22K gold. They don’t hold the record for the most expensive pair of earrings, though. That award goes to the Apollo and Artemis Diamonds, which sold for over $57 million.

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 June: Ganymede

On this date in 1996 Galileo, NASA’s Jupiter probe, passed within 524 miles of its moon Ganymede. 10 things you might not know about Ganymede.

1. It was named after a beautiful boy in Greek mythology who was carried off by Zeus disguised as an eagle. He became the cup bearer to the gods. Zeus, of course, is the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter.

2. Ganymede was discovered by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei on Jan. 7, 1610, along with three other large moons. This was the first time any planet other than Earth was found to have a moon.

3. The diameter of Ganymede is 3,270 miles (5,260 kilometres), which means it is the biggest moon in the solar system and is actually bigger than Mercury and Pluto.

4. It is 665,000 miles (1,070,000 kilometres) from Jupiter and takes about a week to orbit the planet. It’s tidally locked with Jupiter, so the same side always faces the planet; and it’s in what’s called an orbital resonance with Io and Europa. Every time Ganymede orbits Jupiter once, Europa orbits twice, and Io orbits four times. It’s this which has caused these moons to maintain eccentric orbits.

5. Ganymede is the only moon known to have its own magnetic field.

6. There may be more water on Ganymede than on Earth. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found evidence that there could be a massive underground saltwater ocean on Ganymede which is ten times deeper than the oceans on Earth. This ocean is covered by a 95-mile (150-kilometer) crust of ice. Since scientists believe it was the interaction of salt water and rock which first caused the appearance of life, and there’s also a small amount of Oxygen in the atmosphere.

7. Daytime surface temperatures on Ganymede range from -297 to -171 degrees Fahrenheit (90 to 160 Kelvin). It takes sunlight 43 minutes to reach it.

8. Surface features on Ganymede are named after Near Eastern, Middle Eastern and Egyptian deities.

9. It has inspired a number of science fiction writers and has appeared in books and TV shows including The Expanse and Red Dwarf. Arthur C Clarke was inspired by images from Voyager 2 of grooved ridges cutting across parts of Ganymede, and created Ganymede City for his novel 3001: The Final Odyssey. Robert A Heinlein used Ganymede as a setting, too, in Farmer in the Sky.

10. There is a spacecraft from Earth on its way to Ganymede as I write. It’s called The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), and it was launched on 14 April 2023. It’s expected to enter orbit around Ganymede in 2032, and crash land on the moon in 2034.

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 June: Shallots

In the French Revolutionary Calendar, today is Echalote (Day of the Shallot). Here are 10 things you didn’t know about shallots.

1. The Latin name for shallots is Allium cepa. They belong to the Amaryllidaceae family, so are closely related to Onions, Garlic, and Leeks, and more distantly to Tulips, Hyacinths, aloe vera and Asparagus.

2. Shallots are native to Asia and have been cultivated for over four thousand years. Exactly where in Asia they originally came from is debated among experts.

3. The name derives from the ancient city of Ascalon, which was located in modern day Israel. The people of Ascalon traded with the Greeks and people in Greece called these vegetables Onions of Ascalon, which eventually evolved into the name we know them by today.

4. Crusaders returning from the middle east was another means by which the popularity of shallots spread across Europe.

5. There are about 13 commonly cultivated varieties, including the French red shallot, the Persian shallot and the French grey shallot. The latter is also known as griselle or "true shallot" and grows in the wild from Central to Southwest Asia.

6. They grow in clusters of cloves, rather like garlic, encased in a papery skin which ranges in colour from copper, gold, pale Pink, to Red.

7. Raw shallots can irritate the eyes as onions do, despite having a milder flavour.

8. They are widely used in French cuisine in roasts, stews, and sauces. Asian cuisines make use of them too, not only in curries and stews, but also finely sliced and deep fried with Porridge. They are also pickled and used as a condiment.

9. A raw shallot is 80% water, 17% carbohydrates, 2.5% protein and contains negligible fat. Shallots are a source of vitamins C and B6, and manganese.

10. In Asia, Shallots are used in traditional Ayurvedic medicine to internally heat the body to induce detoxification and are believed to help increase immunity against sickness. They have also been used to get rid of freckles, as a cold remedy, for pain relief and as a mild diuretic. Non-medical or culinary uses include insect repellent, stopping metals from rusting and for polishing copper and glass. The skin produces a yellow-brown dye. While still growing in the ground, the whole plant is said to repel Moles and insects.

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/

25 June: Louis Mountbatten

This date in 1900 was the birthdate of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. 19 facts about him:

1. Louis Mountbatten was born in Frogmore House, in the grounds of Windsor Castle, the son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse. He was Elizabeth II’s second cousin, and Prince Philip’s Uncle.

2. His full name when christened was His Serene Highness, Prince Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas of Battenberg. Queen Victoria and Tsar Nicholas II were his godparents. However, his nickname among his family was “Dickie” even though none of those many names was Richard. Queen Victoria had suggested “Nicky” but there were already several Nickys in the extended family so it got changed to Dickie. His last name changed from Battenberg to Mountbatten in 1917 when the British royal family wanted to distance themselves from their German roots.

3. Mountbatten joined the Royal Navy in 1916, specialising in communications and received his first command in 1934 on the destroyer HMS Daring. He was nicknamed ‘the Master of Disaster’ in the Navy for his penchant of getting into messes. In May 1941, his ship HMS Kelly was sunk by German dive-bombers off the coast of Crete, losing more than half the crew, and he commanded the ill fated Allied forces seaborne raid on the German-occupied port of Dieppe in France. Within 10 hours, of the 6,086 men who landed, 3,623 had been killed, wounded or become prisoners of war.

4. He tried to warn America that Pearl Harbor, which he visited while in command of HMS Illustrious in 1941, was vulnerable to an attack by Japan. Nobody listened to him at the time, but he was proved right in December that year when the attack happened.

5. Mountbatten married Edwina Ashley in July 1922 and they had two daughters who both served as ladies in waiting to the Queen. Both Edwina and Louis had numerous affairs, though, and there were rumours that some of Mountbatten’s were with men. After Edwina died in 1960, Mountbatten had several relationships with other women including actress Shirley MacLaine.

6. He was a father figure to Prince Philip, who was estranged from his father, and it was Mountbatten who arranged for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to visit Dartmouth Royal Naval College in 1939 and bring their daughters with them. He gave Philip the job of amusing the princesses while their parents went on a tour of the college.

7. His matchmaking continued with the next generation as he became a mentor to Prince Charles. He told the young prince to make the most of his bachelor life and then marry a young, inexperienced girl, which, he claimed, would ensure a stable marriage. He tried to set Charles up with one of his granddaughters, but that didn’t work out. He then warned him off marrying Camilla Shand, warning that his affair with Camilla meant he was on the same slippery slope as his uncle, King Edward VIII, which ended with his marriage to Wallis Simpson.

8. His hobbies and interests included genealogy, in particular, his own links with other European monarchs. From 1957 until his death, he served as Patron of the Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society. He was also a keen polo player, and wrote a book about it.

9. He oversaw the defeat of the Japanese offensive towards India during World War Two and then the transition of British India to independence. He was appointed the last British Viceroy of India, and became its first Governor-General.

10. Lord Mountbatten regularly holidayed with his family in Classiebawn Castle in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo. He had a boat there, which was blown up by the IRA, killing him, his two grandsons, the Dowager Lady Brabourne and a local boy. The man responsible for the bomb was one Thomas McMahon who attached the bomb to the boat while it was left unattended. McMahon was arrested before the bomb even went off, because he was suspected of driving a stolen car. Police noticed flecks of paint on his clothes, which they later matched to the paint on Mountbatten’s boat. McMahon was sentenced to life imprisonment, but released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

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/

24 June: Midsummer's Day

Midsummer’s Day is celebrated today in many countries. 10 things you might not know about Midsummer.

1. But wait. Shouldn’t the middle of summer be celebrated on the day of the summer solstice, three or four days earlier? One possible reason is that in Roman times when they used the Julian calendar, the summer solstice was on this date.

2. The Romans celebrated midsummer in a big way with much drinking and merrymaking. It was also the festival of the goddess Fors Fortuna.

3. When Christianity arrived, this day was assigned as a feast of St John the Baptist.

4. Rural communities saw it as a reason for celebration because it was the midpoint of the growing season, and therefore farmers celebrated the harvest to come.

5. Midsummer’s Eve was widely celebrated with bonfires and it was a time when young women would traditionally try to divine who their future husbands would be.

6. Midsummer was traditionally a time for gathering herbs, especially Saint John's wort, which was believed to have protective powers against evil spirits.

7. Midsummer’s day is a public holiday in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Quebec. In Sweden, there have been proposals to move the country’s national day to this date.

8. In England, Midsummer Day is traditionally one of the quarter days, when servants were hired, school terms started, and rents were due.

9. In Austria, the Midsummer solstice is celebrated with a procession of ships down the Danube through the wine-growing Wachau Valley north of Vienna.

10. In Celtic tradition it’s a day when fairies are about, and is second only to Halloween when it comes to the supernatural. Rubbing fern spores on eyelids the night before was said to ensure you’d see a fairy on Midsummer’s day, with the caveat that you should wear your clothes inside out or carry rue in your pocket so as not to be stolen away by them.

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/

23 June: Banff National Park

On this date in 1887, Banff National Park, Canada’s first, was created. 10 things you might not know about Banff National Park.

1. It was the first national park in Canada and the third in the world.

2. It was created after railway workers discovered a natural hot spring at the base of Sulphur Mountain. Prime Minister Macdonald set aside a 26 square kilometres in 1885 to preserve the natural beauty of the area. Two years later it became a national park, then known as the Rocky Mountains Park. It was re-named Banff National Park in 1930, after Banffshire, Scotland, where the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway was born.

3. The park is located in Alberta's Rocky Mountains, 110–180 kilometres (68–112 miles) west of Calgary. It encompasses 6,641 square kilometres (2,564 sq miles) of mountainous terrain.

4. The tallest peak entirely within the park is Mount Forbes at 3,612 metres (11,850 ft). Mount Assiniboine is slightly higher at 3,618 m (11,870 ft) but is on the Banff-Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park border.

5. There are 1,600 kilometres of hiking trails in the park and more than 2,468 campsites. The Town of Banff has an elevation of 4,537 feet (1,383 metres), making it the highest town in Canada.

6. It’s the only national park in the world to have a distillery. It’s called Park Distillery. Its use of pure, glacial water and small batches are what makes its spirits especially good.

7. The park has lakes which are amazing shades of blue or green: namely Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Peyto Lake, and Bow Lake. The colour comes from rocks which are ground into powder by the glaciers and which reflect sunlight.

8. Peyto Lake is named for a historical figure associated with the area, Bill Peyto, a pioneer and park warden who has become a legend in his own lunchtime. It’s said he raised cougar kittens and once walked into a bar carrying a live lynx on his back just to scare people. There’s a bar named for him, Wild Bill's, and he is the person pictured on the “Welcome to Banff” sign.

9. Other features include Canada’s longest cave system, Castle Mountain, was named by James Hector in 1858, because he thought it looked like a castle, and a triple divide, a rare feature of the landscape where water flowing from the mountains flows into three separate drainage basins which then end up in either the Atlantic, the Pacific, or the Arctic Ocean.

10. Banff National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and welcomes over 4,500,000 tourists every year.

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/

22 June: Onion rings

Happy Onion Rings Day! Ten facts about onion rings.

1. An onion ring is the cross section of an Onion which has been dipped in batter and deep fried.

2. They are sometimes called French-fried onion rings.

3. The first recipe for onion rings is attributed to John Mollard, a British food writer who published it in a book called The Art of Cookery Made Easy and Refined in 1802.

4. His recipe included parmesan Cheese in the batter and used lard for the frying. The recipe also suggested serving them with a sauce of melted Butter and Mustard.

5. Numerous restaurants in America claimed to have invented the onion ring. One of the best known claims is from the Kirby's Pig Stand restaurant chain in Oak Cliff, Texas in the early 1920s. However, there’s no concrete evidence for any of them.

6. It’s possible the origin of onion rings actually lies with Arab merchants in India, who would sell battered fried onions as street food to travellers passing through, thus spreading the idea far and wide.

7. Although it may be that what these merchants sold were actually strips of onion, a variation known as onion strings.

8. Onion rings taste slightly sweet because of a chemical reaction caused by cooking. Propanethial oxide turns into bispropenyl disulfide.

9. Americans consume 20 pounds of these onion rings per person annually.

10. If you hear an onion ring, answer it.

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/

21 June: 172

On day 172 of the year, ten fun facts about 172.

1. The Cessna 172 is the most popular aircraft ever. More Cessna 172s were built than any other aircraft.

2. 172 is the atomic number of a theoretical chemical element called Unseptbium, which has the symbol Usb.

3. 172 Baucis is a main belt asteroid discovered by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly in 1877, and named after a character in the Greek legend of Baucis and Philemon.

4. The London bus 172 runs between Brockley Rise, Chandos and Aldwych Drury Lane. Also, the headquarters of London Buses is at 172 Buckingham Palace Road.

5. United Nations Security Council Resolution 172, adopted in 1962, recommended that the Republic of Rwanda be admitted as a member nation.

6. The A172 is a major road in North Yorkshire and Middlesbrough. It runs from Ingleby Arncliffe to Middlesbrough.

7. Year 172 AD was a leap year starting on a Tuesday. It was known as the Year of the Consulship of Scipio and Maximus. In this year, the Miracle in Moravia occurred: The Roman army was surrounded by the Quadi in intense and crippling heat, and as all seemed to be lost for the Romans a violent thunderstorm occurred which not only refreshed the parched Roman army but swept their enemies away in a torrent of mud.

8. In Binary, 172 is written 10101100 and in Roman numerals it's CLXXII.

9. 172 can be divided by 1, 2, 4, 43, 86 and 172. The sum of its divisors is 308.

10. In numerology a person affected by the energy of 172 is curious and likes to explore new places and ideas. They're comfortable doing things alone and tend to do things without consulting anybody else, but they will make careful plans.

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/

20 June: Space Oddity

On this date in 1969 David Bowie recorded Space Oddity at Trident Studios London. 10 facts about the song.

1. Given that the release date was 11 July 1969, days before the first Moon landing, it’s easy to assume the song was inspired by Apollo 11, but it was actually inspired by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which David Bowie had watched multiple times. This isn’t to say that the record company didn’t rush through the release in order to cash in on the space theme.

2. The BBC jumped on the bandwagon, choosing to play the song during the mission and even over some of the footage of the landing itself. While Bowie was naturally chuffed that they chose to use his song, it was clear to him they hadn’t really listened to the lyrics beforehand. Bowie commented: "Obviously, some BBC official said, 'Oh, right then, that space song, Major Tom, blah blah blah, that’ll be great. 'Um, but he gets stranded in space, sir.' Nobody had the heart to tell the producer that." Though presumably someone did, or the producer did listen carefully at some point, and then the song was banned by the BBC until the astronauts had returned safely to Earth.

3. The B side was Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud.

4. Space Oddity isn’t the only song to feature Major Tom. Bowie’s 1980 single Ashes to Ashes also features him: "We know Major Tom's a junkie/Strung out in heaven's high/Hitting an all-time low." Major Tom gets another mention in Hallo Spaceboy from the 1995 album Outside and also in Bowie’s final album, Blackstar.

5. Major Tom does not, however, appear at all in the Italian version of the song, also recorded in 1969. Instead of directly translating the English words, the Italian songwriter Mogul was hired to write new lyrics. He re-worked it as a love song called Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola (Lonely Boy, Lonely Girl) with no mention of Major Tom at all.

6. In 1983, German electro musician Peter Schilling released a sequel song called Major Tom (I'm Coming Home), which actually did better in the charts than the original 1969 release of Space Oddity. In 2003, K.I.A. released another sequel called Mrs. Major Tom, telling the story from the point of view of Major Tom's wife.

7. Must admit, I always assumed the lyric "And the papers want to know whose shirt you wear," referred to whether he shopped for clothes at Moss Bros or Marks and Spencer, but one source I looked at claimed it was nothing to do with office wear but is English slang for “Which Football team do you support?”

8. In 2013 a cover of Space Oddity became the first music video to be filmed in space. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded it on the International Space Station. He sang and played Guitar while other performers provided musical accompaniment from Earth. He changed the lyrics, not only to include a reference to something Soyuz as a nod to the International part, but also leaving out the bit where Major Tom gets stranded in space.

9. In 1969, Space Oddity was awarded the Ivor Novello Award alongside Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?

10. It has been used in numerous films and TV shows, including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in which Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is frequently referred to as "Major Tom" for daydreaming while at work; Friends (The One After Vegas); Mad Men and EastEnders.

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/

19 June: Blaise Pascal

Today, 10 facts about the scientist, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, whose birthday was today.

1. He was home schooled by his father, who was a tax collector. From an early age, Pascal showed an aptitude for mathematics and at the age of 12 had worked out Euclid’s first thirty-two geometric propositions all by himself.

2. He almost died at the age of one year from an unknown disease which caused his stomach to swell up and gave him fits. In those days, the cause of such illnesses was generally assumed to be witchcraft, and an elderly woman who sometimes cared for the baby got the blame. At first, Pascal’s father rejected the idea, but when his son got no better he started believing it. The poor old woman was pressured into confessing, but was canny enough to suggest a cure – transferring the spell onto two stray Cats which were then killed by being thrown out of a Window. She probably thought it bought her some time at least, but by a happy coincidence, Pascal started to get better at this point.

3. By the time he was 16, he’d written a work on conic sections and submitted it to the polymath Père Mersenne. It was so good that Rene Descartes was convinced Pascal's father had written it, and it still forms the basis of Pascal’s theorem.

4. At 18, Pascal invented an early calculator, the Pascaline, which he did after watching his father work, wanting to make the laborious calculations he had to do easier. It wasn’t a huge success commercially as it was expensive to make and somewhat cumbersome to use. Rich people and royalty liked them as status symbols and expensive toys with which to show off, but the average tax collector couldn’t afford them.

5. Other inventions and ideas Pascal came up with include the hydraulic press, probability theory, the syringe and the concept of atmospheric pressure. He theorised that mercury in sealed container would rise or fall according to altitude. At this point, he was not very healthy and wasn’t able to climb a Mountain to prove it himself so he sent his brother in law up the mountain instead. Pascal did, however, climb a church bell tower that was 50 metres high in order to observe the effects himself.

6. He’s also credited with inventing public transport. He set up a network of horse drawn carriages called carrosses à cinq sols (5 sols being the flat fare) which followed five set routes and would run whether or not there were any passengers. The idea only enjoyed modest success at the time and by 1675 the venture had folded.

7. Pascal is also known for his works on religion and philosophy. He had a religious experience in 1664, an intense vision, which caused him to note on a scrap of paper: It began with: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars..." and ended with a quote from Psalm 119:16: "I will not forget thy word. Amen." He sewed this note into his coat so it was with hm everywhere he went. When he changed his coat, he transferred the paper. It was found by his servants after he died. He’s famous for a work known as Pascal’s wager, which lays out why a person should strive to believe in God. He described it as a game, similar to a coin toss, with two possible outcomes on which it is compulsory to bet. God exists, or He doesn’t. If the latter is true the player only loses a few pleasures he or she may have given up in order to please God, but if the former is true and God exists, then the player betting against that loses an eternity in heaven, hence it makes sense to bet on God existing. Although the wager is named after him, he may not have thought of it himself as a similar concept appears in eleventh-century Islamic texts and the plays of Euripides.

8. He also theorised that: ‘If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the whole face of the world would have changed.’ Her long nose, he claimed, would have been seen as a sign of strength and good character, which contributed to her legendary beauty which attracted powerful men like Marc Antony and Julius Caesar. Her relationships with them had far reaching consequences. If she’d had a shorter nose, Pascal theorised, Marc and Julius might not have fancied her and the history of the world would have been completely different.

9. He died at the age of 39, having been in poor health for years. He declined medical treatment, saying that suffering was the lot of a Christian, and he would get better if God willed it. God clearly didn’t will it, and Pascal tried to get a place in a home for the terminally ill, but in the end, was too sick to be moved. An autopsy was carried out after he died, but even so it’s not clear what killed him. The autopsy noted stomach and abdominal organ issues and brain damage but came to no definite conclusion about cause of death. Modern speculation has suggested that he had tuberculosis, stomach cancer, or brain cancer or all three.

10. As well as a theorem, a law, a triangle, the SI unit for pressure and numerous university buildings, things named after him include: a programming language, an asteroid, a crater on the moon, islands in Australia and Antarctica, the Otter in the Animal Crossing series and the chameleon in Tangled.

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/

18 June: 169

Today is the 169^th day of the year. 10 facts about the number 169.

1. 169 is an artist in the UK Hip Hop or Grime genre whose collaborations with the rapper Dave include the hits Thiago Silva and Wanna Know.

2. 169 Zelia is a main belt asteroid discovered by the brothers Paul Henry and Prosper Henry in 1876. It was named for Zelia Martin, a niece of the astronomer Camille Flammarion.

3. London bus route 169 runs from Clayhall/the Glade to Barking Town Centre.

4. In computing, 169 is the first number of an automatic IPv4 address assigned by TCP/IP when no external networking device is contactable. (Don’t ask me what that means in English!)

5. The A169 is an A road in North Yorkshire which runs from the A64 at Malton on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds through the Vale of Pickering and across the North York Moors to join the A171 just west of Whitby.

6. The 169-Storey Treehouse is the 13^th book in a series for children by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton. Andy and Terry’s treehouse has 13 storeys added in each book. The levels included in 169 include an electric pony stable, a weather dome (where you can have whatever weather you want whenever you want it), a 100% edible gingerbread house, a potato-powered translation transmitter that allows you to talk to everything everywhere all at the same time, and a hall of funhouse mirrors.

7. The 169 series was an express train type introduced in 1969 by Japanese National Railways, and operated by East Japan Railway Company until 1996 and by Shinano Railway in Nagano Prefecture until 2013.

8. The year 169 (CLXIX) was a common year starting on Saturday, known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Senecio and Apollinaris. During this year, Northern African Moors invaded what is now Spain; Marcus Aurelius became sole Roman Emperor upon the death of Lucius Verus, and forced his daughter Lucilla to marry Claudius Pompeianus.

9. The 169th prime number is 1009.

10. In numerology, 169 resonates with study, learning, and wisdom; also independence and aloneness. Hence a person influenced by it will be introspective and eager to learn about themselves. They are drawn to many different areas of study but especially science.

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/

17 June: Radar

On this date in 1935, Radar was tested in Orfordness, Suffolk, the first time radio-based detection and ranging was shown in Britain. The first target that was detected: a flying boat 17 miles (27 km) away. 10 things you might not know about radar.

1. The word radar is an acronym for "radio detection and ranging" which was coined in the early second world war.

2. Radar uses Radio waves to determine if something, like a ship, Submarine or aircraft, is out there when you wouldn’t be able to see it, how far away it is and how fast it is moving.

3. It does this by sending out short bursts of radio waves, or pulses. Some of these will bounce back if they hit something. The waves which bounce back are known as echoes. By measuring the time it takes for a pulse to leave the radar and return as an echo, the system can calculate the distance to the object. If the object is moving, the frequency of the returning waves changes slightly, which helps the radar figure out its speed. This is called the Doppler effect, which is the reason why a siren from an ambulance sounds slightly different when it’s moving away from you rather than coming towards you. Radar is similar to the echolocation that Bats use.

4. Physicists knew about the concept of radar as far back as 1886 when Heinrich Hertz  proved that electromagnetic waves (like radio waves) exist, and that they could travel through different materials and bounce off metal surfaces.

5. In the early 1900s, a German inventor named Christian Hülsmeyer created the telemobiloscope, a device which could detect ships in Fog up to 3km away. While it did help prevent collisions in poor visibility, it didn’t tell you exactly where the other ship was.

6. Radar technology grew very fast during World War II. Eight countries were secretly working on developing it: the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, the USSR, Japan, the Netherlands, France, and Italy.

7. Some historians believe it was radar, not the atomic bomb, which helped the Allies win the war.

8. After the war, other uses for radar were developed besides finding things to shoot at. It’s used for navigation and making air and sea travel safer; it’s also used in weather forecasting, tracking animals and Birds and in medicine. The flapping of a bird’s wings distinguishes it from aircraft, and it’s even possible to tell one type of bird from another using radar.

9. Police use radar guns to measure the speed of cars on the road. One person who was caught and fined using one of these devices was Sir Robert Watson-Watt, who was one of the people who developed radar in the early days of the war with the aim of collaborating with the United States to beat the German military.

10. The cathode-ray tube has been the preferred technology for displaying radar information ever since the early days. Radar displays have developed alongside computer and television screens so they keep getting better.

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/

16 June: Munich

Today is the feast day of St Benno of Meissen, Patron saint of Munich. 10 facts about Munich.

1. Munich is located on the river Isar north of the Alps and is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria with a population of 1,604,384 in 2024. It’s the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg.

2. It began with a monastery in the 12^th century and the settlement which grew up around it became known as zu den Munchen ("to the monks") which evolved into the modern German name for the city, München. That said, evidence has been discovered of settlements here dating back to the Bronze Age when the river Isar was an important trade route.

3. The town as we know it was founded by Henry the Lion, the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, in an attempt to gain a monopoly in the salt trade. He’d burned down a rival town and built a bridge. He granted the monks the right to establish a market in 1157, which was fortified.

4. Munich is famous for beer. The first king of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph, was instrumental in establishing Munich as a centre for Beer production. He granted a monopoly to the richest brewers, in exchange for them paying him taxes. He also did them the favour of removing a limit on the number of staff they could employ so that they could meet the beer requirements of a growing population. Munich's working and lower classes consumed beer as a staple of their diet. Since the Middle Ages beer had been regarded as nutritious liquid bread (fließendes Brot) in Bavaria. Not only that, but it wasn’t safe to drink the water.

5. Today, of course, it’s the venue for Oktoberfest (follow the link for more info on this) but not only that, there are over 60 beer gardens to have a beer or three in the summer; it’s home to 6 major breweries and the world’s only airport beer garden. There are also pools of beer underground beneath the city. These are not open to the public, but were built by breweries of old as a way to keep their product cool before fridges were invented. The pools are used for fermenting and storing beer, keeping it at the perfect temperature.

6. Also under the city are some artificial caves which Ludwig II, the "Swan King" had built under his palace. Given his penchant for fairytale castles, it will be no surprise to learn that these caves were fitted with waterfalls, coloured lights, and even a wave machine. It’s said he had a special shell-shaped boat and got some of his minions to push it around the underground lake while he listened to his favourite operas as a way to unwind from the pressures of royal life.

7. Talking of wave machines, one wouldn’t immediately flag Munich as a surfing destination, since it’s not by the sea. However, there’s a park in the city called The English Garden where there’s an urban surf centre, one of the very few in the world. The English Garden, btw, is huge, bigger than Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York. It was designed by Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell between 1789 and 1807.

8. Munich was the base of the Nazi party in the 1930s and was where the 1938 Munich Agreement was signed by Neville Chamberlain. Heinrich Himmler and Eva Braun were born in Munich. Hence the city was heavily bombed in the second world war although much of the architecture has since been restored. A hill in the city called the Olympiaberg, which has great views, as far as the Alps on a clear day, is actually not natural but was created from the rubble from the bombings. The city was also the base of a resistance movement called the White Rose. This group stencilled slogans like "Down with Hitler" and "Hitler the Mass Murderer" on public buildings in Munich, which got their leaders executed.

9. The first photo taken in Germany in 1839 by the scientists Carl August von Steinheil and Franz von Kobellwas of a church, the Frauenkirche. Another of Munich’s churches has a fresco which includes a saint holding a Pretzel. This isn’t a modern thing but dates back to the 14^th century. There’s a local legend about a character known as the "Brezenreiter" or "Pretzel Rider," who would ride through the streets once a year handing out pretzels to the poor, and this is who the fresco is deemed to represent.

10. Munich is also home to Circus Krone. While you’d generally picture a circus as taking place in a big tent, Circus Krone has a building. It was the first circus to occupy its own building and is still one of very few European circuses to do so.

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/