22 October: Earthworms

Today is World Earthworm Day. 10 things you might not know about Earthworms.

1. The earthworm belongs to the phylum Annelida. There are over 6,000 different species around the world.

2. The body of an earthworm is divided into segmented rings, each of which is attached to its own set of muscles and has small bristles called setae to help the worm move. Each ring of the worm can contract and relax independently of the rest.

3. They eat organic waste, soil and minerals, their own weight every day. They also excrete their own weight in castings, which helps enrich the soil, break it up and aerate it. This is so good for a garden that gardeners sometimes even buy worm casts as compost. They won’t touch living plant tissue, so it’s a win win.

4. They are hermaphrodites, with each worm having both male and female reproductive parts. That said, they still need another worm in order to mate. When two worms get it on, they each exchange sperm and fertilize each other’s eggs. Each worm then creates a cocoon to hold the eggs until they hatch, about 3 weeks later.

5. The longest earthworm in the world is the African giant earthworm, which can grow up to 6.7m (22ft) long.

6. Earthworms don’t have lungs. They breathe through their skin, but only if their skin is wet. If the skin dries out, the worm cannot breathe. They can survive underwater for a while by absorbing Oxygen from the Water, although they cannot do this indefinitely and would eventually drown. Worms secrete a thin layer of mucus onto their skin to prevent dehydration.

7. They don’t have Eyes, but can sense light through specialised cells in their heads, and will avoid it.

8. They don’t have Hearts, either. Instead they have something called aortic arches. They have five of these to move Blood around their bodies.

9. It’s not true that if you cut a worm in half, both halves will regenerate, giving you two clones. A worm can survive such trauma, but only one half, the one with the pink saddle, will live. The other half will die.

10. Worms are a significant part of the diet of many Birds, such as Robins. In case you’re wondering why so many dead worms are found on paths – why don’t robins hoover them up as an easy meal? - it’s because birds use the movement of the worm to locate 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 October: Ursula name day

If your name is Ursula, today is your name day. Here are 10 people whose name day you share.

1. Saint Ursula: Romano-British virgin and martyr possibly of royal origin. 21 October is her feast day.

2. Ursula Andress (pictured): Swiss actress. Her breakthrough role was as Bond girl Honey Ryder in the first James Bond film, Dr. No.

3. Ursula K. Le Guin: American science fiction author

4. Ursula von der Leyen: German politician and current president of the European Commission.

5. Ursula Brangwen: character in the 1915 novel The Rainbow and the 1920 novel Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence

6. Ursula Mary Lawley: daughter of Arthur Lawley, 6th Baron Wenlock, mother of the 2nd Lord Wraxall.

7. Ursula: theoretical founding ancestor of Haplogroup U (mtDNA)

8. Ursula Bloom: British novelist

9. Ursula: fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Pictures' animated film The Little Mermaid, a villainous Cecaelian sea witch.

10. Ursula Holden-Gill: English actress best known as Alice Dingle on ITV's soap opera Emmerdale.

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 October: National Shampoo Day

Today is National Shampoo Day. 10 things you might not know about that stuff you wash your Hair with.

1. The word shampoo comes to us from India and is derived from the Sanskrit for 'to press, knead, or soothe'. In fact, there is a kind of Indian head massage with hair oil known as shampoo. The "wash the hair" meaning of shampoo was first recorded in 1860.

2. People have been using substances akin to shampoo for centuries. Ancient Mesopotamian tablets from the Neo-Assyrian period document the use of medicated shampoos for scalp problems.

3. A traveller from India called Sake Dean Mahomed opened a bathhouse in Brighton in 1814 offering hair treatments for health. The idea of shampooing had arrived in the UK.

4. Early ingredients in shampoos included soapberries, the husks and straw of Rice, the bark of vines, and the soapy substance that had to be washed out of quinoa before cooking. The first shampoos in England were made by hairdressers by boiling shaved Soap in water and adding herbs for shine and fragrance.

5. Today, a shampoo will contain a cleaning agent known as a surfactant, Water, salt for thickening, a preservative and something to make it smell nice.

6. Shampoos can contain ingredients deemed harmful to some. People can be allergic to some of them. The EU bans 1328 ingredients from shampoo. Canada bans 587, and the US just 11.

7. In 1900, a German perfumer, Josef Wilhelm Rausch, created the first liquid hair washing soap. After this, commercial shampoos began to appear. Mass produced shampoos were first introduced in 1927 by Hans Schwarzkopf, whose name is a well-known haircare brand to this day.

8. Dry shampoo is a type of shampoo which reduces hair greasiness without having to rinse it off with water. The first commercially produced dry shampoo was sold in the 1940s, but substances very like it had been used for centuries. The first written reference to dry shampoo in the United States is from the late 1700s when it evolved from the starches used for cleaning Wigs.

9. Human shampoo is not recommended for use on animals as they might lick their fur and ingest something nasty. There is special shampoo for animals which might also include ingredients to treat skin problems or to kill fleas. Even these need to be used with care and only as directed by a vet.

10. Shampoo works by removing sebum, the natural oils and dirt from the hair. Some people believe this is a bad thing, and/or that the more you shampoo your hair, the more oil it will produce, to compensate. They suggest washing the hair less often, just rinsing it with water or using natural ingredients such as baking soda, Vinegar, diluted Honey, raw Eggs, rye flour, or chickpea flour.

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 October: Sir Thomas Browne Quotes

Birth anniversary, 1605: Sir Thomas Browne, English physician and scholar, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy and Garden of Cyrus. Ten Quotes:

1. But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home.

2. Think before you act; think twice before you speak.

3. All the wonders you seek are within yourself.

4. Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.

5. Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude.

6. Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us.

7. No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another.

8. Lord deliver me from myself.

9. We do but learn to-day what our better advanced judgements will unteach us tomorrow.

10. Art is the perfection of nature, ... nature is the art of God.

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 October: 291

Today is the 291^st day of 2026. 10 fun facts about 291.

1. +291 is the country dialling code for Eritrea.

2. The Roman numeral for 291 is CCXCI.

3. 291 was an internationally famous art gallery located in Midtown Manhattan at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City from 1905 to 1917. Originally called the "Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession", the gallery was established and managed by photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

4. An arts magazine called 291 was set up as a way to bring attention to Stieglitz's gallery, but became well known in its own right.

5. The year 291 was a common year starting on Thursday, known at the time in Rome as the Year of the Consulship of Tiberianus and Dio. Saints Agnes, and Hilarion, were both born in this year.

6. London bus 291 runs from: Queen Elizabeth Hospital Woolwich/ West Entrance to Garland Road Clinic, Plumstead.

7. 291 Alice is an asteroid from the inner region of the asteroid belt, discovered by Johann Palisa in 1890 at the Vienna Observatory.

8. The A291 is a road in Kent which runs between the village of Sturry and Herne Bay.

9. 291 in Binary is 100100011.

10. Distillery 291 is an award-winning craft whiskey distillery located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, famous for its Wild West-inspired bourbon and rye finished with toasted aspen staves.

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 October: Evel Knievel

Born this date in 1938 was Evel Knievel (Robert Craig Knievel), Motorcycle daredevil Stunt rider. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. He was born in a small mining town in Montana, Butte, and christened Robert Craig Knievel. His father cheated on his wife, who divorced him when she was pregnant with Evel’s younger brother, Nic. Both parents left town, and the two boys were left with their paternal grandparents Ignatius and Emma Knievel.

2. Evel got the daredevil stunt riding bug from watching another famous stunt rider of the time, Joie Chitwood, when he was eight years old.

3. When he left school he got a job as a drill operator at the mine, and then as a driver. He was fired for attempting wheelies in a large digger – the attempt went wrong and he took out the main power line, so the town was without power for several hours.

4. It was thanks to reckless driving that he first got his nickname. His reckless driving got him arrested and he spent some time in prison. There was another prisoner at the time called William C Knofel. The latter’s name rhymed with “awful” which led one of the guards to quip, “well boys, looks like we better double our guard. We’ve got Evel Knievel and Awful Knofel.”

5. After being fired from the mine he drifted from job to job, not finding his niche in any of them. One of his endeavours was starting a local hockey team called the Butte Bombers. He borrowed money to set it up and often couldn’t pay the players, but even so managed to set up a match he hoped would draw the crowds: an international game with the Czechoslovakian Olympic hockey team. The Butte Bombers lost the game, but thanks to fundraisers and ticket money there was enough in the pot to pay for the Czech team’s travel and lodging. Until the money and receipts from the game went missing and the US Olympic committee had to foot the bill. That was the end of hockey team management for Evel.

6. One job he did passably well at was selling motorbikes. To boost sales, he started staging stunts like jumping the bikes over Lions and Rattlesnakes. Encouraged by his local legend status, he started the Evel Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils stunt group in 1966, but soon split from them and embarked on a solo career. In 1967 Evel jumped 15 cars on a motorbike on TV.

7. His famous jumps included the fountain at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. While he cleared the fountain with no problem, he missed the landing ramp and ended up in hospital with several broken bones and in a coma for weeks. That didn’t stop him. Within weeks he was trying to get permission to jump the Grand Canyon. He actually got permission from the Department of the Interior to do it, but only because they thought his request was a joke. As soon as they realised it wasn’t, the permission was withdrawn. Although Evel’s son Robbie would do it in 1999. His longest jump was 133 feet and that also happened to be his only jump in the UK, at Wembley Stadium. He jumped over 14 greyhound Buses. Not, as early publicity using the words “London buses” might have suggested, but single deck coaches.

8. In 1959 Evel Knievel married Linda Bork and had four children with her. They were married for 38 years, even though he cheated on her while touring and it was no secret that he beat her. Linda was popular in their neighbourhood so he wasn’t the best liked person at home. They divorced in 1997 and Evel married pro golfer Krystal Kennedy who was half his age. He beat her as well. She didn’t put up with it for as long as Linda had and divorced him after two years and got a restraining order. That said, they eventually worked out their differences and remained friends until Evel died.

9. He held a world record that nobody in their right mind would want to beat – the most bones broken in a lifetime, 433. That record, set in 1975, still stands today. His frequent injuries certainly took their toll. By 2006 he was in constant pain and needed a morphine drip. The accumulative effects of all those injuries contributed to his death at the age of 69, combined with diabetes and alcoholism. He also found it exceedingly difficult to get life insurance, health insurance or car insurance. He once stated at an interview that Lloyd's of London wouldn’t even insure him – he’d been rejected by them 37 times.

10. A few months before he died, he appeared on TV announcing that he had become a Christian and was baptised at a televised ceremony in California.

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 October: Steve Jobs Day

As 16 October is Steve Jobs Day, here are some things you might not know about Steve Jobs.

1. Steve Jobs was born on 24 February 1955 in San Francisco. So, as today isn’t his birthday, why choose today to celebrate him? It’s not the anniversary of his death, either – that was 5 October 2011. Steve Jobs Day was declared in 2011 by the Governor of California, Jerry Brown, on 16 October 2011, because that was the date that Apple held a memorial service for him.

2. He was adopted. His biological father was Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian immigrant, and his mother Joanne Schieble, an American Catholic whose parents owned a mink farm. Religious differences prevented them from being together, so when Joanne became pregnant, the baby was put up for adoption. The biological parents stipulated that their child must be adopted by people with college degrees. However, neither Clara nor Paul Jobs had been to college. They were willing, however, to make sure their son got a college education, and so the adoption was agreed. Ironically, Steve Jobs dropped out of college in the end, mainly because his adopted family were struggling to pay the college fees.

3. He was known for always wearing black turtlenecks. His signature attire was designed by Japanese designer Issey Miyake and Jobs owned about 100 of them. He actually wanted all his employees to wear them, too, after being impressed by Japanese companies insisting on uniforms. The workers, however, refused point blank. Jobs adopted his own personal uniform, however, and the exact style was discontinued after he died. Another fashion quirk of his was that he often appeared barefoot in public.

4. He wasn’t a tech nerd – he never learned to code. He was the business brain behind Apple, because he knew the business people were the most important. He actually hated computers and once said that he’s rather sell dog shit than PCs. In fact, when the iPhone first launched in 2007, during his his keynote speech at the launch event, he stated that he intended it to be simply a phone. He said, “We want to reinvent the phone ... What’s the killer app? The killer app is making calls. It’s amazing how hard it is to make calls on most phones.”

5. He experimented with drugs in his youth and saw trying LSD as one of the most significant events in his life.

6. He was a Zen Buddhist and even considered entering a Buddhist monastery at one point. It may be that the Buddhist principles of mindfulness and simplicity helped shape Apple’s product designs. Jobs was a pescetarian, meaning he ate no meat except for fish.

7. He never put number plates on his car. He was able to do that because of a California law allowing drivers six months to put registration plates on their cars. When the six months was up, he’d simply buy an identical new car.

8. Before meeting his wife, Laurene, he dated the singer Joan Baez. He had an illegitimate child with his high school sweetheart Chrisann Brennan. He refused to acknowledge his daughter Lisa for many years. He’d turned quite nasty towards Chrisann when she told him she was expecting. She states that Jobs told her "If you give up this baby for adoption, you will be sorry" but also, "I am never going to help you". Yet, he named the Apple Lisa after her despite insisting it was an acronym for "Local Integrated System Architecture". He and Lisa eventually did form a closer relationship and she changed her name to Lisa Brennan-Jobs.

9. He also had a biological sister that he met when she was in her 20s. Her name is Mona Simpson, and she is a novelist.

10. When diagnosed with cancer, Jobs at first decided to shun conventional medicine and embrace alternative treatments, although he did eventually give in and have surgery. Some believe he might have survived if he’d had the surgery earlier. He died from the disease at the age of 56. It was reported that he died peacefully, and that his last words, spoken while looking over the shoulders of his family, were “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

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/

15 October: 288

15 October is the 288^th day of a non-leap year. 10 fun facts about the number 288.

1. The number 288 is often avoided, because it’s two gross.

2. 288 Glauke is an asteroid discovered in 1890, by Robert Luther at Düsseldorf-Bilk Observatory in Germany. It is named after Creusa (known as Glauce or Glauke), a daughter of Creon, a king of Corinth in Greek mythology.

3. In early 20th-century molecular biology, some mysticism surrounded the use of 288 to count protein structures.

4. Stournara 288 is a 1959 Greek film about the residents of a block of flats in 288 Stournara street. The doorkeeper watches every little thing that happens in the building and knows every resident's secrets.

5. The A288 is a road in Hampshire which connects Southsea and Portsmouth.

6. The Ferrari 288 GTO) is an exotic homologation version of the Ferrari 308 GTB produced from 1984 until 1987 in Ferrari's Maranello factory.

7. London bus 288 runs from Queensbury Morrisons to Meadfield.

8. The Year 288 was a leap year starting on a Sunday, known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Maximian and Lanuarianus.

9. In The Bible, 288 is the number of Levitical musicians and singers appointed by King David to lead worship in the house of the Lord (1 Chronicles 25:7).

10. The Roman numeral for 288 is CCLXXXVIII and in binary it’s 100100000.

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/

14 October: Regent's Canal

On this date in 1812, work commenced on London’s Regent’s Canal. 10 facts:

1. Regent's Canal is located just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in Limehouse, east London.

2. The canal is 8.6 miles (13.8 km) long.

3. It was first proposed by Thomas Homer in 1802 and built during the early 19th century. Noted architect and town planner John Nash was a director of the company.

4. Its route passes Little Venice, the northern edge of Regent's Park, London Zoo, Camden Town, King's Cross Central, St Pancras and King's Cross railway stations, Broadway Market and Victoria Park, East London.

5. The largest boat that can pass through it is 21.95 metres (72.0 ft) long, with a beam of 4.27 metres (14.0 ft) and a headroom of 2.79 metres (9 ft 2 in).

6. Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to turn it into a railway line, starting in 1845 when a group of businessmen formed a company to do just that and bought the canal. That venture failed and the company went bust, but there were other attempts, but these were vigorously opposed and also failed.

7. The Central Electricity Generating Board installed underground cables in a trough below the towpath between St John's Wood and City Road in 1979.

8. National Cycle Route 1 includes the stretch along the canal towpath from Limehouse Basin to Mile End. There were concerns that pedestrians and cyclists sharing a narrow path would lead to problems, as cycling became a more popular commuting option around 2005. A study was done, which concluded there were relatively few issues, although more recently in 2019 The Guardian newspaper reported that clashes between the two groups had become more common.

9. The canal's  worst disaster occurred at around 5am on 2 October 1874. A barge called Tilbury, loaded with Sugar, nuts, three barrels of petroleum and around five tons of gunpowder (what could possibly go wrong?) was passing along the canal. It exploded. Possibly because someone on board lit a Match. (Health and safety? What health and safety?) Underneath a bridge called the Macclesfield Bridge, near London Zoo. The explosion was heard 20 miles away, and the entire crew, captain Charles Baxton, a labourer named William Taylor, a third man and a young boy all lost their lives. The Macclesfield Bridge was destroyed and rebuilt in 1876 and was nicknamed the 'Blow-Up Bridge'. There were no reports of deaths of animals in the zoo, but there were reports of frightened animals running amok. The fish in the canal weren’t so lucky – dead fish rained down on the surrounding area. It could, however, have been a whole lot worse, since the barge had passed though some densely populated areas earlier on the route.

10. There’s a folk opera about the canal, Regent's Canal, a Folk Opera, written by Rob Inglis in 2012 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the digging of the canal.

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/

13 October: Lillie Langtry

This date in 1853 was the birthdate of Lillian "Lillie" Langtry, actress, nicknamed “The Jersey Lily”. 10 facts about her.

1. She was born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton. Lillie was a childhood nickname.

2. She may have been descended from Richard le Breton, allegedly one of the assassins of Thomas Becket. Her father was the Very Reverend William Corbet Le Breton, who was the dean of Jersey at the time. Lillie's parents had eloped to Gretna Green. Lillie was the sixth of their seven children and the only girl.

3. Having six brothers meant she was a bit of a tomboy as a child, used to playing outdoors with her brothers. Her parents engaged a French governess for her, but the governess couldn’t manage her, so she was educated along with her brothers by their tutor and so got a better education than most girls at the time.

4. In 1874 she married Edward Langtry, a landowner from Northern Ireland, who kept a yacht in Jersey. Lillie became a competent sailor, but persuaded her husband to take her away from Jersey. The couple moved to London and lived in Belgravia.

5. She became involved in London society and took it by storm. Oscar Wilde was one of her acquaintances, and it was he who suggested she try acting. She first appeared on stage in 1881, causing a stir as the first society woman to tread the boards. Her first role was as Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer at the Haymarket Theatre. Critics didn’t take her seriously at first, but with experience, she became a good actress and was known for playing Rosalind in As You Like It. In due course, she became a theatre manager, opening the Imperial Theatre in 1901. Her last appearance on the stage was in 1917.

6. She became known as “The Jersey Lily” thanks to a portrait of her by Sir John Everett Millais, which he titled A Jersey Lily. Millais, as it happened, also hailed from Jersey. In the painting, she is holding a flower, but it isn’t, in fact, a Jersey lily at all. There weren’t any Jersey lilies available as she was sitting for the portrait, so she’s actually holding a Guernsey lily.

7. She is known for her affairs, most notably with Edward, Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. That said, there have been doubts cast that she was involved with him in that way at all. There is no written evidence in the form of letters or diaries of any dalliance, although the pair did know one another. Also, the intimate relationship is said to have started at a royal house party at Crichel in January 1878, which Prince Edward’s wife refused to attend, but there is evidence that Alexandra was in fact present.

8. She did, however, have affairs with Lord Shrewsbury and Prince Louis of Battenberg, who is thought to be the father of her daughter, Jeanne Marie. Her husband couldn’t have been Jeanne Marie’s father as they had already separated acrimoniously. In 1899 she married Hugo de Bathe, who became a baronet in 1907. For the last 16 years of her life, they lived apart with Lillie living with a female companion called Mrs Peat.

9. She was fond of horse racing and ran a successful racing stable at Newmarket. The Lillie Langtry Stakes horse race is named after her.

10. She might have been the inspiration for Irene Adler, a character in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia. Adler is notable as the only woman to best Sherlock Holmes.

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/

12 October: Three Blind Mice

On this date in 1609 Three Blind Mice was published in London, by Thomas Ravenscroft, believed to be the earliest printed secular song. 10 things you might not know about it.

1. Ravenscroft was a music theorist and composer born around 1588, known for his collections of folk music and rounds, including Deuteromelia, which is the one containing Three Blind Mice. He also wrote two treatises on Music theory. Little is known about his early life except that he sang in the choir of St Paul's Cathedral and got a degree at Cambridge.

2. His version was rather different from the words we know today. The lyrics then were: “Three Blinde Mice, three Blinde Mice, Dame Iulian, Dame Iulian, The Miller and his merry olde Wife, she scrapte her Tripe; licke thou the Knife.”

3. Like many nursery rhymes, theories abound as to the dark origins of the lyrics. A commonly quoted one is that the three blind mice represent three men executed by Mary I of England, a staunch Catholic, for being Protestants. The men in question were Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, collectively known as the Oxford Martyrs. Queen Mary, of course, was the farmer’s wife.

4. As to the blindness, some theories say it was literal; that the three men were tortured before they were killed and part of that involved actually blinding them. Alternatively, being Protestants meant they were blind to the truth about religion, or that they were blissfully unaware that Mary was plotting against them until it was too late.

5. Then again, the song was written a good half century after the deaths of the Oxford Martyrs, and in Ravenscroft’s original, there is no mention of the mice being harmed in any way.

6. There’s also the question, who the heck is Dame Iulian? Proponents of the religious interpretation would say it was Julian of Norwich, a nun who wrote books about her visions of Christ, although her works weren’t in the public eye until much later, around 1670. It seems more likely Dame Iulian was Dame Juliana Berners, a writer of books about falconry and hunting. The reference to cleaning tripe and licking the knife (yuck) would fit in the context of preparing an animal one had killed for the table. Though probably not the mice, as they’d be too small to eat.

7. The version we know dates from 1922, when it appeared in Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes by Beatrix Potter.

8. Various classical composers have made use of the melody, including Robert Schuman, Joseph Haydn, Antonin Dvorak and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

9. In America the tune has a sporting connotation. It is associated with referees making decisions the crowd disagree with during games of ice hockey or Baseball. In fact, it’s banned from many sporting events, and an organist or DJ who plays it could even be fired for calling the umpire’s calls into question.

10. Mouse lovers may like to know that there is a children’s book published in 1904 which ends on a more positive note for the three mice. It’s called The Complete Version of Ye Three Blind Mice and was written by John W. Ivimey. While the mice are blinded by running into a bramble bush while being chased by Mrs Farmer, and the butcher’s wife cuts off their tails, they find medicine which restores their eyesight and makes their tails grow back. They find work making wood chips, buy a house and live happily ever after.

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/

11 October: Apollo 7

On this date in 1968 Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, was launched. 10 things you might not know about Apollo 7.

1. The crew were commander Walter M. Schirra, Command Module Pilot Donn F. Eisele and Lunar Module pilot R. Walter Cunningham (even though, as they weren’t actually going to the Moon, Apollo 7 didn’t have a lunar module).

2. The mission's duration was 10 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes and 3 seconds, which was the second longest American spaceflight until Apollo 15 surpassed it in 1971. At the time, too, Commander Wally Schirra was the oldest person to fly in space at the age of 45. That record was also broken in 1971 by Alan Shepherd who was 47 when he went to space in Apollo 14.

3. It was the first manned space mission after Apollo 1, which ended tragically with a fire during a test launch, which killed three astronauts: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham had been the back up crew for that mission and were named the primary crew for Apollo 7. In the interim, crews were suspended while improvements were made to the spacecraft and unmanned test flights took place (presumably Apollos 2-6).

4. Schirra, who’d been a close friend of Gus Grissom, suggested that the callsign for the mission should be Phoenix, because it "rose from the ashes" of Apollo 1, and suggested that the mission insignia should include the mythical bird. NASA, however, vetoed that because they thought it was in bad taste. The insignia was redesigned to show a rocket orbiting the Earth and there was no call sign at all. Apollo 9 was the first to have one since Grissom's Gemini 3 Molly Brown in 1965.

5. The main purpose of the mission was to make sure that a trio of Astronauts could safely spend the amount of time in space that a trip to the moon would require, and that the spacecraft was habitable for that amount of time. The crew orbited the Earth 163 times.

6. There were a couple of notable firsts. This crew were the first to have a hot meal in space. Sadly, I couldn’t find a reference to what they actually ate. Schirra was possibly the first person to drink Coffee in space. NASA doctors had tried to veto his instant coffee as it didn’t have any nutritional value, but Schirra ignored them and took it anyway, and would report that he’d thoroughly enjoyed drinking his coffee out of a plastic bag! On 14 October, the first television broadcast from space took place. (Gordon Cooper had transmitted television pictures from Faith 7 in 1963, but the pictures were of poor quality and were never broadcast.) It began with a view of a card reading "From the Lovely Apollo Room high atop everything", which was a nod to 1930s radio call signs. The broadcast lasted 7 minutes and included scenes of the spacecraft and of the Earth below. At the end, Schirra held another sign, "Keep those cards and letters coming in folks", another old-time radio tag line.

7. All three of the astronauts had nasty colds while in space. Schirra went down with it first, about 15 hours in, and thanks to the confined working conditions, infected his crewmates with it. Weightless conditions actually make having a cold even worse than on Earth and so it was rather painful. Luckily, they had Aspirin and decongestants on board which helped somewhat, and afterwards, Schirra netted a contract advertising cold remedies.

8. The mission was known for the tensions and disagreements between the crew and ground control, and none of the three ever went to space again (although to be fair, Schirra had already expressed his intention to retire before the mission began). Tensions began at launch. There was an easterly Wind that day which would normally result in the launch being scrubbed for safety reasons (if anything went wrong in the early stages and they had to abort, the rocket might come down on land rather than on water). Schirra felt the safety rules should be adhered to and the launch cancelled, but Mission Control put pressure on him to continue. Thankfully, all went well, but the tensions continued. The TV broadcast was another source of dispute. Schirra felt that various tests and tasks they had to do on a new spacecraft should take precedence over performing for TV audiences. Then there was a row about re-entry: because all three astronauts had colds, and would need to be able to pinch their noses and blow to reduce the risk of perforated eardrums as pressure changed, but Mission Control insisted they should wear helmets for the descent. This time, Schirra ignored them and put his crew’s welfare first. They landed without helmets and everything was fine.

9. Apollo 7 splashed down at 11:11:48 UTC on October 22, 1968, 200 nautical miles (230 mi; 370 km) SSW of Bermuda and 7 nautical miles (8 mi; 13 km) north of the recovery ship USS Essex. NASA awarded Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham its Exceptional Service Medal. Despite the difficulties, the mission was deemed a technical success, paving the way for Apollo 8’s orbit of the moon a few months later.

10. You may well have heard the tale that NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pen to use in space while the Russians simply used a Pencil. The pen the urban legend is talking about was invented and developed by pen manufacturer Paul C. Fisher (it was he who spent the money on it, not NASA). The pen got its first trip to space on Apollo 7, and there was more to it than America showing off a fancy space pen. Pencils are actually quite flammable, and NASA were doing everything they could, understandably, to reduce fire risks on board. Not only that, but pencil lead can break off and float around the capsule, another hazard. So inventing a space pen actually made sense, and a year later, the Russians were using space pens as well.

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