28 May: William Joyce/Lord Haw Haw

William Joyce, aka Lord Haw Haw, famous traitor of the second world war, was captured on this date in 1945. 10 facts about him.

1. He was born in America, in New York City on April 26th, 1906, but only lived there until he was three. His parents were of Irish origin and the family moved to Galway, where Joyce grew up.

2. He was almost assassinated by the IRA as a schoolboy. In 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, he was recruited by the British Army as a courier and an attempt was made on his life on his way home from school. This is how he ended up in England – the British army sent him to Worcestershire for his safety.

3. He became fascinated by fascism as a student, but the die was cast when he attended a political meeting and was attacked there by communists. The attack left a permanent scar from his earlobe to the corner of his mouth. This cemented his dedication to the right wing.

4. He joined Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in 1932 and did well there at first due to his skills at public speaking. Things went sour, though, and Mosley fired him. Furious, he split off from the BUF to found his own political party, the National Socialist League. Again, things went sour as he wanted to model the party on the German Nazi party which was too much even for the NSL. So Joyce disbanded the party and went to Germany in 1939. He’d obtained a British passport in 1938 by falsely claiming he was a British subject when he was actually an American citizen.

5. He was recruited by Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda and given his own radio show, “Germany Calling.” Joyce was actually one of several English announcers on that show who were dubbed “Lord Haw Haw”.

6. At first, people in Britain found his broadcasts dissing the government quite entertaining in contrast to the rather dour programmes on the BBC. By 1940, it was estimated that “Germany Calling” had six million regular listeners and 18 million occasional listeners in the United Kingdom. A regular feature of his show was a segment called “Schmidt and Smith” in which he and a German colleague would engage in discussions about Britain, degrading and attacking the British government, people, and way of life. 

7. Joyce was doing so well that he was given a pay raise and promoted to Chief Commentator of the English Language Service. However, when Nazi Germany invaded Denmark, Norway, and France in April and May of 1940, Joyce’s propaganda was notched up a gear. Now he was bigging up Germany, threatening Britain with invasion, and urged the country to surrender. He’d crossed a line, now, and the British public no longer saw his show as harmless satire but as an actual threat. Joyce’s constant contempt for and sarcasm about Britain no longer went down well and his efforts to undermine British morale were largely ineffective.

8. On 28 May 1945, Joyce was captured by British forces at Flensburg, the last capital of the Third Reich. Soldiers out gathering firewood spotted him, a dishevelled figure by now, and tried to start a conversation. They didn’t know who he was, at first, and attempted to communicate in French as well as English. When he spoke back, of course, they recognised his voice and asked if he was William Joyce. Joyce reached into his pocket for his fake British passport, which the soldiers interpreted as him reaching for a gun. One of them, Geoffrey Perry, reacted fast, and shot Joyce in the bum. Two intelligence officers then drove Joyce to a border post to hand him over to British military police.

9. He was found guilty of high treason at the Old Bailey and was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 3 January 1946, aged 39. He was the penultimate person to be hanged in the UK for a crime other than murder. The last was Theodore Schurch, executed for treachery the following day at Pentonville.

10. Joyce was married twice. His first wife was called Hazel with whom he had a daughter, Heather. When that marriage ended, she re-married and her new husband was Oswald Mosley's bodyguard, Eric Piercey. His second wife was Margaret Cairns White. He married her in 1936 and she went with him to Germany. Joyce’s daughter, Heather, would as an adult speak about him and campaigned to get his body moved from an unmarked grave in Wandsworth to Galway. She condemned the work he did for Nazi Germany, but said that he was nevertheless a loving father to her.

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 January: Hermann Goering

Today in infamous people history: this date in 1893 was the birthdate of Hermann Goering. 10 facts about him.

1. Göring was born in Bavaria, the son of Heinrich Ernst Göring, who was the German consul general in Haiti at the time. As a child he lived in a castle owned by Hermann, Ritter (knight) von Epenstein, who was Göring’s godfather and was also having an affair with his mother. Von Epenstein also happened to be Jewish.

2. He served in the first world war, having entered the German Army as an infantry lieutenant in 1912. He transferred to the air force and was a flying ace. He reportedly shot down 22 allied aircraft during the war, and received the Pour le Merite and Iron Cross 1st class. In 1918 he became commander of the same squadron in which Manfred, Freiherr (Baron) von Richthofen, had served.

3. Unimpressed with how veterans were treated in Germany after the great war, he went to live in Scandinavia and worked as a commercial pilot in Denmark and Sweden.

4. In 1923 he married a Swedish baroness Carin von Kantzow, who divorced her husband in order to marry him. She died in 1931 and in 1935 he married his second wife, an actress called Emmy Sonnemann. A large reception was held the night before their wedding at the Berlin Opera House with fly pasts by fighter aircraft both on the night of the reception and the day of the ceremony. Hitler was best man. Goering had his only child with Emmy, a daughter named Edda. Hitler was her godfather and she was treated like a princess. She remained protective of her father as an adult, and said her ‘only memories of him are loving ones, I cannot see him any other way.’

5. Goering was a drug addict. He took part in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, in which Hitler tried to seize power prematurely. During this, Goering was severely injured in the groin and fled to Sweden to escape arrest. He was given morphine for the pain of his injuries and became so hooked on it that he had to go through two rounds of treatment at the Långbro mental hospital in Sweden.

6. He had a younger brother called Albert who worked against the Nazi regime. Albert was a film maker in Vienna in 1938, and he would defend Jews who were being bullied in the street and arranged exit visas for his Jewish friends. Albert was the subject of numerous Gestapo reports, 4 arrest warrants and finally a death warrant in 1944, which called for execution on sight. Goering once said of his younger brother, ‘he was always the antithesis of myself.’

7. Goering was known for his extravagant dress and love of Opera and art, though a lot of his art collection was plundered from Jewish collections in occupied countries. He grew very fat due to a glandular problem and dressed in outlandish costumes such as a medieval hunting costume for practising Archery with his doctor, a red toga fastened with a golden clasp while smoking an unusually large pipe; and a fur coat described by Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano as like something "a high-grade prostitute wears to the opera". Despite his obesity he liked to be called "der Eiserne" (the Iron Man).

8. He had a large estate in in the Schorfheide, north of Berlin which he named Carinhall in honour of his first wife. He borrowed Lion cubs from the zoo to keep there, and in his house at Obersalzberg, as pets.

9. He made a fatal tactical error during the Battle of Britain, by switching to bombing London at night which gave the British defences time to recover. After that Goering pleaded ill health and tried to retire, at least as much as Hitler would let him. However, he still had his eye on the top job. In April 1945 Goering sent Hitler a telegram, in anticipation of his likely death, asking permission to take up control over Germany, having been named as successor in 1941. It was not to be as Hitler and Martin Bormann condemned Goering as a traitor and rescinded the 1941 decree. Goering was forced to resign from his posts, and was expelled from the party in Hitler’s will.

10. He was condemned to hang as a war criminal in 1946. His request to be shot instead was declined and so he killed himself by taking poison capsule which he had secreted in a container of pomade.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

31 August: The Night Stalker

On this date in 1985, Richard Ramirez, the ‘Night Stalker’ killer, was arrested in Los Angeles, California.

1. His full name was Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez. He was dubbed the Night Stalker, the Walk-In Killer, and the Valley Intruder.

2. From April 1984 to August 1985, Ramirez murdered at least fourteen people. He was convicted of thirteen counts of murder, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults and fourteen burglaries.

3. It’s likely the seeds of extreme mental illness were sown during his childhood. His father was abusive and his cousin, Miguel, would show him pictures of women he’d abused. When he was 13, Ramirez was present when Miguel shot his wife in the face.

4. He was a Satanist who would often leave pentagrams at the scenes of his crimes, in Lipstick on a mirror on one occasion and on a victim’s leg on another. Survivors of his attacks told how he would tell them to swear to Satan, not to God. He even had a pentagram tattooed on his hand, which he famously showed off in court during his trial. He was obsessed with a song by AC/DC called Night Prowler, which describes watching someone outside their window and slipping into their house.

5. Another of his foibles was helping himself to snacks from the Fridge after killing the people in the house.

6. A significant clue left behind at one crime scene was a shoe print in a flower bed, which turned out to belong to a very rare make of Shoe, only one of which had ever been sold in that size in Los Angeles. However, the investigation was scuppered when a judge appeared on TV and mentioned the shoe. Needless to say, Ramirez ditched those shoes after that.

7. He narrowly evaded capture several times. Fleeing the scene of a failed kidnapping, he was pulled over for a traffic violation but made a run for it when he heard details of the kidnapping broadcast over the traffic cop’s radio. On another occasion they found a dentist’s business card in a car he’d stolen. Police contacted the dentist and found that someone matching his description had been in for X-rays and would be returning for treatment of an infected tooth. Police set up an alarm staff could press when he came back, but it failed to go off.

8. He was finally caught after getting off a bus, walking past police who were hoping to apprehend him at the Bus station and into a shop where his face was on the front page of a newspaper. People in the shop recognised him, so he ran and tried to steal a car. Local residents pulled him out of the car and one hit him over the head with a fence post. They chased him down and beat him up in the street, resulting in neighbours calling the cops about the disturbance.

9. While he was in prison, women used to send him love letters. He married one of them, a woman named Doreen Lioy, who was convinced he was innocent. She left him, however, when DNA evidence proved he’d murdered a nine year old girl.

10. Despite being handed 19 death sentences, he was never executed. You could say that God took care of the execution Himself as Ramirez died of cancer while on Death Row.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

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29 July: Benito Mussolini

This date in 1883 saw the birth of Benito Mussolini, Italian Dictator during the second world war. 10 facts about him:

1. He was born in Verano di Costa, about 40 miles south-east of Bologna. His father was a blacksmith and a devout socialist and his mother was a devout Catholic schoolteacher. He was named after a socialist figure – Mexican President Benito Juárez. His middle names were Amilcare and Andrea, which both came from Italian socialists – Amilcare Cipriani and Andrea Costa.

2. He was a difficult child and was expelled from school at the age of ten for stabbing a classmate with a penknife. He is said to have pinched people at church to make them cry, led gangs of boys on raids of local farmsteads and was even violent towards a girlfriend.

3. In spite of all that, his grades were good and he qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in 1901.

4. He moved to Switzerland in 1902, partly to find work, partly to avoid having to do national service. He worked briefly as a stonemason in Geneva and got involved in socialist politics. In 1904, Mussolini returned to Italy to take advantage of an amnesty for avoiding military service. A condition for being pardoned was serving in the army, so he joined the corps of the Bersaglieri in Forlì and served two years and then returned to teaching.

5. He was kicked out of the socialist party for supporting Italy’s entry into the first world war.

6. He wrote a novel. It was called The Cardinal’s Mistress and was a work of historical fiction set in 17th-century Italy. He was also said to be a huge fan of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

7. He was claustrophobic, so refused to enter the Blue Grotto (a sea cave on the coast of Capri), and preferred large rooms. His office at the Palazzo Venezia was 18 by 12 by 12 m (60 by 40 by 40 feet).

8. Mussolini was married twice. His first wife was Ida Dalser, with whom he had a son. The marriage was short lived and when Mussolini married his mistress Rachele Guidi, his first wife and son were kept under constant surveillance. Eventually Ida was exiled on an island near Venice and the son was admitted to an asylum where he died aged 26. He remained married to Rachele until he died and had five children with her.

9. Hitler admired him a great deal. The Nazi salute is actually a copy of the one instituted by Mussolini. Mussolini told his mistress, Claretta Petacci, in 1938 that Hitler “had tears in his eyes” when the two met.

10. At the end of the second world war, Mussolini tried to sneak over the Swiss border disguised as a German. An Italian partisan recognised him, though and he was executed the following day.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

14 January: Benedict Arnold

Benedict Arnold was born on this date in 1741. His name has become synonymous with “traitor”, as he’s famous for switching sides during the American war of Independence. 10 facts about him:

1. He was a British subject by birth. He was born in Norwich, Connecticut, and was the fifth in his family to be given the name of Benedict Arnold. His father was Benedict Arnold III. His great-grandfather, Benedict Arnold, was once governor of the colony of Connecticut. Rhode Island's first colonial governor was also one of his ancestors.

2. He had to drop out of school at the age of 14 as his father fell on hard times and became an alcoholic. Young Benedict took a job as an apprentice to an apothecary and after eight years opened his own general store.

3. He also got into trading in Canada and the Caribbean, owning three ships by his mid 20s. When the Sugar and Stamp Acts started eating at his profits, he avoided taxation by smuggling untaxed Rum and molasses, as many businessmen of the time did. When someone tried to report him he had the man publicly whipped.

4. He had a bad temper and was known to challenge people who slighted or disrespected him to a duel. An example took place in Honduras. Arnold forgot to respond to an invitation to a gathering hosted by a British sea captain named Croskie. Fair play to Arnold, when he realised this he went to Croskie’s ship to apologise, only for Croskie to remark, “a damned Yankee, destitute of good manners.” To which Arnold responded by challenging him to a duel. After being hit in the arm and missing his first shot, Croskie apologised for the insult.

5. Before his defection to the British, Arnold was one of the Continental Army’s greatest fighting generals. He led the militia to Boston after the Battles of Lexington and Concord to help with the siege there. He received a commission to attack Fort Ticonderoga and took it in one of the first major victories for the colonies. As a colonel he led an attack on Quebec City. In fact, George Washington valued him so much as a general that when Arnold tried to resign from the army, Washington wouldn’t let him.

6. He was wounded in the leg twice, once in Canada and again at the Battle of Saratoga when he was shot in the thigh. The injuries left him with a permanent limp and one leg that was two inches shorter than the other. There is a monument at Saratoga which commemorates his leg, in the shape of a boot. The marker includes a dedication to the “brilliant soldier” who was “desperately wounded” during the Battle of Saratoga, but doesn’t mention him by name.

7. In May 1779, Arnold secretly contacted British General Henry Clinton to discuss the possibility of switching his allegiance back to the Crown. He demanded £20,000 for doing so, but greed and financial gain were possibly not the only reason he turned traitor. He was offended because five junior officers had been promoted over him and thought some of his colleagues were trying to damage his reputation. In 1780, Arnold became the commander of the fort at West Point. Arnold agreed to surrender the fort to the British for a £20,000 fee. He passed information to the British about the fort, such as troop movements and the locations of supply depots.

8. It’s possible there was a woman involved in all of this, too. Arnold’s first wife, Margaret Mansfield, had died in 1775. In 1779, while living in Philadelphia and being a prominent member of the social scene there, an 18 year old girl with the reputation of being the most beautiful woman in town caught his eye. Her name was Peggy Shippen, the 18-year-old daughter of Judge Edward Shippen, who’d done business with the British while they occupied the city. It’s thought that the methods used by Peggy and her friends to keep in touch with their boyfriends in the army, in spite of communication bans, including codes and invisible ink, were now used by Arnold and his contacts.

9. Arnold led several successful campaigns on the British side before settling in London after the war. However, he wasn’t much more popular in Britain than he was in America. He was regarded as an unprincipled mercenary who’d been directly responsible for the death of his associate Major Andre. Arnold and Peggy were hissed at in public; the press lambasted him and the British army and East India Company refused to employ him. To cap it all, he only got £6,000 for his trouble, not the £20,000 he’d been promised. Arnold eventually resumed his old career as a merchant ship-owner in Canada and the Caribbean.

10. He died on June 14, 1801, at the age of 60. Legend has it that, his last words were: "Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another," but this might not be true. He was buried at St Mary's Church, Battersea. Arnold’s tomb is embedded in the wall of a Sunday School classroom, right next to a fish tank. The inscription reads: reads: “The Two Nations Whom he Served In Turn in the Years of their Enmity Have United in Enduring Friendship.”

8 November: Lord Lucan

Lord Lucan disappeared on this date in 1974. The 7^th Earl is famous for vanishing in 1974, after his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in London, and his wife Veronica was also attacked. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. His given name was Richard John Bingham and he was 7th Earl of Lucan. He was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, the eldest son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, and Kaitlin Dawson. The title, in the Peerage of Ireland, dates back to 1691. Some of his ancestors were quite notorious as well. George, 3rd Earl of Lucan, was one of the officers involved in the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade. The 4^th Earl was known as “The Exterminator” because of the number of evictions he made to his estate during the Potato famine in Ireland. It was said that he regarded his tenants as vermin to be cleared off his land.

2. He went to Eton, and it was there he developed a taste for gambling. He’d sneak out of school to place bets on Horses and did well enough to supplement his allowance. He opened a secret bank account in which to keep his winnings.

3. Later on he would earn the nickname “Lucky Lucan” thanks to his early success at gambling tables, although the nickname didn’t confer any guarantees. He once lost today’s equivalent of £90,000 in one evening. His best results came from games involving skill such as bridge or backgammon. He became not only the backgammon champion of the west coast of North America, but was listed as one of the best players in the world.

4. An average student, upon leaving school he served as an officer in the Coldstream Guards. After that, he worked for a bank in London.

5. James Bond creator Ian Fleming was a fellow member of the Clermont Club, and when Sean Connery left the franchise, Fleming suggested that the suave, handsome Lord Lucan would make an excellent Bond. Producer Albert Broccoli offered Lucan a screen test, but he declined. By coincidence, the man contracted to fly an autogyro with infrared cameras during the search for Lucan after he disappeared had previously worked on a James Bond film.

6. He met and married his wife, Veronica, in 1963. For their honeymoon, they travelled first class on the Orient Express, paid for by Lucan’s father. The couple had three children, Frances, George, and Camilla.

7. It wasn’t a happy marriage. Veronica suffered from post natal depression and was isolated and lonely as her husband spent all his time at Gentleman’s clubs and casinos. Veronica claimed he was violent, too: she said Lucan would hit her with a cane, vowing to “beat these mad ideas out” of her. The cane was wrapped in bandages to soften the blow. He suspected her of having an affair with one of his friends, tried to get her committed to a mental hospital, but doctors could find no evidence of mental illness. So he asked the doctors if she was sane enough to be left alone with the children, and when they said she was, he moved out. However, he was obsessed with getting custody of the kids and would spy on Veronica and try to get the succession of nannies to provide him with evidence to help his case.

8. On the night of the murder, Sandra Rivett (who was supposed to be on her night off but had switched in order to spend time with her boyfriend the previous evening) offered to make Veronica a cup of Coffee, but never returned. Veronica went to investigate and was attacked, according to her account, by her husband, who hit her over the head with a pipe. He said, “I’ve killed her. She came down first. If it had been you, you would have got it”. Veronica pretended to be willing to help him escape and tended his wounds, but managed to get out of the house and run to a nearby pub, screaming “Help me! My children...he’s murdered my nanny”! Police found Sandra’s body. She’d been killed by a fatal blow to the head and her body placed in a mailbag. Meanwhile, Lucan had legged it. He phoned his mother, but the police were with her, so he said he’d call back, but never did. He wrote a letter to a friend in which he described his version of events, which was that he’d past by the house and seen, through a window, an intruder attacking his wife. He’d gone in to intervene and the intruder had run away. He said the evidence against him was strong, and Veronica was paranoid and would say he “did it”, so he was going to lie low for a bit. He was never seen again. On February 3, 2016, a high court judge granted a death certificate to the family and his son inherited the title.

9. During the investigation investigators searched Lucan’s apartment and found a suit laid out on his bed beside a book about Greek shipping millionaires. His wallet, car keys, driver’s license and glasses were on the bedside table and his passport was in the drawer. His car was found abandoned in Newhaven. In the boot was a bandaged Lead pipe and a full bottle of vodka. It was claimed much later, by the Daily Mail in 2022, that the detective on the case had revealed that there were also three Cluedo cards: Colonel Mustard, Lead Pipe, and The Hall. Nice twist – but it was the Daily Mail so probably not true.

10. The mystery of what actually happened to Lord Lucan has remained in the public imagination ever since. Veronica’s theory was that he topped himself by jumping off the Newhaven ferry, although his body was never found. Many people have claimed to have spotted him in various places: driving a New York taxi, eating in Paris cafes, drinking in Irish pubs, in an ex-Nazi colony in Paraguay, working in a vineyard in the Rioja region of Spain, running a Sheep station in the Australian outback, backpacking on Mount Etna and working as a waiter in San Francisco. Some more bizarre claims include that he lived in India as a hippy called 'Jungle Barry'; that he was fed to the Tigers at a zoo in Kent; that he was held to ransom by the IRA, who shot him; that he’d been killed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who he’d hired as a hit man, and who wanted to cover it up. There is no evidence to support any of the sightings. That said, Sandra Rivett’s son has dedicated his life to tracking down his mother’s killer, and claimed he’d found him, living in a Buddhist commune in Brisbane. The old man in question denied being Lord Lucan, but when facial software recognition expert Professor Hassan Ugail compared photos of this man with Lucan, he said they were a perfect match.

Character birthday

Cat, aka Gemma Hagen, a minor celebrity in Innovia as a record breaking sprinter. She and her boyfriend, Kyle, an Ironball player, bought a luxury home on Bird Island to spend time in off-season. During the off-season period, they would enjoy a life of excess, taking drugs and drinking, before undergoing a punishing detox before returning to compete for another season.

When the call came for all Innovians to leave Bird Island, Gemma and Kyle were too drunk and stoned to respond. They were sucked through the wormhole caused by the nuclear test to Earth, where they teamed up with Earthguard.

Gemma obtained the power of regeneration from the wormhole, but Kyle was not so lucky. His body turned to organic sand. Although he survived, Gemma ended their relationship as she could not cope with his new appearance.

24 November: The Kray Twins

Notorious 1960s London gangsters the Kray Twins were born on this date in 1933. 10 things you might not know about them:

1. Ronald and Reginald Kray were born in Haggerston, East London. Their parents were Charles David Kray and Violet Annie Lee. The brothers were identical Twins. Reggie was the oldest by ten minutes.

2. They had an older brother, Charlie, who was also a member of their criminal gang, known as “The Firm”.

3. When they were young, the boys enjoyed writing poetry. We know this because a childhood friend of theirs, Laurie O'Leary, has said he owns a number of the poems they wrote but never published.

4. The first time the twins’ names appeared in the newspapers was in 1950, when at 16, they got into a fight in Hackney.

5. They were among the last prisoners to be held at the Tower of London. This was in 1952, for failing to report for national service. Although they turned up at the depot of the Royal Fusiliers (which was in the Tower of London), they tried to leave before actually registering. When a soldier tried to stop them, Ronnie punched him in the face, and the twins went home, only to be arrested the next day and turned over to the army. They were imprisoned in the Tower of London before being transferred to Shepton Mallet military prison in Somerset.

6. Their grandfather, Jimmy Cannonball Lee, was a boxer and this inspired the twins to take up boxing. Reggie almost became a professional boxer, but his sporting career was ended because of his criminal activity.

7. Reggie had a signature punch which was guaranteed to break his opponent’s jaw, every time. He’d offer the other person a cigarette and as they opened their mouth to accept the cigarette, he’d hit them.

8. They owned a number of nightclubs and socialised with celebrities. They also ran protection rackets and had a security protection company called Krayleigh Enterprises. They carried on running this company from prison, and Frank Sinatra was said to be one of their customers.

9. In March 1969 they were sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for 30 years for the murders of George Cornell and Jack McVitie. This was the longest sentence the Old Bailey had ever doled out at the time. It was also the longest and most expensive trial to be held there. The jury deliberated for seven hours before returning with a unanimous guilty verdict.

10. They once barged onto a movie set because the producers hadn't asked their permission to film in the East End. The film was called Sparrows Can't Sing and starred Barbara Windsor. They showed up in several black cars, demanding, "Who gave you permission to shoot here? Nobody asked us." Despite having police permission, Reggie and Ronnie forced their "protection" onto the company. However, after this relations between the twins and the film company were actually quite friendly, with members of the gang getting cameo roles.

Character birthday

Water, an associate of Fyre and Hurricane. This character’s story is not yet written.

10 May: John Wilkes Booth

10 things you didn't know about John Wilkes Booth, US stage actor, born on this date in 1838 who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

1. He was the 9th of 10 children born to the actor Junius Brutus Booth, a British Shakespearean actor, and his mistress, Mary Ann Holmes. He was named after English radical politician John Wilkes, a distant relative. His parents didn't marry until he was 13 years old, when Junius' wife Adelaide Delannoy Booth was granted a divorce in 1851.
2. As a boy, Booth was athletic and popular, skilled at horsemanship and fencing but was an average student. One of his teachers said of him: "Each day he rode back and forth from farm to school, taking more interest in what happened along the way than in reaching his classes on time."
3. He once had a psychic reading, while he was still at school. He had his fortune told by a palm reader, who told him he would have a grand life, but would die young, "meeting a bad end".
4. Not only was his father an actor, but at least two of his brothers, as well. So it was probably no surprise when Booth, too, followed in their footsteps. He made his debut on stage in 1855, aged 17 as the Earl of Richmond in Richard III. He forgot some of his lines and the audience booed. Later, he joined a Shakespearean stock company in Richmond, Virginia, where he was more successful. There, he ended up earning $20,000 a year (equivalent to about $569,000 in today's money).
5. His brother Edwin was a very successful actor and there is thought to have been more than a little sibling rivalry between them. Booth would ask to be billed as "J.B. Wilkes" so people wouldn't automatically compare him with other members of his family. Some scholars have even suggested that part of his motivation in assassinating Lincoln was to become even more famous than his brother.
6. He was 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) tall, lean and athletic with curly black hair. He had many female fans who wrote him adoring letters. In 1865, he became engaged to Lucy Lambert Hale, the daughter of U.S. Senator John P. Hale. She had no idea at the time how much her fiance hated Abraham Lincoln.
7. Booth was outspoken in his advocacy of slavery and his hatred of Lincoln. He was present at the execution of abolitionist John Brown in 1859, as one of a force of volunteers there to make sure nobody tried to rescue Brown. Booth stood near the scaffold and while he was pleased to see Brown dead, he did admire how bravely the man faced death.
8. The conspirators planned, initially, just to kidnap Lincoln, but Booth saw an opportunity when he found out the president was to attend an evening performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre. He gathered his band together and outlined the plan, and the parts they would all play in it. Booth sneaked into the theatre earlier in the day to tamper with the Lock of the presidential box. He returned during the play’s third act, entered the box and shot Lincoln in the back of the head.
9. After a brief grapple with Major Henry Rathbone, one of Lincoln's guests, Booth escaped by leaping off the balustrade of the box onto the stage, yelling “Sic semper tyrannis!” (the motto of the state of Virginia, meaning “Thus always to tyrants!”) or “The South is avenged!” or both. He landed heavily and broke a bone in his leg, but nevertheless made it to his Horse, fighting off two more would be capturers on the way. Booth made his way to the Navy Yard Bridge, where he hoped to cross into Maryland, but there was a curfew in place. He was questioned by guards on the bridge, and even though he gave them his real name, they hadn't got the memo yet that a manhunt was on, and after questioning him briefly, decided he was on the level and let him cross. He stopped to get treatment for his broken leg by one Dr. Mudd, who was later arrested for being part of the conspiracy. The manhunt lasted 12 days.
10. On April 24, Booth and Herold stopped at a farm belonging to a man called Richard Garrett. Garrett apparently hadn't heard about Lincoln’s assassination and thought Booth was a wounded Confederate soldier named “James W. Boyd,” so he agreed to let him stay in his barn. This is where the cavalry caught up with him. During the fracas which followed, the barn was set on fire and Booth was shot in the neck and fatally wounded by a sergeant named Boston Corbett. Booth knew he was on his way out and uttered what he thought were some appropriate last words: “Tell mother, I die for my country.” However, he ended up living for a few more hours and his actual last words turned out to be “Useless, useless.”

Character birthday

Gull, flying solo hero who is also a strong swimmer and a trained lifeguard. He would use his power to save people in trouble at sea, but eventually tired of the media attention. He considered joining the G-Men, but when he asked Sonik out and she turned him down, he decided against it.

12 November: Charles Manson

Charles Manson was born on this date in 1934. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. Manson was born in a Cincinnati hospital to an unmarried 16-year-old named Kathleen Maddox. She didn't identify the father, nor immediately name her child, so Manson was registered as “no name Maddox.” He got the name Manson after Kathleen was briefly married to a man called William Manson.
2. There's a story in which Kathleen was said to have sold Charles as a child in exchange for a pint of Beer, and only returned home when his uncle went to find him. This may or may not be true. Some sources said Manson himself used to tell this story; others said he always denied it.
3. He was involved in petty crime from a young age, spending more time in prison than out of it. In fact, as his parole date approached, he's said to have begged the authorities not to let him back into normal society as he didn't think he could cope, but his pleas were ignored.
4. He was married twice, and had a son. At 21 he married a woman called Rosalie Willis who he'd met while out on parole. He seemed genuinely happy with her and was set to start a new life with her and their unborn child in California. His big mistake was stealing a car in which to drive there, so he ended up back in jail. Rosalie stood by him for a while, but eventually divorced him.
5. In prison, Manson read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and also discovered Scientology. In 1961, he identified himself as a Scientologist on a prison questionnaire. When he wasn't teaching himself methods of mind control, another of his pastimes in prison was learning to play the Guitar. A notorious bank robber named Alvin “Creepy” Karpis was a guitar player who used to teach other inmates how to play the instrument. Karpis initially thought Manson was too “lazy and shiftless” to put in the effort required, but was proved wrong.
6. Manson not only played the guitar but wrote songs as well. There's even an album of his songs called Lie: the Love and Terror Cult. While it wasn't a huge success, there was some interest in it after the Sharon Tate murders. Guns N’ Roses and Marilyn Manson (who named himself after Charles Manson and Marilyn Monroe) have both covered his songs. He even wrote a song for The Beach Boys. He was friends with Beach Boy founder Denis Wilson for a while; Wilson was into group sex sessions and such. Manson wrote a song called Cease to Exist which was released by the Beach Boys as Never Learn not to Love. While the two had collaborated on the name change and tweaks to the lyrics, Wilson failed to credit Manson and so the two became bitter enemies.
7. Using techniques he'd picked up from Dale Carnegie and the Scientologists, Manson collected a string of followers, mostly young women, who worshipped him like a god. They were known as the Manson Family and lived on a ranch where the women were treated like domestic servants. They later moved to a yellow house which Manson dubbed "The Yellow Submarine".
8. Manson was obsessed with The Beatles’ The White Album, in particular a song called Helter Skelter, which he believed contained subliminal messages about a race war which would soon take place in America. This was despite the fact that, being older than most of his followers, he actually preferred the music of Bing Crosby, Perry Como and Frankie Laine to the Beatles. Manson decided to kickstart the race war by sending three of his family members — Tex Watson, Susan Atkins and Linda Kasabian — to go to 10050 Cicelo Drive and kill everyone they found there. Manson believed the occupant of the house was a record producer who'd got in the way of his music career. The record producer had moved out and was renting the house to Polish director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate. The rest is history.
9. While Manson was convicted and sentenced to death for this and several other murders his "Family" carried out, Manson never actually killed anyone himself. In fact, he wasn't even present at some of the murders. He was convicted as a conspirator. Before the death sentence was carried out, however, California abolished the death penalty and so Manson ended up with a life sentence in prison instead. He remained there until he died in 2017, aged 85.
10. In 2014, Manson announced that he was engaged to a 26-year-old woman called 'Star', who he claimed wanted to marry him so she could display his body in a glass case after he died. It didn't happen.

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