25 April: Guglielmo Marconi

This date in 1874 saw the birth of Radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi. 10 facts you might not know about him:

1. His mother was from Wexford, Ireland, and her grandfather was John Jameson, the founder of Whiskey distillers Jameson & Sons). It was those connections which helped Marconi establish his company in London in 1897.

2. He was educated at home by a series of private tutors hired by his parents.

3. He developed an interest in radio waves at a young age and by the age of 20 was experimenting with them in his attic at home with help from his butler, Mignani. Marconi correctly surmised, even then, that he would eventually be able to connect any two points on earth by wireless, even though the physics establishment of the time dismissed the possibility.

4. He married twice. His first wife was The Hon. Beatrice O'Brien, a daughter of The 14th Baron Inchiquin. They married in 1905 and honeymooned on Brownsea Island. Beatrice served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena. They divorced in 1924 and Marconi married Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali, daughter of Francesco, Count Bezzi-Scali. Before he could marry her, he had to be confirmed in the Catholic faith. For unexplained reasons, Marconi left his entire fortune to his second wife and their only child, and nothing to the children of his first marriage.

5. Marconi built the world’s first international shortwave broadcast station, Vatican Radio, which went on the air in 1931. That year, he introduced the first radio broadcast of a Pope, Pius XI. Marconi said, "With the help of God, who places so many mysterious forces of nature at man's disposal, I have been able to prepare this instrument which will give to the faithful of the entire world the joy of listening to the voice of the Holy Father". A street in the Vatican Gardens is named after Marconi.

6. He won the Nobel prize for physics in 1909, the first inventor-entrepreneur to win one. It was also the first time the prize had been awarded for a practical application rather than theoretical accomplishments. He shared the prize with German physicist Ferdinand Braun. Had it not been for public worries about the safety of flying machines, however, the prize that year would probably have gone to the Wright Brothers.

7. After his invention played a vital role in rescuing survivors of the Titanic, which was fitted with a transmitter and was able to send a distress signal to the Carpathia, Marconi was one of the witnesses called by the US Senate Inquiry into the disaster. He advocated that ships at sea should be obliged to operate their wireless equipment round the clock, which was endorsed by the committee.

8. During World War I, Marconi was placed in charge of the Italian military's radio service. In 1929, he was made a marquess by King Victor Emmanuel III. He was, however, a member of the Fascist party. In 1930, Mussolini appointed him President of the Royal Academy of Italy, which made Marconi a member of the Fascist Grand Council. The story that the Italian dictator was the best man at Marconi’s second wedding is not true, however. Marconi invited Mussolini to his wedding, but Mussolini said he was too busy and only sent a telegram.

9. Marconi lived on a boat for a couple of decades. It was a 220-foot yacht called Elettra (or “spark”), built for an Austrian prince. Marconi bought it from the British government after the First World War. He equipped it with a wireless research lab and a staff of 35, and named his youngest daughter Elettra.

10. Marconi died in Rome on 20 July 1937 at age 63. Over the previous three years he’d suffered eight heart attacks. The ninth killed him. When Marconi died, radio stations all over the world went silent in his honour. The largest wreath at his funeral was sent by Adolph Hitler.

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

13 August: John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird, “Father of Television”, was born on this date in 1888. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was born in Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland. His father was a minister in the Church of Scotland.

2. He was inventive, even as a youngster. He devised a telephone exchange so he could talk to his friends in neighbouring houses.

3. He went to college in Glasgow where, as part of his course, he took several engineering apprenticeships. He never graduated, however, as the first world war interrupted his course.

4. In his twenties he worked on a number of inventions which weren’t as successful as television, including trying to make Diamonds by heating graphite, a glass razor, which didn’t rust, but shattered instead, and pneumatic shoes using balloons, which burst. More successful was his thermal Sock, which he invented because he used to get cold Feet.

5. He wasn’t accepted for military service because of his health, so instead he took a job with the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company, which was engaged in munitions work.

6. After the war, he decided to move to Trinidad. There, he set up a business making jam, to make use of the fruit and sugar in abundance there. However, the venture failed thanks to local insects eating the Sugar and falling into the vats of jam. Once, a giant locust got into the bungalow he shared with a friend. They kept it in a bird cage and fed it on grass, Whiskey and soda.

7. He returned to England in 1923 and rented a workshop in Hastings. Here he began work on building the world’s first working television out of an old hatbox and a pair of scissors, some darning needles, a few bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, and sealing wax and glue. With this contraption he managed to transmit an image of a Maltese cross over a distance of 10 feet.

8. The next step was to move to London and try and get the press interested in his invention. Staff at the Daily Express thought he was a nutter, with one of them exclaiming, "For God's sake, go down to reception and get rid of a lunatic who's down there. He says he's got a machine for seeing by wireless! Watch him—he may have a razor on him."

9. Baird's first public demonstration of television was in 1925, in Selfridge's shop in London. In 1928 he sent television pictures from London to New York by short-wave radio. He also demonstrated television in colour, and developed a video recording system. The pictures transmitted in colour were of an 8 year old girl wearing different coloured hats. Her name was Noele Gordon, who would later become a star on Baird’s invention, in a soap opera called Crossroads.

10. At the age of 43, John Logie Baird married South African pianist Margaret Albu in New York. The couple had two children – Diana and Malcolm.

Character birthday

Ptera Glide, aka Werner Ernst. Born in to a highly religious and rural community in Bavaria, Werner had an unhappy childhood. His genetic variance meant people believed him to be a devil – rejected by the church and ridiculed at school, he ran away and took up residence in a cliffside cave which was inaccessible except by flying, climbing or teleporting. He lived alone for some time until he was discovered by Safety Nett employees on an outward bound course who were abseiling down the cliff.

They knew the cliff was about to be turned into a funicular railway and warned Werner he would have to move. They also knew about the Combat Team Project, which Werner joined.

9 June: George Stephenson

George Stephenson, civil engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives, renowned as being the "Father of Railways", was born on 9 June 1781. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. He was born in Wylam, Northumberland, to Robert and Mabel Stephenson. Robert was a fireman.
2. His parents were both illiterate and couldn't afford to send George to school, so he, too, was illiterate until the age of 18 when, realising the value of an education, used the salary from his first job as an engineman at Water Row Pit in Newburn to pay for night school lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic.
3. He had a series of jobs working for collieries, becoming an expert in the steam powered engines in the coal pits. He supplemented his income by fixing clocks and making Shoes in his spare time.
4. He was married three times. His first wife was Frances Henderson, who he married in 1802. The couple had two children, a son, Robert, and a daughter, Fanny, who died in infancy. Frances died of consumption in 1806. In 1820 he married Betty Hindmarsh, who had been his first love, before Fanny, and had courted her secretly, meeting in an Apple orchard. Betty's father, a farmer, refused to allow Betty to marry him because of his lowly status, but now, he was literate and much better off. They were married until 1845 when Betty died. He didn't have any children with her. Three years later, he married Ellen Gregory, his housekeeper, but died seven months later.
5. His lack of education and also the fact he spoke with a broad Northumberland accent meant he was sometimes treated unfairly and not given credit for his inventions. An example of this was his safety lamp. In 1815, aware of the explosions often caused in mines by naked flames, Stephenson began working on a safer lamp for miners to use. He experimented and came up with the idea of a lamp in which the air entered via tiny holes, which contained the flames of the lamp inside. However, at the same time, the scientist Humphrey Davy was independently working on the same problem and came up with a similar idea. Davy was awarded £2,000, but Stephenson was accused of stealing the idea from Davy, because people didn't believe an uneducated man with a Geordie accent could possibly have thought of such a thing all by himself. In fact, it's even possible that Stephenson's lamp was safer than Davy's - in a strong influx of gas, Davy's lamps became red hot while Stephenson's just went out.
6. Incidents such as this made George determined that his son, Robert, would get a proper education and learn to speak without an accent. When father and son were working together, Robert, thanks to his education, was more popular with politicians.
7. Stephenson's lamps became known as Geordie lamps. There's a theory that the term "Geordies" for people from the North East of England derives from this.
8. George Stephenson invented his first steam locomotive in 1814, for use at a colliery in Killington. It was capable of pulling 30 tons of coal uphill at 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h). It's thought he invented around sixteen locomotives. (It was Robert, not George, however, who was responsible for Stephenson's Rocket.)
9. In due course, he was inventing locomotives for railways. His first railway locomotives weren't completely successful - they caused damage to the tracks. Stephenson wasn't deterred - he began looking at ways to cushion the weight of the locomotive. The solution he came up with was to put more wheels on them to distribute the weight more. He worked with another engineer called William Losh to find ways of strengthening the rails. This, and the fact that he chose the standard rail guage of 4 feet 8½ inches (1,435 mm), now a standard all over the world, earned him the nickname, "Father of the Railways".
10. He didn't just invent trains and tracks, but bridges as well. He designed the "skew bridge" which crosses the railway at an angle. The first skew bridge opened at Rainhill station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. The bridge is still in use today, carrying the A57 (Warrington Road) over the railway.

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two

              

April 9th: Birthday of Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer famous for designing bridges, ships and railways, was born on this date in 1806. 

Here are 10 things you may not know about his life and works:

1. He built the Box Tunnel in Wiltshire, which, it is said, is laid out so that the sun’s rays only penetrate it once a year - on his birthday. No-one knows for sure if this is true, although what is known is that this was the longest railway tunnel in the world at the time it was built.
2. He also broke records with bridges. At the time it was built, his Clifton Suspension Bridge was the longest in the world, and the Maidenhead Railway Bridge over the Thames in Berkshire was the flattest, widest brick arch bridge in the world. Both bridges are still used today.
3. One of Brunel's earliest engineering jobs was working for his father on a project to build a tunnel under the river Thames in London.
4. Brunel designed the present Paddington Station in London.
5. He also designed the original Hungerford Bridge, near Charing Cross Station. That bridge was replaced, but the suspension chains were recycled and used to build the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
6. He designed a pre-fabricated military hospital which could be shipped out to Crimea.
7. His ship, the Great Western, was the longest ship in the world in its time (another record!), but missed out on being the first ship to cross the Atlantic powered by steam alone, due to a fire delaying the launch, allowing the Sirius to steam ahead. The Great Western was, however, the first ship to hold the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing. It was so successful that a sister ship, the Great Eastern, was commissioned. The mast of that ship is now used as a flagpole at Anfield Football Ground in Liverpool.
8. The first ship made of metal, rather than wood, to cross the Atlantic driven by a propeller and an engine was another of Brunel's designs - the SS Great Britain, which is now a museum in dry dock in Bristol.
9. Swindon became one of the fastest growing towns in the 19th century thanks to Brunel's decision to locate the Great Western railway works there, which meant that housing had to be provided for the workers, which in turn led to the building of facilities for them. "The Railway Village" still stands in Swindon although the railway works have closed.
10. A slightly less successful and enduring project was the atmospheric railway, which operated between Exeter and Newton Abbot, moving trains by means of vacuum pumps. The system needed leather flaps on the pipes, which was not very resistant to wet or cold weather. Coating the flaps in tallow helped, but the tallow made the flaps attractive to rats, so they tended to get eaten. The system was abandoned after less than a year.

3rd March: Birth of Alexander Graham Bell

Inventor Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh on this date in 1847. Here are 10 things you might not know about the inventor of the telephone:

1. He was christened Alexander Bell, without a middle name. However, both his brothers had middle names, and he wanted one too. When he was 11, his father agreed to let him adopt the middle name of Graham, after Alexander Graham, a family friend.
2. His mother began losing her hearing when he was 12, which influenced his interest in sound and acoustics, as well as motivating him to become proficient in sign language.
3. Although bright with a fascination for science, he did not do well at school and left at 15. However, he became interested in study later, and financed his education by teaching elocution, music, Latin and Greek.
4. Impressed by an automaton built by Sir Charles Wheatstone, which was able to simulate a human voice, Alexander and his brother Melville set out to build one of their own, which, by means of bellows, could say the word "Mama".
5. After the death of both his brothers from TB, the whole family, including his brother's widow, emigrated to Canada.
6. Later, Bell moved to Boston, Mass. where he worked as a teacher of deaf pupils. One of his students was Helen Keller. Another was Mabel Hubbard, who he later married.
7. Although most famous for the telephone, he was a prolific inventor. Other things invested by him included a device to locate Icebergs, aerial vehicles, a metal jacket to help people breathe and a metal detector. The latter device was cobbled together in order to locate a bullet in US President James Garfield's body, although it wasn't successful as the President was lying on a metal bed, and the bullet was too deeply lodged.
8. He took a working model of a telephone on his honeymoon, so he could work on it while he was away. Though to be fair to him, his honeymoon did last a full year!
9. His last word before he died was in sign language. His wife said, "Don't leave me". He signed "No", and then died.
10. On the day of his funeral, all the telephones in North America were silenced as a mark of respect.