27 September: Cats in Politics

On this date in 1995, 10 Downing Street cat Humphrey, who’d been missing and feared dead since July turned up alive and well. Following on from Dogs in politics the other day, here are some facts about Cats in politics.

1. Possibly the most famous cat in politics is Larry the Cat (pictured above), who is the current incumbent of the role previously held by the aforementioned Humphrey: that of Mouser in Chief at Ten Downing Street. Larry is possibly also the most stable figure in UK politics, having outlasted 6 prime ministers since 2011, and counting. Larry is a rescue cat, selected by David Cameron from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home to deal with a reported Rat problem in Downing Street. I refrain from comment.

2. 11 Downing Street, traditional home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has also been on occasion, home to a cat, as is the Foreign Office. The latter’s cat, Palmerston, and Larry famously don’t get on and there have been reports of as many cat fights between them as in the Commons itself.

3. Cats as mousers in UK government date back to Henry VIII’s time when Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had his cat by his side while acting in his judicial capacity as Lord Chancellor. Actual records about them date back to 1929 when A.E. Banham at the Treasury authorised the Office Keeper "to spend 1d a day from petty cash towards the maintenance of an efficient cat". Today, a government mouser costs over £100 a year.

4. Winston Churchill adopted a stray cat called Nelson, which impressed him by taking on a huge dog. Sir Winston is reported to have said: "Nelson is the bravest cat I ever knew. I decided to adopt him and name him after our great Admiral." When he became PM, there was actually a crisis of protocol because there was already a cat in residence at Number 10 which had belonged to his predecessor, nicknamed "The Munich Mouser". The latter was chased away by Nelson, who became not only the chief mouser, but Churchill’s official lap warmer. According to Churchill, Nelson "was doing more than he was for the war effort, since Nelson served as a prime ministerial hot water bottle".

5. The cat with the longest known tenure at Downing Street is Peter III, who served for over 16 years under five different prime ministers: Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold MacMillan and Alec Douglas-Home.

6. Humphrey was John Major's Chief Mouser from 1989 until 1997, when he was removed from Downing Street amid claims that Tony Blair's wife Cherie wanted him out.

7. Like Dogs, cats have been elected mayors. The Somerville Community Path in Massachusetts had Minerva, who beat over 70 other animal candidates to the position in 2025. Stubbs was elected mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska in 1997 and was succeeded in 2017 by Aurora, also a cat. In Xalapa, Mexico: A famous black-and-white feline named Morris ran for mayor. His highly successful campaign slogan translated to, "Tired of voting for rats? Vote for a cat!”

8. Also like dogs, cats are sometimes presidential pets, including President Bill Clinton's cat, Socks, and President Joe Biden's tabby, Willow. As previously mentioned, the current president of Ireland, Catherine Connolly, owns two.

9. Ravi, resident cat at the Pennsylvania State Capitol, Ravi "works" in Representative Jessica Benham's office, complete with tiny furniture, and even attends legislative hearings.

10. In Canada in 1924, cats were brought in to deal with a rat problem in Parliament. However, they had too many kittens so were banished outside. The result was the Parliament Hill cat colony. The cats were cared for by volunteers funded by donations, although by 2013, all the cats had been adopted and the colony closed.

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

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

23 September: Dogs in Politics

Today is Dogs in Politics Day. 10 facts about canines in politics!

1. Today is Dogs in Politics Day because it’s the anniversary of a speech given by Richard Nixon on this date in 1952. Accused of hiding a secret slush fund during his candidacy for vice president, Nixon gave a speech denying that the fund existed but did admit that he’d received at least one gift, a cocker spaniel called Checkers. He went on to say that he was not going to give the dog back because he was not going to take his children’s dog away from them.

2. Franklin D Roosevelt also once made a speech about his dog. While running for a fourth term in 1944, rumours began circulating that the dog, Fala, a Scottish Terrier, had accidentally been left behind on a visit to the Aleutian Islands, and Roosevelt had sent ships to the islands, at the taxpayer’s expense, to retrieve his pet. Roosevelt said, "You can criticise me, my wife and my family, but you can't criticise my little dog. He's Scottish and all these allegations about spending all this money have just made his little soul furious."Roosevelt won the election.

3. A vast majority of US Presidents have been dog owners. Only three owned no pets at all: James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, and, surprise surprise, Donald Trump. Though it is said that Andrew Johnson used to feed the Mice that lived in his bedroom.

4. Joe and Jill Biden had two German Shepherds, Champ and Major. Major was the first rescue dog to live in the White House.

5. The Obamas had no pets before Barack was elected President, but he famously promised his daughters they’d get a dog when they moved to the White House. That dog was Bo, a Portuguese Water Dog, chosen because Malia had allergies and this breed is hypoallergenic.

6. US presidents aren’t the only presidents to have dogs. Former Irish president Michael D. Higgins was known for his Bernese Mountain Dogs which often appeared on interviews. (The Irish president at time of writing is Catherine Connolly, who doesn’t own a dog, but she isn’t petless – she has two cats.) French President Emmanuel Macron has Nemo, a black Labrador Retriever-Griffon mix adopted from a rescue shelter. Finland's President Sauli Niinistö' has Lennu, a Boston terrier. Trump aside, liking dogs isn’t always a sign that a person isn’t an asshole: Putin has several dogs. Even Hitler rescued a stray dog during the first world war and during the second, had a dog called Blondi who was even allowed to sleep in his bed. Although he did order the dog to be used to test cyanide capsules which killed it. He was also liable to beat his dogs for disobedience.

7. Many UK Prime Ministers also had dogs, including: David Lloyd George, a Welsh terrier; Rishi Sunak, a red Labrador named Nova; Boris Johnson adopted a Jack Russell-cross named Dilyn; Winston Churchill a miniature poodle named Rufus; Tony Blair, a golden retriever named Lucy.

8. Every time there’s a general election in the UK, #dogsatpollingstations is guaranteed to trend on social media. Dogs, aside from assistance dogs, aren’t allowed in polling stations, so #dogsatpollingstations is basically a hashtag of pictures of dogs waiting outside the polling station while their owners go in to vote.

9. There are a number of towns in America where dogs have been elected as mayor, including: Bodhi, A 120lb Giant Alaskan Malamute who was elected mayor of Mendocino, California in 2026, albeit a stunt to rase funds for a local dog park; Max III, a Golden Retriever, is the mayor of Idyllwild, California. A succession of pooches have held the position since 2012 and are known for wearing many different neckties; Bosco Ramos, a black Labrador who served as honorary mayor of Sunol, California from 1981 to 1994; Wilbur, a French Bulldog elected as the official mayor of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky.

10. If a dog can be a mayor, does it then follow that a dog could run for president? While it may not specifically say in a constitution that they couldn’t, there is often one requirement that rules them out – and that is the age requirement. No dog, to my knowledge, has ever reached the age of 35.

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

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

29 March: John Tyler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5 February: Sir Robert Peel

Sir Robert Peel, Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born on this date in 1788. 10 facts about him:

1. Robert Peel was born in Bury, Lancashire. His father was a wealthy cotton mill owner. Peel was educated at Harrow and Oxford. He graduated with a double first in 1808.

2. His ambitious father was keen for him to do well in the political arena and bought him his Commons seat. It’s said that he told him, “Bob, you dog, if you do not become Prime Minister someday I’ll disinherit you”.

3. He served as MP for several constituencies including including that of Oxford University; but his first election win was for Cashel, Tipperary, just a year after he graduated, in 1809. His maiden speech in the Commons went down extremely well, famously described by the Speaker of the House of Commons as “the best first speech since that of William Pitt”.

4. He married Julia Floyd in 1820. She was the daughter of General Sir John Floyd, 1st Baronet, and his first wife Rebecca Darke. They had seven children.

5. He became Home Secretary in 1822 and it was in this post that he made extensive reforms to the prison and legal system, including creating the Metropolitan Police. This is why police officers are sometimes known as “bobbies” or “peelers.”

6. He was invited to become prime minister by King William IV after Earl Grey resigned in 1834. Peel turned the job down at first, but changed his mind and accepted when the king asked him again in 1835. Confident the voters were behind him, he called an election, but didn’t win the large majority he’d hoped for.

7. He was known to change his mind on a few things during his career. He opposed Catholic emancipation for 20 years, but was then persuaded it might not be such a bad idea if civil unrest was the alternative; so he pushed the Catholic Emancipation Bill through Parliament. During Earl Grey’s administration, he argued against parliamentary reform to no avail: the Reform Act was passed in 1832. When running for election in Tamworth, however, he came out in support of it.

8. As PM, he brought in the Mines Act of 1842, which forbade the employment of women and children in mines; the Factory Act 1844, which improved conditions for women and children working in factories. He also repealed the Corn Laws in 1846, which banned the import of cheap foreign grain. This was unpopular with rich landowners, of course, but there were humanitarian reasons to piss them off. The potato famine was raging in Ireland at the time, and there was not enough grain to send to Ireland to feed people. The public supported the move but the wealthy people didn’t (surprise surprise, things haven’t changed much) and the debate lasted 5 months. Although Peel won the vote on the Corn Laws, there were other votes the same day which he lost, and so he decided to resign for good.

9. Peel was the first British prime minister to be photographed while in office. He is featured on the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

10. Peel was thrown from his horse while riding on Constitution Hill in London on 29 June 1850. The horse stumbled on top of him, and he died three days later at the age of 62 due to complications from a broken collarbone.

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

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

7 January: Millard Fillmore

This date in 1800 was the birth date of the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore. 10 facts about him:

1. He was born in a log cabin in the Finger Lakes region of New York. He was the second of eight children. He was given the name Millard because it was his mother’s maiden name. The family weren’t well off and he was persuaded, at 14, to leave school, not enlist in the army and to start work as apprentice to a clothmaker.

2. In due course, his parents realised he could do much better and managed to get him a job working for their landlord, Judge Walter Wood, as a law clerk. Fillmore worked as a teacher so that he could buy out his apprenticeship. His job as a law clerk only lasted 18 months, because he fell out with his boss after he’d advised a farmer in a law suit without Wood’s help. Wood tried to persuade him not to act unaided again, but Fillmore refused and quit. He went back to teaching and taking on small law cases which didn’t require him to be fully qualified.

3. He moved to Buffalo the following year and continued his study of law. In 1823 he was admitted to the bar. One of his teachers was a lady called Abigail Powers, who was just two years older than he was. They bonded over a mutual love of learning, fell in love and married in 1826.

4. He declined offers from the law firms in Buffalo, preferring to move to a small town and work independently as the only lawyer in town. He also claimed he didn’t feel confident enough to practice in a larger place.

5. Six years later, Fillmore was elected to the New York State Assembly and then to Congress where he served for ten years. He was comptroller of New York from 1848 until he was nominated as the vice presidential candidate under Zachary Taylor. He became president when Taylor died in office in 1850 and never gave an inaugural address.

6. Fillmore and his wife established the first White House library, and Abigail had the first "running-water Bathtub" installed.

7. He was the last president to be a member of the Whig Party and also the last not to be either a republican or a Democrat. At the end of his term, he ran for a second term, though not as a Whig as the party had fallen apart by then. Instead he ran for the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Party, having refused to join the republicans, and lost to James Buchanan.

8. Fillmore was the first president to return to private life without independent wealth or possession of a landed estate. He intended to go on a grand tour of the south with Abigail and then return to practising law. The plans were scuppered, however, when Abigail died of pneumonia. A year later his daughter died of cholera. Eventually he re-married, a rich widow called Caroline McIntosh, which meant he no longer needed to work and the couple could concentrate on entertaining and supporting philanthropic causes like the Buffalo General Hospital, which he helped found.

9. Historians don’t rank him very highly. He has been described as weak and inept, trying to please everyone and not handling the slavery issue very well. Fillmore's name has become a byword in popular culture for easily forgotten and inconsequential presidents.

10. Millard Fillmore is one of two presidents who has double letters in his first and last names, the other is William H Harrison.

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: James Ramsay MacDonald.

Born this date in 1866 was former UK prime minister, James Ramsay MacDonald. 10 facts about him:

1. He was the first Labour prime minister, and the first to appoint a woman as a minister. Her name was Margaret Bondfield and she was appointed in 1929.

2. He was born in Lossiemouth, Scotland. He was the illegitimate son of John MacDonald, a farm labourer, and Anne Ramsay, a housemaid. The couple did intend to marry, but the wedding never happened. It’s not known whether they fell out or if Anne’s mother put a stop to it because she didn’t think John was a suitable match for her daughter.

3. He left school in 1881, at the age of 15, and began work on a nearby farm, although less than a year later he’d taken a job as a teacher at his old school.

4. In 1885, he moved to Bristol to take up a position as an assistant to Mordaunt Crofton, a clergyman who was attempting to establish a Boys' and Young Men's Guild at St Stephen's Church.

5. In 1886–87, MacDonald studied botany, agriculture, mathematics, and physics at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution (now Birkbeck, University of London), but a week before his exams, he suddenly became ill and a career in science was now out of the question.

6. In 1888, MacDonald took employment as private secretary to Thomas Lough, a Tea merchant and a Radical politician. Lough was elected as the Liberal Member of Parliament for West Islington. MacDonald worked for him until 1892, when he left to work as a freelance journalist.

7. Ramsay MacDonald married Margaret Gladstone in 1896. They had six children, but she died of blood poisoning in 1911. His daughter Ishbel cared for him and took on the duties of a PM’s wife during his tenure.

8. He became unpopular for opposing Britain’s involvement in the first world war. Not only did it lead to him losing his seat in 1918 (he later returned representing a different constituency), but he also got thrown out of his Golf club in 1916. His pacifist views allegedly brought the club into disrepute.

9. In 1924 he was asked by George V to form a government when Stanley Baldwin’s small Conservative majority proved ungovernable. He had a very small majority and was defeated in the next election. In 1929, MacDonald returned to power, but his government was faced with a worldwide economic recession. The cabinet split over spending cuts and after the next election, MacDonald again was heading a minority government dependent on support from the Conservatives. MacDonald soldiered on as prime minister until 1935. While he may not have been popular among his fellow MPs, King George V is said to have regarded MacDonald as his favourite prime minister.

10. Aged 71, MacDonald was advised to take a sea cruise to restore his health. He set off on the liner MV Reina del Pacifico with his youngest daughter, but died of heart failure during the trip.

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

25 July: Arthur James Balfour

Born on this date in 1848 was Arthur James Balfour, British Prime Minister from 1902-5. 10 facts about him:

1. He was born in Whittingehame, East Lothian, the eldest son of James Maitland Balfour and Lady Blanche Gascoyne-Cecil.

2. He went to Grange Preparatory School at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, Eton College and the University of Cambridge, where he read moral sciences at Trinity College.

3. In 1874 he was elected the Conservative Member of Parliament for Hertford. Four years later he became private secretary to Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury, then Foreign Secretary in Benjamin Disraeli The Earl of Beaconsfield’s government.

4. The prime minister he succeeded was his uncle, Lord Salisbury.

5. At the time, a lot of MPs didn’t take him very seriously. They thought he was only playing at politics as it was the thing to do for young people from his kind of background. When Lord Salisbury gave him the job as Secretary for Ireland, they no doubt thought it was favouritism and that he’d not be up to the job. Turned out he did fairly well, restoring the rule of law and calming the Irish conflict for a generation.

6. He never married, and his household was maintained by his also unmarried sister, Alice. One possible reason that he remained single is that the love of his life died of typhoid before he could propose to her. Balfour met May Lyttelton in 1870 when she was 19 and when she died, arranged for an emerald ring to be buried with her. May’s sister believed that they were about to announce an engagement, had May lived. On the other hand, May’s letters never mentioned any romance with Balfour, although she did talk about her other suitors. He visited her only once during her serious three-month illness, and was  accepting social invitations within a month of her death. Did he genuinely find it hard to express his feelings, or did he, as at least one historian has suggested, use May’s death as a convenient reason for never marrying when he was actually gay or asexual?

7. He was a fan of sports. He played Golf and Tennis and supported Manchester City F.C.

8. He was also very interested in dialects and donated money to Joseph Wright for his work on The English Dialect Dictionary. Wright wrote in the preface that the project would have been "in vain" without Balfour’s donation.

9. Balfour was interested in philosophy and belief systems. He wrote papers on philosophy: ‘A Defence of Philosophic Doubt’, ‘The Foundations of Belief’ and ‘Theism and Humanism’. He was also a member of the Society for Psychical Research, a society studying psychic and paranormal phenomena and served as its president for a time.

10. After the First World War, Balfour submitted a design to the Imperial War Graves Commission for a cruciform headstone for war graves. His design was rejected. He was offered the chance to submit another, but declined to do so, having been rejected once.

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

12 June: George Herbert Walker Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush, 41^st president of the United States was born on this date in 1924.

1. Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts. His father was Prescott Bush, a U.S. Senator from Connecticut and a prominent businessman.

2. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover where, he was senior class president, student council secretary and captain of both the varsity Baseball and Soccer teams.

3. Bush left school at 18 and rather than go to college, he joined the US Navy on his 18^th birthday and was the youngest pilot in the Navy in 1943. His service during WWII included 58 combat missions and he was shot down while on active duty in the Pacific in 1944. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross medal.

4. He left the Navy in 1945 and then went to university. He graduated from Yale in 1948 with a degree in economics.

5. While at Yale he was a member of the Yale cheerleading squad as his father had also been, and as his son, George W., would also be in due course. He was a captain of Yale’s baseball team during his senior year and in that capacity took part in a ceremony in which Babe Ruth presented him with a copy of his autobiography. Bush would later remember the event as a rather sombre one, as Ruth had looked so frail, and was to die just a few months later.

6. After graduating from Yale, Bush entered the oil business. He started his own firm in 1951 and did well in the business for 15 years.

7. He met Barbara Pierce at a Christmas dance in Greenwich in December 1941 when he was 21 and she was 16. They married in 1945 and stayed married until Barbara died, 73 years later. This makes them the longest married couple in presidential history.

8. In 1989, George H.W. Bush became the first sitting vice president to win a presidential election since Martin van Buren  in 1836.

9. In 2000, his eldest son, George W, was elected US president. This was the second time in history that a father and son had both been president, John Adams and John Quincy Adams being the first father and son to achieve it.

10. George H. W. Bush died at the age of 94 on Nov. 30, 2018. After his death, it was revealed that he’d secretly financed the education and food expenses of a schoolboy from the Philippines under the assumed name "George Walker" through the charity Compassion International.

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 April: Thomas Jefferson

Born on this date in 1743 was Thomas Jefferson, third US President. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was one of five people tasked with drafting the Declaration of Independence, and is thought to have been its primary author. He was selected for this job by John Adams, the other signer of the declaration who would one day be president. It was Jefferson who first penned the words, “all men are created equal”.

2. He spoke 6 languages: English, French, Greek, Italian, Latin and Spanish. He preferred writing to speaking and during his life, wrote more than 19,000 letters. He loved to read, as well, and at one point owned one of the largest private collections of books in the US. Until, that is, the British burned the Capitol Building, including the Library of Congress, during the War of 1812. Jefferson sold his personal library to Congress as a replacement, about 6,500 books, at a fraction of its actual value.

3. He studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He would later teach himself architecture. He designed a house for himself, Monticello, and also the Virginia State Capital and The Rotunda at the University of Virginia. Monticello and The Rotunda are both World Heritage Sites.

4. In 1772, he married his third cousin, Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow. After she died he’s believed to have started a relationship with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves.

5. He was the son of a planter and slave owner, and inherited his father’s land and about 30 slaves. Over his lifetime he would own about 600 slaves, more than any other US president.

6. He was president at the time of the Louisiana purchase and appointed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to lead an expedition known as the Corps of Discovery to explore the newly acquired territory. The Louisiana Purchase more than doubled the size of the United States, and since it was fertile land, massively reduced America’s dependence on other nations for food.

7. He collected fossils, and while he was president, someone sent him the gift of the bones of a mastodon. Another of his interests was Wine – he planted vineyards and is regarded as an early American wine expert.

8. He was also an inventor. His inventions included a revolving book-stand, a clock powered by the gravitational pull on cannonballs, the moldboard plow, (which he never patented and gave to posterity) and the swivel chair, which he created and used to write much of the Declaration of Independence.

9. He and his old friend John Adams died on the same day, which happened to be the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Legend holds that Adams’ last words were “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Unbeknownst to Adams, Jefferson had died a few hours earlier.

10. Jefferson’s tombstone lists the three achievements in his life that he was the most proud of, as his epitaph. Being president was not one of them. They are: his authorship of the Declaration of Independence; the Statute of Virginia that guaranteed religious freedom; and founding the University of Virginia in 1819.

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

29 March: Edward Stanley Earl Derby

This date in 1799 saw the birth of Edward Stanley Earl Derby, English statesman and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 10 facts about him:

1. He is the longest-serving leader of the Conservative Party to date, serving from 1846 to 1868.

2. He is one of only four British prime ministers to have three or more separate periods in office. However, his ministries were short, less than two years and only totalled three years and 280 days. He is the only modern-era prime minister who never enjoyed a parliamentary majority.

3. He was born at Knowsley Park, Lancashire, the eldest son of Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, and his wife (and first cousin) Charlotte Margaret Hornby.

4. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. He left university without a degree, which was common at the time. It didn’t mean he lacked intellectual talent, though. He won the Chancellor's Prize for Latin poetry in 1819 with a poem on Syracuse.

5. The Stanley family rose to prominence in the 15th century and entered the peerage during the reign of Henry VII after Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, fought at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The family was a big noise in Horse racing: Earl Derby’s grandfather, the 12^th earl, was the one after whom the Derby horse race was named, and earlier, the 7^th earl, had instituted horse-racing on the Langness Peninsula on the Isle of Man.

6. He was first elected to Parliament in 1822, in the rotten borough of Stockbridge as a Whig, the traditional party of his family. Years later, Stanley would criticise rotten boroughs, arguing that no matter how talented their representatives, they lacked true legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

7. Stanley married The Hon. Emma Bootle-Wilbraham, the second daughter of Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Baron Skelmersdale, on 31 May 1825.

8. He resigned from the Whig Party over a difference of opinion with Lord Melbourne over reformation of the church in Ireland, and joined the Tory party.

9. His first stint as prime minister came in 1852 following the collapse of Lord John Russell's Whig Government. A lot of experienced politicians had left the party at the time, and so Stanley found himself having to appoint a lot of new people to the various posts. Only three of his cabinet had ever served in that capacity before. When their names were announced in the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington, who was very old and rather deaf by this time, would shout out "Who? Who?" which led to Stanley’s first government being known as the "Who? Who?" ministry.

10. So what was his premiership known for? The India Bill in 1858, which transferred control of the East India Company to the Crown; the Jews Relief Act 1858: ending the disablement for Jews to sit in Parliament; Derby also introduced the state education system in Ireland, and reformed Parliament.

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