7 June: Lime

Today's celebration in the French Revolutionary Calendar was the Lime tree. Here are a few things you might not know about limes:

1. Limes were first cultivated in what is today Southern Iraq. They can only grow where there is no frost in winter.
2. Today the biggest producers are China, India and Mexico, producing 43% of the world's supply between them.
3. Limes do not contain as much Vitamin C as Lemons, but 100 grams still provides 35% of the daily requirement.
4. Lime is an ingredient in several cocktails, including Gin and Tonic, the gimlet, the Rickey and the Margarita.
5. Phytophotodermatitis is a skin condition people can get if their skin is exposed to lime juice or peel and then to ultraviolet light. The skin can darken or blister. Bartenders can be prone to it because they handle the fruit when making those cocktails.
6. The world's first fizzy drink was lime juice, when, in 1767 a Dr. Macbride suggested mixing fresh lime juice with bicarbonate of soda.
7. Lime is always in season - the trees bloom and produce fruit all year round, but they produce more in summer.
8. There are several species of citrus trees whose fruits are called limes, including the Key lime, Persian lime, kaffir lime, and desert lime.
9. Lime is used frequently in cooking, especially in Indian and Persian cuisine. The flavour comes from the zest rather than the juice.
10. The Shipping Act, 1867 requires all registered ships to carry supplies of lime or lemon juice. This act remains in force today. This is because the high vitamin C content meant if the sailors were given a daily allowance of the juice they were much less likely to get scurvy. Because this meant military ships could remain at sea for longer, lime juice was initially a military secret. The use of lime juice by British sailors is the reason they came to be known as "limeys".

6 June: 6/6/16

Today's date, 6/6/16 is almost the number of the beast. (666). Here are some beastly numbers to look out for today:

1. 0.666: Number of the millibeast
2. £665.99 Retail price of the beast (£782.54 retail price of the beast plus 17% VAT)
3. 1010011010 Binary of the beast
4. DCLXVI Roman numeral of the beast
5. 6 - uh - what was that number again? Blonde beast
6. Sick, sick, sick - the humour of the beast
7. 664 and 668 The next door neighbours of the beast
8. Route 666 the way of the beast
9. 666 F Oven temperature for roast beast
10. 333: I'm only half evil.

5th June: Neptune

John Couch Adams, English mathematician and astronomer who used mathematics to predict the orbit of the planet Neptune, was born on this date in 1819. Here are ten facts about his famous discovery.

1. Neptune's mass is 1.0243×1026 kg, 17 times that of Earth. It is the fourth-largest planet in the solar system and the farthest from the sun since Pluto was demoted.
2. It can't be seen with the naked eye from Earth and was therefore the first to be discovered using mathematics and observing its effect on its neighbour, Uranus. In 1821, Alexis Bouvard published astronomical tables of the orbit of Uranus, but he then found substantial deviations from his tables, and hypothesised that something else was out there, exerting its gravitational force on Uranus. In the 1840s, both John Couch Adams and a French astronomer, Urbain Le Verrier worked out the orbit of the new planet mathematically but at first nobody was very interested. Eventually, Adams persuaded Cambridge Observatory director James Challis to look for it with a telescope but he didn't find anything. Meanwhile, Le Verrier wrote to Berlin Observatory astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle persuading him to try. He received the letter on 23 September 1846, and that very evening got his telescope out and found Neptune, pretty much exactly where Le Verrier said it would be.
3. This led to some argument between England and France over who should get the credit for the discovery. At the time, it was decided they should share the credit, but following a review of the documents the "Neptune papers" the verdict was that Le Verrier should get most of the credit.
4. It was Le Verrier who suggested the name Neptune (the Roman god of the sea) for the planet then known as "the planet exterior to Uranus". Other suggestions were Janus (from Galle) and Oceanus (from Challis). For a while, Le Verrier proposed naming the planet after himself, but nobody outside France was keen on this idea. Neptune is so called in most languages, and in the languages which call it by a different name, the sea god theme is maintained. In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, the planet's name was translated as "sea king star"; In Mongolian, Neptune is called Dalain Van after the Mongolian ruler of the sea; In modern Greek the planet is called Poseidon, the Greek counterpart of Neptune. In Māori, it is Tangaroa, the Māori god of the sea; in Nahuatl, it's Tlāloccītlalli, after the rain god Tlāloc. In Hebrew, it's called Rahab, after a sea monster mentioned in the Bible.
5. Neptune has rings, although they are less obvious than Saturn's. The rings look slightly red and so it's thought they are made of ice particles coated with silicates or carbon-based material. Le Verrier may not have managed to get the planet named after him, but one of the rings bears his name. Other rings are named for Galle and Adams.
6. Neptune takes 164.8 years to orbit the Sun.
7. Neptune has 14 moons - that we know about. A new moon was discovered in 2013. It doesn't have a name yet; it's currently referred to as S/2004 N 1, but names are being considered and it will likely be named after a minor sea god like the other moons. The largest, and first to be discovered is Triton. Triton was discovered by William Lassell (who also has a part of the planet's ring system named after him) 17 days after the discovery of Neptune itself. Triton accounts for over 99% of the mass in orbit around the planet and is the only moon of Neptune big enough to be a sphere. The other moons include Nereid, Proteus, Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea and Larissa.
8. The core of Neptune is composed of Iron, nickel and silicates. The upper atmosphere is 80% hydrogen and 19% Helium with a trace amount of methane. Increasing concentrations of methane, ammonia and Water are found in the lower atmosphere.
9. Winds on Neptune travel at almost 600 m/s (2,200 km/h; 1,300 mph), twice the speed of a high speed jet.
10. Its astronomical symbol is ♆, a stylised version of Neptune's trident. It is the ruling planet of Pisces and of Friday, and associated in astrology with sensitivity, idealism and compassion, illusion, confusion, and deception. Neptune governs hospitals, prisons, mental institutions, and any other place, such as a monastery, where people might go to retreat from society. In astrological medicine, it rules the thalamus, the spinal canal, and severe or mysterious illnesses and neuroses. Its appearance in the sky is linked by astrologers with historical events such as the discovery of anaesthetics and hypnotism; the rise of nationalist movements seeking independence in countries throughout Europe; the rise of socialism, the beginnings of the welfare state and the publication of Marx and Engels' 'The Communist Manifesto' in 1848.

4th June: London Paddington

The first station at Paddington was a temporary terminus for the GWR on the west side of Bishop's Bridge Road, opened on 4 June 1838. After the main station opened in 1854, this became the site of the goods depot. 10 facts about London Paddington Station:

1. It has 14 terminal platforms. Platforms 6 and 7 are dedicated to the Heathrow Express; long-distance trains usually use the south-western platforms, and local trains (including Heathrow Connect) the north-eastern ones.
2. About 35 million passengers pass through the station each year, going to and from such destinations as Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Taunton, Plymouth, Truro, Penzance, Cardiff, Swansea, Oxford, Windsor and Eton. And Nailsea and Backwell, famous for being the nearest station to my house.
3. If you don't live in London, South West England or South Wales you will probably still have heard of the station thanks to the author Michael Bond. He wrote a series of books about a bear of the same name. The bear is found at the station, having come from "deepest, darkest Peru" and with a note attached to his coat reading "please look after this bear, thank you". Bond got the idea after buying the last Teddy bear in a station shop on Christmas Eve. There is a statue of the character under the clock on platform 1.
4. Also on platform 1 is a World War I memorial depicting a soldier reading a letter, sculpted by Charles Sargeant Jagger. It was unveiled by Viscount Churchill on Armistice Day 1922. It is a memorial to the employees of the GWR who died during the First World War.
5. The station also features in an Agatha Christie novel, 4.50 From Paddington (1952) which opens with a murder witnessed by a passenger on a train from Paddington.
6. The area around the station has some serious crime connections. The Tyburn Gallows were less than a mile from where the station is now. In the 1700s were criminals were hanged there. “Paddington Fair Day” meant a public hanging and “To dance the Paddington frisk” meant “to be hanged”. Today, Paddington Green Station is where some of London’s most dangerous criminals are brought for questioning.
7. Staying with the gruesome for one more fact: in 1961, the decomposing body of a boy was found in a case at the station; the cause of death was paper stuffed in his mouth; but that's all anyone knows. His identity has never been discovered.
8. The station was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who hoped that people would catch the train from his station in London and then catch one of his ships from Bristol to America.
9. The train sounds in the song Rudy on Supertramp's 1974 album Crime of the Century were recorded at Paddington Station.
10. Time to kill while waiting for a train at Paddington and fancy a posh tipple? Searcys Champagne Bar serves 15 champagnes by the glass and over 105 by the bottle. They also do cocktails and food. They bill themselves as “a great place to start or end your journey”.

June 3rd: Marion Zimmer Bradley

The author Marion Zimmer Bradley was born on this date in 1930, so here are some quotes from her:

1. The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveller than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.
2. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie.
3. To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom.
4. There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever.
5. Of all things we mortals are called upon to do, the most difficult is forgiveness; in order to truly do it, you will probably have to behave as if you already have forgiven for quite a while before you have actually done so.
6. I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself.
7. Avalon will always be there for all men to find if they can seek the way thither, throughout all the ages past the ages. If they cannot find the way to Avalon, it is a sign, perhaps, that they are not ready.
8. And as men believe, so their world goes.
9. A life path may have strange twists and turnings, and we do not always end up where we intend to go.
10. The man who feels fear without cause is a fool; but the man is twice a fool who does not feel fear when there is cause.

2nd June: London Zoo

On this date in 1937, London Zoo opened a children's zoo, the first of its kind. Here are ten things you might not know about London Zoo:

1. London Zoo was founded in 1828 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, best known for founding Singapore, and the scientist Sir Humphrey Davy. It is the world's oldest scientific zoo and as such, may even have been the origin of the word "zoo". For its first 19 years, only scientists were allowed to visit the zoo, but in 1947 it was opened to the paying public to help funding.
2. The first animals to live in the zoo were the Arabian oryx, greater kudus, Orangutan, quagga and thylacine. The latter two animals are now extinct. Today, there are 756 species of animals, with 17,480 individuals.
3. The zoo nearly closed in 1991. It gets no government funding and is to this day dependent on entrance fees and donations. In the late 20th century, visitor numbers fell, because people's attitudes were changing towards the idea of keeping animals in zoos. However, an announcement in 1991 that the zoo would close had its supporters rallying round so it could not only stay open but refurbish and create a better environment for its residents.
4. Until 1902, most tropical animals were kept indoors because people thought they wouldn't survive in Britain's chilly weather. Dr Peter Chalmers Mitchell changed all that when he was appointed secretary of the Society. He set about a major reorganisation of the buildings and enclosures, bringing many animals out into the open, and most of them were fine.
5. The original grounds were designed by Decimus Burton, who is famous for working on the London Colosseum and Marble Arch.
6. There are several listed buildings in the grounds, including the old Penguin pool designed by architect Berthold Lubetkin, the old Casson Elephant house designed by Sir Hugh Casson - which has a roof depicting a herd of elephants drinking from a watering hole. The Giraffe house at the Zoo is the oldest zoo building in the world still used for its original purpose.
7. The traditional Phone box at Penguin Beach is Grade I listed.
8. During World War II, the animals were evacuated from London Zoo and moved to a safer site in Whipsnade Zoo. Only one animal died, a young giraffe which was frightened to death by the bombs.
9. London Zoo was the first wildlife attraction to open a reptile house in 1849; the first to open an aquarium in 1853, the first insect house in 1881, and the first children’s zoo in 1938. It was also the first zoo to lend an animal to another zoo to help with breeding. The animal in question was Caroline, an Arabian Oynx who went to Phoenix Zoo in Arizona for a bit of nookie in 1962.
10. Other famous animals to live here were Jumbo the elephant, whose name became the word for anything huge; Winnie the Canadian bear who was brought to the Zoo by a Canadian regiment on its way to France. Unlike most bears, Winnie was extremely tame and enjoyed being handled. Author Alan Alexander Milne, after visiting the Zoo with his son, Christopher Robin, named the bear in his books after her. Guy the Gorilla was a gentle giant who arrived at the zoo on bonfire night, hence his name. There is a statue of him at the entrance.

1st June: Samoa

Samoa celebrates independence today and for the next two days - they have a three day celebration.

1. Samoa is located south of the equator, in the Polynesian region of the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand.
2. It consists of two main islands - Savai'i and Upolu, and four smaller islands. Upolu is named after the first woman on the island according to local mythology.
3. Savaiʻi is the largest of the islands with an area of 1700 km2. It is the fifth largest island in Polynesia, behind the two main islands of New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands of Hawaii and Maui. It has just one township, Salelologa which has a ferry terminal.
4. Mount Silisili is the highest point at 1,858m. The word silisili means highest height in the Samoan language.
5. Samoa has just one city, the capital, Apia, which grew from a tiny village with a population of 304 in 1800 to a population of 36,735 in 2011.
6. Samoa is among the last places to see a sunset on a given date, and in particular the village of Falealupo on the westernmost point of Savai'i, which is only 20 miles (32 km) from the international dateline. This village was, according to the BBC, 'the last place on earth to enter the new millennium'.
7. The national flag consists of a red field with a blue rectangle in the canton. The blue rectangle bears the Southern Cross Constellation.
8. The author Robert Louis Stevenson owned a 400-acre (160-hectare) estate at Vailima village in Samoa. He died there in 1894 and is buried at the top of Mount Vaea above his former home.
9. Samoa is home to probably the world's smallest species of Spider. It is native to Upolu and is the size of a printed full stop.
10. Apia Harbour was the site of an infamous naval standoff in 1889 when seven ships from Germany, the USA, and Britain had been facing each other off for months, and none wanted to give ground (or sea!) and lose face when a cyclone approached. All of them apart from one British ship, Calliope, were destroyed in the storm.