7 May: Robert Browning

The poet Robert Browning was born on this date in 1812. Here are some things you may not know about him.

1. He was born in Camberwell, south London, the son of a Bank of England clerk and the daughter of a German shipowner. He had one sister, Sarianna.
2. Young Robert hated school and left to be home educated by a tutor. His father had a library of six thousand books, which he was able to use as well. By the age of fourteen he was fluent in French, Greek, Italian and Latin. He went to university in London to study Greek, but it seems university wasn't to his taste either, and he dropped out after a year. He didn't want to get a job, either - his parents nagged him to get a job, but he stayed at home writing poetry full time until he was 34.
3. He had written his first volume of poetry by the age of twelve. He couldn't find a publisher for it, though, and destroyed it.
4. In 1833, he published his first poem, Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession. His aunt stumped up the money to publish it. It is a long poem composed in homage to Shelley, who Browning was a big fan of, and written in his style.
5. He started writing letters to another poet who was six years older and more successful than he was at the time. Her name was Elizabeth Barrett. The correspondence blossomed into romance, but there was a problem - Elizabeth's father didn't want any of his children to get married. She had to leave her family to marry Browning, and her father disowned her. The couple moved to Italy where they lived until she died in 1861. Browning never remarried, although some historians think he was romantically involved with Louisa Caroline Stewart-Mackenzie, Lady Ashburton, and that she proposed to him, but he turned her down.
6. Despite an intense dislike of public speaking, he is among the first people to have their recorded voice played after their death. At a gathering at a friend's house, he recorded himself on a phonograph reciting How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. He died eight months later and the recording was played on the first anniversary of his death. You can listen to the recording on Wikipedia's Robert Browning page.
7. His parents were evangelicals, which meant he couldn't go to Oxford or Cambridge universities - only open to members of the Church of England at the time. Being a great admirer of Shelley, Browning himself became an atheist, although it's possible he became religious again after his marriage, thanks to the influence of his wife. Evidence that he regained his faith comes from some of his poems although some believe the views expressed in those poems were not necessarily those of the author.
8. Elizabeth was a great believer in spiritualism and the paranormal - whether or not Robert found his Christian faith again or not, he drew the line at believing in spiritualism. It was one thing the couple disagreed about. He was persuaded, however, to attend a seance run by a popular Scottish medium, Daniel Dunglas Home. Home was a complete scammer, though, and did nothing to change Browning's mind. Home set up an illusion using his foot, which, he claimed, was the son the Brownings had lost in infancy. Only they had never lost a son. Browning grabbed the medium's foot and exposed the scam for everyone present to see. Even so, the medium continued with his career, and Elizabeth continued to believe in spiritualism - one fraud didn't discredit the experiences she had previously had with the supernatural.
9. A Browning Society was formed to study his work while he was still alive. Browning had mixed feelings about it - the society hadn't asked his position or involved him in any way - but he had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that they helped promote his work.
10. One of Browning's poems, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, was inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear, which had in turn been inspired by an old fairy tale. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came was a major influence on Stephen King, who based his Dark Tower series on it. The protagonist in King's books is also called Roland, and the characters Cuthbert and Giles also feature in the poem.

See Also 
Quotes by Robert Browning

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6th May: Postage stamps

The world’s first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, came into service on May 6, 1840. 10 things you might not know about postage stamps.

1. So how were letters paid for before that? In the UK, the recipient of a letter had to pay for it. This was a problem because people often couldn't or wouldn't pay the postman. People could send as much as they liked regardless of whether the postal service were likely to get their Money. In 1680 William Dockwra, an English merchant in London established the London Penny Post, a system whereby letters and small parcels could be delivered in London for a penny, paid for by the sender. A hand stamp was used to show the item had been paid for which is presumably where the term "postage stamp" comes from. In 1835 Sir Rowland Hill, who was interested in reforming the postal system, came up with the idea that proof of payment for postage could be "...by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash...".
2. It's generally known that the first adhesive postage stamp was the Penny Black, but less well known is the two pence Blue which came into existence two days after it. The Penny black was sufficient for a letter less than half an ounce to be sent anywhere within the UK - heavier letters required a two pence blue. The highest face value stamp issued in Britain was the £5 Orange in 1882 - this was for registered letters rather than parcels as parcel post wasn't introduced until later.
3. At first, it was necessary to separate stamps using scissors. It was 14 years before anyone hit on the idea of perforations. Like stamps themselves, perforations for stamps were a UK invention.
4. It was Sierra Leone which hit on the idea of self adhesive stamps, rather than the type you have to lick. This was because the humid climate there made stamps stick to each other rather than to envelopes. Self-adhesive stamps were introduced there in 1964.
5. Some people say that sticking a stamp on a letter upside down can get you arrested for treason, because the Queen's head is upside down. This is an urban myth. The Treason Felony Act 1848 makes it an offence to do anything with the intention of deposing the monarch, which sticking a stamp the wrong way up is highly unlikely to achieve. The act makes no mention of postage stamps at all.
6. The term for the hobby of stamp collecting is philately. Or is it? Strictly speaking the term philately refers to someone who studies stamps rather than merely collects them. The word philately comes from Greek - philos meaning love, and ateleia meaning that which is tax-free, referring to the fact that deliveries no longer had to be paid for. Stamp collecting is so popular that it has become a major source of income for some small nations who produce way more stamps than they need for their postal service, some very elaborate, so they can sell them to stamp collectors around the world.
7. The UK is the only country which does not display its name on its postage stamps.
8. Some records pertaining to stamps: The world's biggest stamp is hexagonal and measures 1.17 x 1.34m. It was unveiled "in honour of the 'Mother of the Nation'" - Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak - by the Emirates Post Group in March 2012. The most expensive stamp is a British Guiana one-cent magenta stamp was sold at auction in New York in 2014 for a record £5.6 million after its previous owner died in prison having been convicted of murdering an Olympic wrestling champion. George Vawas, of Ionnina, Greece has the world's biggest stamp collection. In 2013 he had 7,215 first day covers from 119 different countries.
9. In 1841, a woman decided she wanted to make decorative paper for her dressing table out of Penny Blacks. People were more than happy to send her their used stamps for free so she could do it. You can imagine how much her decorative paper is worth now!
10. Stamps don't have to be square and made out of Paper. Some unusual stamps have been: a 2013 Belgian stamp which smelled and tasted of Chocolate; a circular stamp with a picture of the globe (USA); stamps made from lace and wood (Switzerland); plastic stamps (USA); a stamp shaped like a Banana (Tonga - Tonga also produced one in the shape of a ship to commemorate Captain Cook's first arrival on the islands); glow in the dark stamps (Malaysia); and finally, in 1973, Bhutan issued a stamp that could play their National Anthem if put on a record player.

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5 May: Kentucky Derby

Kentucky Derby Day is the first Saturday in May. Here are some facts about America's big race:

1. It was inspired by the Epsom Derby in England. In 1872, Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr. went to England to attend the race and decided to set up a similar event at home. He started a racing club called the Louisville Jockey Club and raised enough money to build a permanent racetrack in Louisville. Since 1883, the track has been known as Churchill Downs.
2. It's the oldest sporting event in the USA. The first Kentucky Derby was held in 1875. On that occasion, fifteen Horses competed. The winner was Aristides, a three-year-old chestnut colt, watched by 10,000 people.
3. Nowadays, about 80,000 people show up, which is enough people to make Churchill Downs the third biggest city in Kentucky for the day.
4. The field for the race is limited to 20 horses. The smallest field was in 1892, when only three horses ran. In order to take part, a horse must have taken part in a given set of races over the previous year and be less than three years old. There is also a hefty entrance fee. $25,000 to enter to race to be chosen, and another $25,000 for the final 20. Seems like a lot, but the winner gets around $1.5 million, which they can easily double with stud fees later on.
5. The Kentucky Derby has never been postponed because of bad weather.
6. The race is one and a quarter miles long. Until 1896, it was one and a half miles, like its Epsom counterpart. It takes about two minutes to run the race, hence it is sometimes referred to as "The Greatest Two Minutes in Sports".
7. It's also known as "The Run for the Roses", a name coined by a journalist called Bill Corum in 1925. This name derives from the huge garland of red roses draped over the winner. The garland contains more than 400 roses, with a crown in the centre. The crown has a single rose pointing up, which symbolises the heart and struggle the winner will have gone through to get there. The number of roses in the crown is determined by how many horses compete in the Derby. Giving the winner roses dates back to 1896, when winner Ben Brush was given a garland made of white and pink roses. The red rose is the race’s official flower.
8. The race also has an official drink, the Mint julep. About 120,000 mint juleps are consumed during the two day period of the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby. There's an unofficial dish as well. Burgoo, a thick stew of beef, chicken, pork, and vegetables, is a popular Kentucky dish which is served at the Derby.
9. The fastest time for the race is 1:59.40. This time was achieved by Secretariat in 1973.
10. Only three fillies have won the Derby: Regret (1915), Genuine Risk (1980) and Winning Colors (1988). Fourteen female trainers have competed, with Shelley Riley coming second with Casual Lies in 1992. Six female jockeys have taken part. Diane Crump was the first, in 1970. To date, the best performance was Rosie Napravnik on Mylute who came fifth in 2013.

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4 May: Escalators

On this date in 1935, the world's longest escalator (at that time) opened at Leicester Square Underground station in London. Here are some things you might not know about moving staircases:

1. At least, it was the world's longest at 54m (177 ft) when it was built, but it isn't any more. The world's longest escalator now is at the Moscow Metro station at Park Pobedy which is 413 feet long. It isn't even the longest on the London Underground system any more. Since 1992, that title has belonged to the 200 feet (61m) system at Angel Station.
2. The world's longest outdoor escalator system is the Central-Mid-Levels escalator in Hong Kong, which spans 2,600 feet. It changes direction according to the direction of rush hour traffic. The shortest escalator in the world is in the Okadaya Mores shopping mall in Kawasaki, Japan. Its vertical rise is 32.8 inches (83 cm) and it has just five steps.
3. The first people to use the principle on which escalators are based were the builders of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Blocks of stone were moved by rolling them up specially built ramps next to the pyramid, on a series of tree trunks.
4. It wasn't until the nineteenth century, though, that escalators as we know them began to appear. Nathan Ames, from Saugus, Massachusetts, is credited with patenting the first "escalator" in 1859, intended for elderly and disabled people to use in their own homes, but he never got as far as building it. The first person to build one, was Jesse Reno, also from Massachusetts, who built a steam powered escalator in 1895.
5. The first escalator in the UK was installed in Harrods in 1898, a 224 piece leather belt which moved upwards but didn't have steps as such. Victorian shoppers apparently found travelling on it pretty frightening - so much so that employees were stationed at the top to give out free Cognac and smelling salts to traumatised users. There's a famous story that when the first escalators were installed on the London Underground, they paid a man with a wooden leg, known as Bumper Harris, to ride the escalator all day long to show people that it was perfectly safe. There is some doubt whether this is actually true, but there is, nevertheless a model of Bumper Harris at the London Transport Museum’s Acton Depot.
6. There is written evidence, though, of the mishaps which occurred during the first week of operation. Nine dresses were torn, a finger pinched, and a lame passenger fell from his crutches. Which brings us to health and safety. Between 1994 and 1998 there were 7,000 escalator related injuries reported in the US, and 27 escalator related deaths. About three quarters of injuries on escalators are caused by falls; most of the rest are due to clothing, footwear or even body parts getting stuck in the mechanism. Probably the worst escalator related disaster was the 1987 fire at King's Cross Station in London, which killed 31 people and injured 100. The fire was caused by a build up of fluff, lubricants and wood veneers which ignited, smoldered for a while and then exploded into the ticket hall. Lessons were learned - wooden escalators were replaced with metal ones, and smoking was banned on the below ground sections of the Underground.
7. The risks aside, escalators have numerous advantages over lifts, or elevators. They can move more people over the same time; people don't have to wait for it to arrive (although there can be queues at busy times); they can be installed anywhere where a flight of stairs could go; and if they stop working, they can still be used as a normal staircase.
8. In many places there is an unwritten rule of etiquette regarding on which side of the escalator people stand, in order to let people who are in a hurry walk up unimpeded on the other. In Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, riders are expected to stand on the right and walk on the left. In Australia and New Zealand, the opposite is the case. In Japan, it depends which city you're in. in Osaka, riders stand on the right, whereas in Tokyo they stand on the left. However, standing on one side and walking on the other can cause uneven wear on escalator mechanisms, so in some places people are told to stand wherever they want, to even things up, or are told not to walk at all.
9. The word "escalator" was originally a trademark coined by Charles Seeberger for the Otis Elevator Company. He took the word from Latin, using 'Scala'; as a prefix, 'E' and as a suffix, 'Tor,' which translated as "means of traversing from." This meant other companies making moving staircases had to think of different names, such as Motor Stairs, Moving Stairs and Electric Stairway.
10. Escalators typically rise at an angle of around 30 degrees from the ground, and move at 0.3–0.6 metres (1–2 ft) per second.

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3 May: Dodie Smith

Dodie Smith, author of 101 Dalmatians and I Capture the Castle was born on this date in 1896. Here are some of the things she said.

1. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
2. Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.
3. I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring.
4. Time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.
5. I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life.
6. Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realising that their dogs owned them.
7. Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.
8. It is rather exciting to write by moonlight.
9. I'm convinced England's overflowing with eccentric people, places, happenings. Indeed, you might say eccentricity's normal in England.
10. I have noticed that rooms which are extra clean feel extra cold.

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May 2: Catherine the Great

Born on this date in 1729 was Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia from 1762 until 1796, the country's longest-ruling female leader.

1. That said, she wasn't Russian and her name at birth wasn't Catherine. She was Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, in Prussia. Her birthplace is in present day Poland. She took the name Catherine, or Ekaterina when she converted to Orthodox Christianity just before her marriage.
2. Even though she was the eldest child, Catherine's mother, Johanna, took little interest in her, so she was closer to her governess than to her mother. It was only as she grew up and her bloodlines made her a desirable bride that the ambitious Johanna began to see her as useful. At 15, Princess Sophie was invited to Russia by Czarina Elizabeth, a daughter of Peter the Great who had assumed the Russian throne in a coup just three years earlier. Elizabeth was looking for a wife for her heir, her nephew Peter. Elizabeth decided that Sophie would do nicely.
3. Peter, however, wasn't impressed. He was 17 when the wedding took place, and more interested in his toy soldiers than in his wife. He spent his wedding night drinking and things didn't get much better. It was nine years before Catherine produced an heir - historians speculate that Peter was either impotent or infertile. He didn't treat his wife well - he insulted her at every opportunity and took mistresses. Most of the time, they didn't even live together. Peter was in one palace hosting all night drinking parties while Catherine was in another, spending her time riding her Horse and reading. She refused to ride side-saddle, and wrote “The more violent the exercise, the more I enjoyed it.”
4. In due course, the lonely and miserable Catherine began to take lovers herself. One of them was Sergei Saltykov, a Russian military officer. When Catherine finally gave birth to a son in 1754, he was officially acknowledged as Peter's son, but there were rumours that Sergei Saltykov was actually his father. None of Catherine's other three children were fathered by Peter.
5. When Peter succeeded to the throne, he immediately set about making reforms to help the poor and ending the war with Prussia. The military classes and the gentry didn't like it. Unrest grew, with Peter's opponents turning to Catherine for help. Just six months after taking the throne, Catherine and her supporters forced him to abdicate, leaving her as the sole ruler. Soon after, Peter was murdered by Alexei Orlov, the brother of Catherine’s lover at the time. There is no proof she played any part in it.
6. Catherine was an intelligent and well-educated woman. As a child she'd studied religion and history and learned three languages: German, French and Russian. She collected art, corresponded with great scholars of the time, such as Voltaire, and wrote numerous books, pamphlets and educational materials aimed at improving Russia’s education system. She even tried writing operas. Although she was frequently the most intelligent person in the room, she would play it down for political reasons, telling people she knew "less than a child about art". She didn't travel much, though. Probably afraid someone would usurp her throne if she went anywhere, she never left Russia after arriving there as a teenager.
7. Catherine was just five feet tall, and described by some as friendly and approachable with "a great desire to please". Yet at the same time, she could be quite intimidating. One court spy described her as "romantic, ardent and passionate. She has a bright glassy hypnotic look like that of a wild animal...She is thoughtful and friendly and yet, when she approached me I automatically back away. She frightens me." She worked tirelessly and planned her daily timetable meticulously.
8. Her lovers were generally more than mere amusement. She'd have genuine feelings for them, and when circumstances forced them to part, she would be lavish with favours. She would shower them with titles, land, palaces and servants. She even helped one of them, Stanislaw Poniatowski, become king of Poland, although she was dismayed that when he did become king, he worked at strengthening Poland's independence rather than being a puppet to Russia. She ended up forcing him to abdicate.
9. Although she claimed to be enlightened and opposed to serfdom, political expediency proved more important in practice. She knew the nobility she depended upon to support her wouldn't tolerate emancipation of serfs. In the end, their conditions actually got worse during her reign.
10. Needless to say, she wasn't popular with everyone and rumours spread to discredit her. There is no historic proof that she kept her hairdresser in a cage so no-one would find out she wore a wig, that she advocated having sex six times a day as a cure for insomnia, or that she died on the Toilet or while having sex with her horse. She died in bed, the day after suffering a stroke, at the age of 67.

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1st May: Batman Day

There seems to be some disagreement on the web about when Batman Day is celebrated with September 23 and 26 also being suggested by some sources, but this date ties in with Batman's first appearance in a comic in May 1939.

1. Which actor do you think of if somebody mentions Batman? Children of the 60s will no doubt think of Adam West, and younger people may think of Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale or Ben Affleck. Before Adam West, there were Lewis Wilson and Robert Lowery. Not to forget David Mazouz, who plays a teenage Bruce Wayne in Gotham. However, the person who has played Batman most often never actually wore a cape or mask - his name is Kevin Conroy, who has been the voice of Batman in various animated TV series, films and video games. Another famous person who was heard on an animated version was Mark Hamill, aka Luke Skywalker. He wasn't Batman, though. He was the voice of the Joker.
2. Chances are you haven't seen the first Batman film ever made. It was called Batman Dracula and was made by Andy Warhol in 1964. It was a black and white, silent art film and was only ever screened at Andy Warhol exhibits.
3. The character of Batman was created by Bob Kane, who named him after Robert the Bruce, the Scottish King and Mad Anthony Wayne, a hero of the American Revolution. He was influenced by a pulp radio character called the Shadow, the 1920s film Mask of Zorro, and Leonardo da Vinci, whose Ornothopter flying vehicle formed the basis of Batman's wings. The name of the city he lives in, Gotham, came from an entry in the phone book for a company called "Gotham Jewellers."
4. Bob Kane's original idea of Batman looked very different to the Dark Knight we know today. He was originally conceived as wearing a red leotard with black pants and an eye mask. He was also going to be blond. However, designer Bill Finger revised the concept and the rest is history.
5. Forbes produces a "Fictional Rich List," ranking fictional characters according to their fortunes. Bruce Wayne has been on this list for 75 years. According to Forbes, Bruce Wayne is worth $9.2 billion. That makes him richer than The Simpsons‘ Mr Burns and Christian Grey (50 Shades) but not as rich as Tony Stark (Iron Man). Which is just as well, since it has been estimated it would cost over $300 million to become Batman.
6. If you've ever wondered what Batman's favourite food is, wonder no more. Apparently, according to his butler, Alfred, it's mulligatawny soup, or French onion soup. His favourite drink, or at least the one he consumes most of, is ginger ale. He rarely drinks alcohol, except very occasionally at functions so people won't suspect he's Batman.
7. In some comic storylines, he's actually portrayed as suffering from Chiroptophobia. In other words, rather than being obsessed with Bats, he's actually terrified of them. Perhaps because he fell down a well full of them as a child; and seeing bat-like characters on stage at an opera, his parents had to take him out of the theatre - and that was when they were killed. It has been suggested Bruce is actually suffering from PSTD after witnessing their death. Another reference to their death in the everyday life of Batman is the passcode to get into the Bat Cave. It's turning the hands of the clock to 10.47, the time of their death.
8. Across the various comic universes, Batman has a brother and a whole bunch of children. Bruce Wayne's parents never told him about his elder brother, Thomas Jr., who suffered brain damage in a car crash. The injuries made him mentally unstable and had to be put in a mental institution. As you'd expect, he escaped from there and became a villain, but later gave his life to save his brother. Batman has about seven children scattered around various timelines but perhaps the most notable is Damian Wayne, the son he had with Talia al Ghul, the daughter of a demon. Damian is the latest incarnation of Robin.
9. More about Batman films - Christian Bale refused to play Batman if Robin appeared anywhere in the Trilogy. While Val Kilmer may not have been the most popular Batman for comic fans, Bob Kane said in an interview that Kilmer was the best Batman up to that point. Kane died in 1998, so who knows if he would have changed his mind if he'd lived to see some of the others. The Lamborghini driven by Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is a Murciélago. Murciélago is Spanish for “bat.”
10. Regular readers of this blog may recall that Melbourne in Australia was originally going to be named Batmania after one of its founders, whose name was John Batman. The city's founding document is “Batman’s Treaty”, and there is a Batman’s Hill, Batman Bridge, Batman railway station and Batman Park. There is also a historical unit of mass in the Ottoman Empire known as the batman. It was equivalent to about 16lbs and was divided into two units called the ‘great batman’ and the ‘lesser batman’. There are also three towns in Turkey called Batman and another in Iran. The mayor of one of the Turkish Batmans tried to sue Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan for using the name without permission when The Dark Knight grossed over $1 billion worldwide. Finally, you can even do a college course in Batman. This course is offered at the University of Victoria in Canada, and it will teach you “The extreme range of adaptability of the human body explored through the life of the Caped Crusader.”

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