21 June: Shetland Day

Shetland Day is celebrated in the Shetland Isles today. 10 things you might not know about the Shetlands:

1. The Vikings ruled there for 600 years from the 8th century. Hence there's a lot of Norse influence in the local dialect and place names, including the name Shetland itself, which is believed have been derived from the Old Norse words, hjalt ('hilt'), and land ('land'), and the name of its capital, Lerwick, which comes from the Old Norse word ‘Leirvik’, meaning the ‘muddy or clay bay’. There are cultural influences too, which include the annual Up Helly Aa festival in January, where people dress up as Vikings and throw flaming torches onto a boat.
2. Until 1469 the Shetland Islands belonged to Denmark. It was only when Princess Margaret of Denmark married James III of Scotland and included the islands as part of her wedding gift to him that they became Scottish.
3. The population is around 23,000 people. Most of them live on the largest island, called Mainland. There are over 100 islands but only 16 are inhabited. The other inhabited islands are Yell, Unst, Fetlar, Bressay, Whalsay, East and West Burra, Muckle Roe, Papa Stour, Trondra, Vaila, Foula, Fair Isle and the Out Skerries. Some of the smaller inhabited islands are connected by bridges.
4. Fair Isle is known for its knitwear. Fair Isle is a famous traditional knitting technique used to create colourful patterns. The patterns are so complicated that it can take 100 hours to knit a Fair Isle jumper. Fashion house Chanel once tread on some toes by copying the designs and had to apologise to a Fair Isle knitwear designer.
5. The highest point of Shetland is Ronas Hill at 450 m (1,480 ft), located on the Northmavine peninsula of Mainland. It is classed as a Marilyn.
6. It's possible to see the Northern Lights in Shetland since it is as far north as St Petersburg, Russia, or Anchorage, Alaska. The locals call the Aurora Borealis 'mirrie dancers'.
7. The Shetlands are the only place in the UK to feature in Lonely Planet's top 10 places to visit (in 2019).
8. In early Irish literature, Shetland is referred to as Insi Catt — "the Isles of Cats". This isn't because the place was over-run with felines, but because Cat was a name of a clan which used to live there. A name more recently used is Zetland. This is why the postcode for the Shetlands is ZE.
9. Shetland ponies originated during the Bronze Age and are well adapted to life on the islands. They have long, shaggy coats to keep them warm during the cold winters, and can eat seaweed from the beaches. According to official classification of breeds, a Shetland pony cannot be more then 11 hands high. They may be small but they are strong, able to pull twice their own weight. Most horse breeds can only pull half their own weight. While they wander freely around the islands and appear to be wild, the ponies you see there all belong to someone. There are also local breeds of sheep, sheepdog, Cow, goose, and duck. There used to be a Shetland Pig, too, called a grice, but they have been extinct since about 1930.
10. One of the main industries is fishing. There are more fish landed in Shetland than in the rest of the UK, England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

20 June: The Black Hole of Calcutta

On this date in 1756, 146 English people were imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta. 10 things you might not know:

1. The Black Hole of Calcutta was a dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta, India, intended to imprison no more than two or three minor offenders at a time. It was 18 feet (5.5 metres) long and 14 feet (4 metres) wide, and had two small Windows.
2. The fort was built by the British to defend their trading interests in Calcutta. On the fateful day, the army of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, captured to fort.
3. The governor and many of his staff fled to the ships in the harbour, leaving women and children behind, defended by just 170 soldiers, under the command of one John Zephaniah Holwell, who had no military experience. He'd been a military surgeon, but now was basically a tax collector. The weaponry left behind for them to use was either too wet or had been eaten by pests, so Holwell was forced to surrender.
4. Holwell met with Siraj-ud-Daulah, who assured him: “On the word of a soldier; that no harm should come to us”. While it may seem Siraj's word was worth about as much as that of a member of a Tory cabinet today, it appeared he didn't order the British to be thrown in the dungeon and didn't even know it had happened until the next morning. While some Indian guards were bribed to inform him so the prisoners could be moved, Siraj was asleep by then and his minions were too afraid to wake him.
5. The story goes that 146 people were locked in overnight. The heat at that time of year was suffocating anyway, there was little ventilation and the prisoners were left with very little water. Fires which had broken out during the battle were still raging, which wouldn't have helped. The prisoners were packed so tightly that the door was difficult to close.
6. At 6am the next morning when the door was unlocked and it was discovered that all but 23 of the prisoners had died. The dead were hastily buried in a pit.
7. Needless to say, Britain wasn't going to stand for such a thing and six months later Robert Clive marched on Calcutta, set siege to Fort William and took it back.
8. Some doubt has been cast on Holwell's account by historians, who believe it would have been physically impossible to cram that many people into such a small space (they've probably never travelled on the Central Line in the rush hour) and that the number of prisoners was actually no more than 64, and the death toll was 43.
9. An obelisk 15-metres (50') high was later raised to commemorate the victims.
10. Objects in deep space resulting from the gravitational collapse of very heavy stars, so dense that not even light can escape, get the name of Black Hole from the Black Hole of Calcutta after astronomers in the 1960s comparing the objects with the prison.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

19 June: Charles Spurgeon Quotes

Charles Spurgeon, the well-known Baptist preacher was born on this date in 1834. Here are some things he said:

1. Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.
2. It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.
3. By perseverance the snail reached the ark.
4. Of two evils, choose neither.
5. Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.
6. A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
7. Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.
8. Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.
9. None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.
10. Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a halfhearted mood, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

18 June: Quotes about Summer

 Here are ten Quotes about Summer:

1. Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January. Hal Borland
2. Installing summer.... 45% done. Installation failed. 404 error. Season not valid in UK.
3. Summer, as my friend Coleridge waggishly writes, has set in with its usual severity. Charles Lamb
4. Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come. Thomas Carlyle
5. In the midst of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. Albert Camus
6. For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy. Aristotle
7. I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year. Edna St. Vincent Millay
8. The summer moon hung full in the sky. For the time being it was the great fact in the world. Willa Cather
9. Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. Henry James
10. Ho! 'tis the time of salads. Laurence Stern

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

17 June: Laura Name Day

In Hungary, Lithuania and Poland, today is the name day for people called Laura. The name derives from the Latin for the bay laurel plant, which in Ancient Greece and Rome was a symbol of victory, honour or fame. Here are 10 famous Lauras:

Laura Ingalls Wilder

1. Laura Ashley: Welsh fashion designer who made furnishing materials in the 1950s, expanding the business into clothing design and manufacture in the 1960s. Her style is characterised by Romantic English designs and the use of natural fabrics.
2. Laura Bush: former first lady of the United States, married to former president George W. Bush.
3. Saint Laura of Cordoba: Spanish nun who lived in Muslim Spain during the 9th century. She was martyred by Muslims, who put her in a vat of boiling pitch. Her feast day is on 19 October.
4. Laura Dern: American actress and film maker. Her films include Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Jurassic Park.
5. Laura Ingalls Wilder: American writer, known for the Little House on the Prairie series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.
6. Laura Palmer: fictional character in Twin Peaks. She is portrayed by Sheryl Lee. In the original series of Twin Peaks, she is a high school student whose death is the catalyst for the events of the series. She is the protagonist in the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which depicts the final week of her life.
7. Laura Branigan: American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her signature song is the 1982 single Gloria, which reached number 2 U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia and Canada.
8. Laura Chinchilla Miranda: President of Costa Rica from 2010 to 2014. She was the eighth woman president of a Latin American country and the first woman to become President of Costa Rica.
9. Laura San Giacomo: American actress. She played Cynthia in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Kit De Luca in Pretty Woman. She also played Rhetta Rodriguez in Saving Grace and Dr. Grace Confalone on NCIS.
10. Laura Roslin: fictional character in the Battlestar Galactica series, portrayed by Mary McDonnell. She is the President of the Twelve Colonies and one of the primary characters in the show.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

16 June: 167

Today is the 167th day of the year. Here are some things you might not know about the number 167:

1. There are 167 volcanoes in Indonesia.
2. 167 Urda is a main-belt Asteroid discovered by Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters in 1876, in Clinton, New York, and named after Urd, one of the Norns in Norse mythology.
3. Martina Navratilova has 167 tennis titles, an all-time record for men or women.
4. The year 167 was a common year starting on Wednesday, known as the Year of the Consulship of Aurelius and Quadratus.
5. Bonnie and Clyde's stolen Ford Deluxe received 167 bullet holes near Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
6. The ancient aqueduct at Segovia, Spain, has 167 arches.
7. 167 is the atomic number of the theoretical chemical element called Unhexseptium.
8. Admiral Horatio Nelson landed a force of 167 seamen and marines when he assaulted the French garrison of the Turks Islands.
9. At the start of a game of backgammon, the pips on the Dice add up to 167.
10. In numerology the energy of the number 167 is adventurous with a desire to express its own personal freedom, on its own terms. people affected by the number will want to try everything at least once, because they are curious and value personal growth. It is also nurturing, with considerable inner wisdom.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

15 June: Edward the Black Prince

Born on this date in 1330: Edward the Black Prince, eldest son of Edward III, who died before becoming king. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was the eldest son of Edward III and his wife Philippa Hainault. He was born in Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
2. He was appointed as First Duke of Cornwall in 1337 and made Prince of Wales in 1343.
3. He was a year old when his father proposed to marry him to a daughter of Philip VI of France, but the king went back on that and later tried to marry Edward off to Margaret, daughter of John, Duke of Brabant, in order to gain his support. In the end, Edward married the cousin he'd been raised with. Joan, in 1362 when he was 31. She was by then 33 years old and the widowed Countess of Kent and already had three children, one of whom was Edward's godson. Because of that and the fact they were cousins, Edward had to get permission from the Pope to marry her. The close relationship and the fact she'd already been married meant that the marriage wasn't a popular one at court, and it was thought a marriage to a foreign princess would have been a much better political move.
4. Perhaps if he'd married the French princess like his father wanted, it would have saved countless lives, since many of Edward's victorious campaigns were against France—Battle of Crecy when he was just 16 and Poitiers in 1356 when he took the French king prisoner.
5. Edward lived in the domains his father had granted him in France where he entertained the exiled monarchs of Spain and Majorca, James IV of Majorca and Peter of Castile.
6. In 1367, Edward led an expedition to Spain against Peter's brother and Henry of Trastamara and restored Peter to the throne. This made him unpopular the with the nobility in France, though, because they got stung with the taxes to pay for it. They rose in revolt against him and in 1370 Edward besieged the city of Limoges. When it fell, 3,000 of its inhabitants were massacred. A year later, Edward returned to England.
7. While the Black Prince was hailed by many as the epitome of chivalry. When he defeated John the Good, king of France, for example, he treated him well and let him and his son go, but he also used to plunder and burn towns and villages as he went, which isn't a very chivalrous thing to do. Hero or villain? Probably depends which side you were on.
8. He was never known as the Black Prince during his lifetime. He was usually referred to as Edward of Woodstock. Historians are divided as to how, after his death, he came to be known as the Black Prince. Some say it's because he wore black armour, but others say it was because he was ruthless and cruel to the people of France.
9. The Apocalypse Tapestries Louis of Anjou commissioned in 1373 are said to depict Edward III as a demon followed by his five sons, with the Black Prince representing the first horseman of the apocalypse.
10. Although the Black Prince won the campaign in Castille, it nevertheless proved to be the death of him. In true War of the Worlds fashion, he was floored by a disease, dysentery, to be exact, which he contracted while there. His health was never the same again and he died in 1375 when he was only 45. He was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. This left his son Richard as heir to the throne, and he became Richard II on the death of Edward III.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.