14 August: Hops

Today is the feast day of St Arnulf of Soissons, patron saint of hop pickers. Have 10 facts about the hop plant.

1. The Latin name for the common hop is Humulus lupulus and it’s part of the Cannabinaceae family – so Beer and weed are distant cousins. The hop plant diverged from Cannabis sativa over 20 million years ago.

2. Strictly speaking, hops are the flowers of this plant (also called seed cones or strobiles). These contain oils, such as lupulin, which is the substance which gives flavour and aroma to beer.

3. The plant itself is a perennial, herbaceous climbing plant which is cultivated in a hopfield, hop garden or hop yard, depending on where in the world you happen to be. In the south of England it’s a field or garden; in the west of England and the USA it’s a yard.

4. The plant is dioecious, with male and female Flowers on separate plants. The fragrant flowers are wind-pollinated. Hops are harvested from mid-August to mid-September.

5. The first written reference to hops dates to 768 CE when King Pepin donated some hops to a monastery in Paris. It wasn’t recorded whether the monks made beer with it, as the first reference to beer making using hops wasn’t until 859 CE, in documents from a monastery in Freising, Germany.

6. Hops weren’t always the go to plant for brewing beer. Medieval brewers also used "gruit", which was made from a variety of different plants including Dandelion, burdock root, Marigold and Heather. Then people began to notice that beer made from hops was less likely to spoil due to the antibacterial properties of the hop plant. Even so, there was a lot of switching between the two methods for tax reasons. The nobility taxed hops, the Catholic church taxed gruit, so brewers would use whichever they had to pay less tax on. For this reason, Protestants preferred hopped beer. Hops were described as a "wicked and pernicious weed" up until the early 16^th century.

7. H. lupulus has been the county flower of Kent since 2002.

8. Pliny the Elder referred to hops as food: both the young shoots and young flowers are edible and can be cooked, rather like Asparagus.

9. It can also be used to make soft drinks and herbal teas. Julmust is a carbonated soft drink made from hops which is popular in Sweden.

10. It has also been used for medicinal purposes. It was used as an antiseptic in the middle ages and it’s a folk remedy for insomnia. Just fill your pillow with it. In more modern times, amarasate, a supplement extracted from the hop plant, has been used to suppress appetite. Hops can also be used in the manufacture of natural deodorant.

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/

13 August: Bert Lahr

Born on this date in 1895 was Bert Lahr, the American actor best known for his role as the Cowardly Lion and the Kansas farmworker Zeke in Wizard of Oz. 10 facts about him.

1. His real name was Irving Lahrheim. His parents were German Jewish immigrants.

2. He left school at 15 to join a juvenile vaudeville act.

3. Lahr was already well-known as a stage and Vaudeville star by the time he was cast as the Cowardly Lion. He’d made his Broadway debut in 1927 in Harry Delmar's Revels, and his first feature film was in Flying High in 1931.

4. He was married twice. His first wife, dancer and comedienne Mercedes Delpino, had mental health problems which resulted in her being permanently hospitalised. Lahr divorced her in the end because she was too ill to function as his wife, and he’d met and fallen for someone else, Mildred Schroeder. The divorce wasn’t straightforward though, and Midlred got tired of waiting and married someone else, although Lahr did win her back in the end, and they married and had three children. This didn’t mean he didn’t still love his first wife, however. When she died, he didn't speak a word for three days.

5. Lahr was a typical archetype of a Clown who performed on stage and made people laugh but was plagued by depression offstage. Lahr's son John would later write that his father was “plagued by morbid worry and moroseness," and that there were no mementoes in their home from his most famous role in Wizard of Oz.

6. He had some interesting hobbies. Aside from a fairly usual fondness for Golf, his other favourite pastimes were Embroidery and Tightrope walking.

7. He also gave serious theatre a go. Having read the script of the play Waiting for Godot and was very impressed by it, but unsure how such a revolutionary play would be received in America. Lahr played Estragon in a production in Florida in 1956, but it bombed. Some of the audience walked out, and critics panned it, although Lahr’s son John would later write that it was the director’s artistic choices that led to the failure of the play.

8. Lahr was a spokesman for Blatz Beer and also appeared in commercials for Lay's Potato Chips, introducing the famous phrase “Betcha can’t eat just one.”

9. When playing the Cowardly Lion, he’d often ad-lib lines on set which often resulted in scenes taking several takes because other members of the cast were laughing so much.

10. Lahr died on December 4, 1967, at the age of 72. He was in the middle of filming The Night They Raided Minsky's, and filming a night scene in December resulted in him catching pneumonia, which was the official cause of death, although he had terminal cancer, which he hadn’t known about when he signed up for the part. His last words were, “Mildred, why aren't my clothes laid out? I've got a seven o'clock call.”

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 August: 224

 Today is the 224^th day of the year. Here are 10 fun facts about 224.

1. There were 224 grains in a shekel according to an ancient Phoenician measure of Silver.

2. In ancient Burma and Thailand, silver was measured in a unit called a tikal, equal to 224 grains. Probably not a coincidence.

3. The year 224 was a leap year starting on a Thursday, known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Iulianus and Crispinus.

4. 224 Oceana is an asteroid discovered by Johann Palisa in 1882, in Vienna. It was named after the Pacific Ocean.

5. The A224 is a road in England which connects Foots Cray and Sevenoaks.

6. Up until August 2025, 224 held the distinction of being what mathematician Alex Bellos called the lowest uninteresting number, as it was "the lowest number not to have its own page on the English-language version of Wikipedia". It now has its own page and 317 has become the lowest uninteresting number.

7. In the Star Wars universe, 224 was an OOM command battle droid which served in the Separatist Droid Army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars.

8. Area code 224 is a telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. state of Illinois.

9. London bus 224 runs from Alperton Sainsbury's to Mitchell Way.

10. In numerology 224 energy resonates with business, organisation and teamwork. A person or company under its influence will build large structures which will have a positive role for society in the future.

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/

11 August: Gymnastics

This date in 1778 was the birthdate of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, a German patriot, who is known as the father of gymnastics. 10 things you didn’t know about gymnastics.

1. The word gymnastics is derived from Ancient Greek, from words meaning “to exercise naked”, which the Ancient Greeks actually did.

2. It was more than just a sport to all these naked Ancient Greeks. To them, it was training for war, including methods for mounting and dismounting their Horses. At that time, athletics, pole vault, shot put, wrestling and boxing were included under the umbrella of gymnastics.

3. The aforementioned Friedrich Ludwig Jahn founded a gymnastics club in a field known as the Hasenheide (Rabbit field) on the outskirts of Berlin. He called it the Turnplatz or outdoor playground, and it was equipped with apparatus such as a pommel horse, balance beams, horizontal bars, climbing ropes, and climbing poles, and a tall tower as a test of courage. In 1816, he and his assistant Ernst Eiselen wrote a book based on the exercises developed at the Turnplatz, called Die Deutsche Turnkunst (The German Gymnastic Art).

4. In due course, in 1860, the first German gymnastic festival (Turnfest) was held in Coburg, which attracted gymnasts from far and wide, and marked the start of international competition.

5. Gymnastics became a modern Olympic sport in 1896, but at that point, it was only for men. Women had to wait until 1928 before they were allowed to complete in Olympic gymnastics. The first female event was combined group exercise; the Netherlands won.

6. Today, men’s events in Olympic gymnastics are floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar. Women’s events are floor exercise, vault, uneven bars and balance beam.

7. Points depend not only on performing a routine perfectly, but points can be scored even before the gymnast walks out into the arena, as a portion of the points are awarded for the difficulty of their proposed routine.

8. Champion gymnasts tend to be short. The average female gymnast is about 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, about 4 inches (10 cm) less than the average American woman. Thanks to the laws of physics, shorter people have advantages, including a better power-to-weight ratio. There have been controversies about Olympic gymnasts having their growth and development stunted so they keep those advantages for longer and/or that participating in the sport stunts a person’s growth. However, it has been observed that the parents of gymnasts also tend to be shorter than average.

9. The first gymnast ever to achieve a perfect score in Olympic competition was Nadia Comaneci of Romania in 1976.

10. The governing body of the sport is World Gymnastics, formerly the International Gymnastics Federation, founded on 23 July 1881 in Liège, Belgium. It is the oldest existing international sports organisation, with headquarters is in Lausanne, Switzerland.

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/

10 August: Lawrence Name Day

If your name is Lawrence, today is your name day.

Lawrence is a masculine given name and also a surname. Laurence is a variant. 10 famous people with this name.

10 famous people whose name day is today.

1. St Lawrence of Rome: Catholic saint and martyr, killed by being roasted on a gridiron.

2. Lawrence Oates: member of ill-fated Scott expedition to the South Pole who said he was going outside and might be some time.

3. Laurence "Laurie" Lee: British poet and novelist, author of Cider with Rosie.

4. Jennifer Lawrence: American actress.

5. T. E. Lawrence: British soldier and author best known as "Lawrence of Arabia".

6. Laurence Olivier: British actor and director

7. Col. John Lawrence, main character in the 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.

8. Josie Lawrence: English actress and comedian.

9. Lawrence Welk: American band leader, accordion player, and television host.

10. Dr. Lawrence Kutner, character from House, M.D., portrayed by Kal Penn.

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/

9 August: Bowling

In 1926, National bowling day falls today. Here are ten facts about the sport of bowling.

1. Bowling dates back to ancient Egypt. Drawings of people playing a game similar to bowling and pins and balls have been found in Egyptian tombs dating back to around 3,200 BCE.

2. In Germany in about 400 AD, bowling was a religious ritual. The pins were called keglers and represented the heathen. You could cleanse yourself from your sins by throwing rocks at them.

3. In England, the first mention of the game was in 1366 when King Edward III banned it. According to him, the plebs should be practising Archery. Henry VIII was a keen bowler, but he banned it too, at least for the lower classes, so it would be an elite sport for nobility only, as well as the same opinion that the plebs should stick to archery practice.

4. Bowling has been played with varying numbers of pins but the most common variation today is ten pins. Nine pins used to be popular in America but was banned everywhere except Texas because of the game’s association with gambling and crime. People got around the ban by adding the extra pin.

5. The largest bowling alley in the world is the Inazawa Grand Bowling Centre in Japan. It has 116 lanes.

6. If all pins are downed on the first roll, it’s called a strike. If you get them all in two, it’s a spare. The highest possible score for a single game is 300, achieved by rolling 12 consecutive strikes. However, even in a perfect game, the ball only hits four pins per roll and those four knock over the rest. A right handed bowler connects with the 1, 3, 5, and 9 pins (sometimes the 8) – and a left handed bowler will hit the 1, 2, 5, and 8 (sometimes the 9).

7. Abraham Lincoln was a keen bowler although contemporary accounts suggest he wasn’t very good at it, he 'played the game with great zest and spirit, solely for exercise and amusement'. Harry S Truman and Richard Nixon were keen enough players to have lanes installed in the White House.

8. The English Bowling Association was founded by cricketer WG Grace. In 2008, it merged with the English Women's Bowling Association to become Bowls England.

9. The game of bowling was seen for the first time on TV in 1950.

10. Bowling is played by 120 million people in more than 90 countries, including 70 million people in the USA alone.

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/

8 August: R

Today is R Day, according to a spoof list of daily celebrations by the Immortal Society. 10 things you never knew about the letter R.

1. The letter r is the eighth most common letter in English and the fourth-most common consonant, after t, n, and s.

2. A small capital R in a circle is the registered trademark symbol.

3. In Morse Code it’s ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ and in the NATO phonetic alphabet it’s Romeo.

4. In mathematics, a lower case r is the symbol representing the radius of a circle.

5. It is believed to have derived from a symbol of a head in ancient alphabets.

6. R is sometimes referred to as the littera canīna 'canine letter', or the dog's letter. This comes from the pronunciation of the letter where it can be trilled to sound like a Dog growling.

7. In the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, John Cleese played a character named R.

8. The three Rs is a phrase coined in the 19^th century in education to denote the most basic things kids learn: reading, writing and arithmetic. It’s based on phonetics rather than spelling, although arithmetic may have been more commonly referred to at the time as “reckoning”.

9. An R rating of the Motion Picture Association film rating system denotes media, such as movies, that are intended for a restricted audience.

10. R was the production code for the 1965 Doctor Who serial The Chase.

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/