ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 11 March		-		First publication of The Daily Courant, England's first daily national newspaper, 1702. Philosopher John Toland died, 1722. Mathematician Joseph Louis François Bertrand born, 1822. Start of the Great Blizzard of 1888 along the United States eastern seaboard, 1888. Actress Dorothy Gish born, 1898. Film director F.W. Murnau died, 1931. American politician Jesse Jackson, Jr born, 1965. Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1985. Retired wrestler Dino Bravo shot, 1993. Johnny Appleseed Day in the United States.
Saturday 12 March		-		Landscape architect André Le Nôtre born, 1613. Writer Tirso de Molina died, 1648. Composer Thomas Arne born, 1710. Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time, in Vicksburg, MS, 1894. Engineer George Westinghouse died, 1914. Mahatma Gandhi led the 200-mile Dandi March to the sea to protest the British salt monopoly in India, 1930. Actress Julia Campbell born, 1962. The Church of England ordained its first female priests, 1994. Violinist Yehudi Menuhin died, 1999. National Day in Mauritius. World Day Against Cyber Censorship.
Sunday 13 March		-		Actor Richard Burbage died, 1619. Celebrity obese Daniel Lambert born, 1770. William Herschel discovered Uranus, 1781. Artist Alexej von Jawlensky born, 1864. Start of the Siege of Khartoum, 1884. Attorney Clarence Darrow died, 1938. Actor William H. Macy born, 1950. The Dunblane Massacre, 1996. Robert C. Baker, inventor of the chicken nugget, died, 2006.
Monday 14 March		-		Royal Navy admiral John Byng executed, 1757. The patent for the cotton gin was granted to Eli Whitney, 1794. Composer Johann Strauss, Sr born, 1804. Astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli born, 1835. Political theorist Karl Marx died, 1883. Premiere performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, in London, 1885. "Liquidation" of the Kraków Ghetto, 1943. Actress/musician Kate Maberly born, 1982. Author Cherry Wilder died, 2002. Pi Day.
Tuesday 15 March		-		Julius Caesar assassinated, 44 BC. Christopher Columbus returned to Spain following his first voyage to the Americas, 1493. Author/publisher Charles Knight born, 1791. The first Test cricket match began, between England and Australia, 1877. Musician Lightnin' Hopkins born, 1912. Physicist and Nobel laureate Arthur Compton died, 1962. Black Eyed Pea Will.i.am born, 1975. Registration of the first Internet domain name, 1985. Paediatrician Dr Bejamin Spock died, 1998. The Ides of March. World Consumer Rights Day.
Wednesday 16 March		-		The Clifford's Tower pogrom, 1190. John Leverett, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, died, 1679. Artist John Butler Yeats born, 1839. The Wanderers F.C. won the inaugural F.A. Cup soccer competition, 1872. Silent film actor Harrison Ford born, 1884. Artist Aubrey Beardsley died, 1898. Actress Sienna Guillory born, 1975. The supertanker Amoco Cadiz split in two on the Portsall Rocks off France, resulting in the fifth largest oil spill in history, 1978. Actor John Hewer, famous for playing Captain Birdseye, died, 2008.
Thursday 17 March		-		Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius died, 180. British forces evacuated Boston during the American Revolution, 1776. Poet Jean Ingelow born, 1820. Stephen Perry was granted the patent for the rubber band, 1845. Children's author and book illustrator Kate Greenaway born, 1846. Antarctic explorer Lawrence Oates went for a walk, 1912. Singer Justin Hawkins born, 1975. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook resigned over government plans for the invasion of Iraq, 2003. Computer scientist John Backus died, 2007. Saint Patrick's Day in Ireland and many other places; get your green on.

THE WISDOM OF...

This week, Douglas Adams:

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.

FILM QUIZ

A mixed bag of quotations. Answers next issue or from the regular address.

• Remember the first rule of politics. The ballots don't make the results, the counters make the results. The counters. Keep counting.
• - How can you be a reciever of the wedgies, when you are clearly not a wearer of the underpants?
  - Let's just say some things are better left unsaid.
• - Well, I founded an internet company that let folks download and share music for free.
  - Kind of like Napster?
  - Exactly like Napster.
  - What do you mean?
  - I founded Napster.
• I love kids! Anything at all *can* and *does* happen... Same with wives, for that matter...
• Rescue the crew, salvage what's left of the ship. The crew is dead, doctor. Your ship killed them.

Last issue's quotations were:

• You want to be a good archaeologist ... you've got to get out of the library!
  -- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [2008]
• Tonight, on the Clamp Cable Classic Movie Channel, don't miss Casablanca, now in full color with a happier ending.
  -- Gremlins 2: The New Batch [1990]
• Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?
  -- Alice in Wonderland [2010]
• I knew it. I knew it was coming. But this is not the future my mother warned me about. And in this future, I don't know if we can win this war.
  -- Terminator Salvation [2009]
• We have always had a gentle understanding with the creatures that live in the woods.
  -- The Village [2004]

WEIRD WORLD NEWS

Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...

YELLOW ER, UM... In football (soccer, for USians), the referee penalises offending behaviour with either yellow (warning) or red (sending off) cards. Last week referee Peter Walton, in charge of a Premier League match between Birmingham and Everton got into a bit of bother after Birmingham's Jordon Mutch foul Everton player Louis Saha. Walton stopped the game, called Mutch over, and reached into his pocket for a yellow card... only to find that he had forgotten his cards. He mimed raising the warning card, much to fans' amusement. As it turned out, that was the highlight of the game, which ended in a 1-1 draw.

SQUEAK ME TENDER, SQUEAK ME TRUE... Mice are natural-born singers, according to scientists. When a male mouse meets a potential mate he performs a complicated series of squeaks and whistles, mostly too high-pitched for humans to hear. It's been known for about five years that mice perform repeated phrases in their 'songs', as do whales and birds, but new research has found that these 'songs' are innate rather than learned.

WITH A SMILE ON YOUR FACE... Scienists at the Medical College of Georgia believe the venom from the Brazilian wandering spider could lead to new treatments for impotence, for those for whom Viagra does not work. The scientists urge caution, however, as without further research the venom produces a variety of symptoms in humans - apart from priapism, it can cause loss of muscle control, breathing difficulty, severe pain and... death.

MAKING A SPLASH. The cold winter has caused a lot of potholes on Britain's roads, which councils are reportedly struggling to repair, but Chris Nedic and his two 20-something sons were driving home along the A464 in a new UK£26,000 (US$41,700) 4x4 when the car nosedived into a water-filled four-foot-deep hole, that had been caused by two burst water pipes. The boys were treated for minor injuries sustained in the accident while their father was slightly injured when he fell into the hole trying to save the vehicle. An ambulance spokesman commented that they were lucky the 4x4 was so big, as a smaller car would have been submerged.

SWING BATTER BATTER BATTER SWING! It's not unknown for baseball batters to hit the ball out of the field and into the stands, but at a spring-training game between the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays in Florida earlier this month Braves second baseman Dan Uggla was at bat when he swung too hard and his bat flew off into the stands. Remarkably, Brooklyn resident Mitch Davie caught it. Even more remarkably he caught it with one hand. Yet more remarkably still, he didn't spill a drop of beer from the can in his other hand...

ENTERTAINMENT BRIEFS

Chemical Brothers to headline Creamfields in August. Warner Bros to stream movies via Facebook, just in US to start with (30 FB credits - US$3 - gets a 48-hour 'rental' period). Rango tops US box office. Pinewood Shepperton studios to invest in low-budget British films. Stephen Sondheim to receive Special Olivier Award. Tyler Petty, Halle Berry, Denzel Washington pick up NAACP Image Awards. Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, the most expensive painting in the world (US$106.5m, UK£65.5m last year) going on show in London. Rod Stewart, Bon Jovi to headline Hard Rock Calling in June. Bruce Davidson to receive outstanding contribution award at Sony World Photography awards. Chris Evans, Downton Abbey pick up Television and Radio Industries Club awards. Kara Tointon to make West End debut in Pygmalion. Phil Collins retires. Julie Taymor steps down as director of troubled Spider-Man stage musical. Guillermo de Toro to direct Antarctic horror Pacific Rim; confirms that Universal have passed on H.P. Lovecraft adaptation At the Mountains of Madness. Gwyneth Paltrow signs debut record deal for 'country pop' album. Jeffrey Donovan to play Robert F. Kennedy in J. Edgar. Julianne Moore to play Sarah Palin in HBO adaptation of 2008 Presidential campaign account Game Change. Keira Knightley to voice Tinker Bell in SyFy Peter Pan prequel Neverland. Kevin Spacey to star in US adaptation of UK political drama House of Cards. Two and Half Men finally dumps Charlie Sheen for numerous breaches of contract; his lawyers threaten to sue. Sylvester Stallone to star in but not direct The Expendables sequel. Obits: comedian Mike DeStefano (44), bass player Mike Starr (44), singer Johnny Preston (71), film director Charles Jarrott (83).

WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

Don't believe the WWN story above about the baseball bat? AP photographer David Goldman was there and captured the moment. Here's a Seattle Times article about the photo.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/picturethis/2014421839_pt_batcatch.html

THE AMAZING NOT-QUITE-RANDOM LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

Dumbledore Bear, our in-house psychic predicts that the following numbers will be lucky:

17, 25, 35, 37, 44, 47

AND FINALLY...

   Little Jennifer's Uncle Bill was coming to dinner, and her mother, busy in the kitchen, asked Little Jennifer to help by setting the table.

   After Bill had arrived, everyone sat down at table, but Bill looked puzzled.

   Little Jennifer's mother looked at his place and said, "Little Jennifer, you've set the table perfectly for us, but where are Uncle Bill's knife and fork?"

   Looking at her father with a confused expression on her face, Little Jennifer replied, "I didn't think he'd need them. Last night Daddy said Uncle Bill eats like a horse!"