4th April

Francis Drake became Sir Francis Drake today in 1581 when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth at Deptford on the deck of his ship, the Pelican, renamed the Golden Hind. He had left Plymouth on 13 December 1577 with 5 ships and a total crew of 160, as well as various sponsors.
He was now able to state conclusively that the world was indeed round as Magellan had already proved and Columbus believed. Presumably, if Drake had been knighted on 1 April, he would have told the queen the earth was flat.

In other news ...
Ben Hur won 11 Oscars today in 1960 and rightly so. I was still of very tender years when I saw this one and I loved every minute. There was rugged, gritty Charlton Heston, every boy's hero; gorgeous Haya Harareet as the love interest; Stephen Boyd as a thoroughly nasty Messala and of course that superb chariot race which still has me on the edge of my seat. it was probably the last film that coyly didn't show the face of Christ - just his lovely red hair from the back. For film trivia buffs and quiz compilers out there, the actor who played him was Claude Heater and wasn't even in the credits. Sheik Ilderim was played by Welshman Hugh Griffith and the wise man Balthazar by a Scotsman, Findlay Currie, but they were both excellent. Add in the Irish Stephen Boyd and it should come as no surprise to learn that Pontius Pilate (boo! hiss!) was played by an Australian, the onomatopoeic Frank Thring.

The only other film to do as well in Oscar terms was Titanic. Oh per-lease!

31st January

On this day in 1835 a national sport was started called Shooting the President. It is now carried out on a regular basis, providing endless work for conspiracy theorists, secret service agents, journalists, Lee Harvey Oswald lookalikes and JFK deniers.

The first round of the game featured 'Old Hickory' Andrew Jackson (you may remember Charlton Heston played him in The Buccaneer) as the target of house-painter Richard Lawrence as the assassin. Lawrence may have been a few bullets short of a murder attempt for two reasons. Firstly, his gun jammed and secondly he claimed to be the rightful king of England, which came as something of a surprise to William IV, who actually was. What Lawrence didn't know was that Jackson already carried two lead slugs in his body from duels fought over gambling debts.

Why don't they make Presidents like that any more - although having said that it would be pointless, since Charlton Heston is no longer around to play them on film!

In other news ...

Most accounts will tell you that 'mild mannered murderer' HH Crippen poisoned his wife, Belle elmore and partially dismembered her body before stashing it in the cellar of their house at 63, Hilldrop Crescent on this day in 1910. Who said so? Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard. On what evidence? On the say-so of the pathologist Bernard Spilsbury, who already had a God-like reputation before this case made his name.

Unfortunately, the remains in the cellar were those of a man. Oops - nice one Dr Spilsbury. That doesn't mean of course that Crippen didn't kill Belle Elmore and it might mean that he also killed the anonymous bloke in the cellar. What it does mean, however, is that there is no hard evidence that Crippen killed anybody. A posthumous pardon is long overdue and when is Belle Elmore going to come forward?