On a less violent note, today also saw the world's first jukebox unveiled, the debut of Life Magazine, Dr Who being broadcast on TV for the first time, and the invention of the horse-shoe making machine.
If it happens to be your birthday, you share it with Otto the Great, Alfonso the Wise, and John Wallis, who invented the infinity symbol. (If you're not as wise as Alfonso, that's the one which looks like a sideways number eight.) Also Harpo Marx (from the Marx Brothers), and Maxwell Caulfield (from Grease 2, also known as The Worst Movie Sequel Of All Time) and a bunch of musicians, namely Bruce Hornsby, a rapper called Tha Dogg Pound and Ken Block. Ken Block is the lead sister of Sister Hazel, who are a band you might (probably) have never heard of, but probably (might) have heard, because loads of their songs are used in films and TV shows.
I really, really like Sister Hazel. Their music is great, which would be reason enough to like them, but I also heard them interviewed on a podcast once, and they just seemed like such nice blokes. Other great things about them: their hard-core fans are known as "Hazel-nuts"; they named themselves after a nun who runs a homeless shelter; they have a great song about a starfish, as per the video below. What's not to love?
By the way, if you arrived here because you are off to Tall Tales at the Peckham Literary Festival tonight, and followed that link in the program, then hello. You're in for a real treat.
*The tomato-bazooka was home-made, apparently; the man was so irritated by the noise being made by a helicopter flying over his house that he rang Air Services Australia and threatened to shoot it down. "Fruit is hardly a weapon of mass terror", said his solicitor.
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