Month: April 2026

Today is the birthday, in 1943, of Janet Evanovich, one of the most remarkably successful novelists in modern America. She began her career writing short contemporary romance novels under the pen name Steffie Hall, but gained fame authoring a series of contemporary mysteries featuring Stephanie Plum, a former lingerie buyer from Trenton, New Jersey, who becomes a bounty hunter to make ends meet after losing her job.

The novels in this series have been on The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller lists. Evanovich has had her last seventeen Plums debut at #1 on the NY Times Best Sellers list and eleven of them have hit #1 on USA Today Best-Selling Books list. She has over two hundred million books in print worldwide, and her books have been translated into over 40 languages.

She was born in New Jersey and attended Rutgers University. When Evanovich had children, she chose to become a housewife like her mother. In her thirties, she began writing novels. To learn the art of writing dialog, Evanovich took lessons in improv acting. She wrote two romances and submitted them for publishing. Still unable to find a publisher, Evanovich stopped writing and signed with a temporary employment agency. Several months after beginning work for them, she received an offer to buy her second romance manuscript for $2,000, which she considered an “astounding sum”. After finishing her twelfth romance, however, Evanovich realized that she was more interested in writing the action sequences in her novels than the sex scenes. Her editors were not interested in her change of heart, so Evanovich took the next eighteen months to formulate a plan for what she actually wanted to write.

She wanted to include humor, romance and adventure in her work and this fit into her style of mystery novel. Unlike the style of romance novels, her books would be told in first person narrative. Her new type of writing should contain heroes and heroines, as well as “a sense of family and community”. Evanovich decided that her heroine would be a bounty hunter. This occupation provided more freedom for Evanovich as a writer, as bounty hunters do not have a set work schedule and are not forced to wear a uniform. The profession is also “romanticized to some extent”. To become acquainted with the demands of the career, Evanovich spent a great deal of time shadowing bond enforcement agents. She also researched more about the city of Trenton, where she wanted her books to be set.

In 1994, her initial romantic adventure, One for the Money, was published to good reviews. This was the first of a light-hearted series of mysteries starring barely competent bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. One for the Money was named a New York Times notable book, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1994 and a USA Today Best Bet.

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“An Empire Built on Waste” by artist Emanuele (Jane) Morelli

Bada BING!

Young Her: Serious question for the millennials … my older cousin said she used to ‘burn’ CDs for her crush. Like … with fire? Was that a ritual? Old Jake: The old magic will not be discussed with the children of new.

I’M PRACTISING MINDFULNESS, COMPASSION, AND LOVING KINDNESS SO DON’T PISS ME OFF.

I’ve reached the point in my life where ‘dying young’ isn’t on my list of worries.

If we can just get through this month, we only have one more month to go before we need to get through another month.

I’m a digital creator. You can download my finger paintings.

Republicans… “I like to think we aren’t so much anti-science as we are pro-myth.”

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Today is the birthday, in 1950, of American blues rock musician Forrest McDonald. He has written hundreds of songs and played on many records including working with Bob Seger. McDonald played the guitar solo on the hit “Old Time Rock and Roll” which was featured in the 1983 film Risky Business, starring Tom Cruise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8elAi-7G0OE

Today is the birthday, in 1926, of Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her lifetime and was the monarch of 15 realms at her death. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch, the second-longest of any sovereign state, and the longest of any queen regnant in history.

Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, during the reign of her paternal grandfather, King George V. She was the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother). Her father acceded to the throne in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother Edward VIII, making the ten-year-old Princess Elizabeth the heir presumptive.

As queen, Elizabeth was advised by more than 170 prime ministers across her realms. Her many historic visits and meetings included state visits to China in 1986, to Russia in 1994, and to the Republic of Ireland in 2011; she met five popes and fourteen US presidents.

Princess Elizabeth of York — the future Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom — when she was seven years old.

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Today is the birthday, in 1944, of English author, composer for musical theatre, and songwriter Tony Macaulay. He has won the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors Award twice as ‘Songwriter of the Year’ (1970 and 1977) and is a nine-time Ivor Novello Award-winning songwriter. Macaulay’s best-known songs include ‘Baby Now That I’ve Found You’ and ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ with The Foundations, ‘(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All,’ (The 5th Dimension) as well as ‘Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)’ (Edison Lighthouse) and ‘Don’t Give Up on Us’ (David Soul). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSofzQURQDk

On this day in 1828, René Caillié became the first European to enter Timbuktu and return alive. Caillié had been preceded at Timbuktu by a British officer, Major Gordon Laing, who was murdered in September 1826 on leaving the city.

Caillié was born in western France in a village near the port of Rochefort. His parents were poor and died while he was still young. At the age of 16 he left home and signed up as a member of the crew on a French naval vessel sailing to Saint-Louis on the coast of modern Senegal in western Africa. He made a second visit to West Africa two years later when he accompanied a British expedition across the Ferlo Desert to Bakel on the Senegal River.

Caillié returned to Saint-Louis in 1824 with a strong desire to become an explorer and visit Timbuktu. The Paris-based Société de Géographie was offering a 9,000-franc reward to the first European to see and return alive from Timbuktu, believing it to be a rich and wondrous city. He spent eight months with the Brakna Moors living north of the Senegal River, learning Arabic and being taught, as a convert, the laws and customs of Islam. went to Sierra Leone where the British authorities made him superintendent of an indigo plantation. Having saved £80 he joined a Mandingo caravan going inland. He was dressed as a Muslim, and gave out that he was an Arab from Egypt who had been carried off by the French to Senegal and was desirous of regaining his own country.

In 1550 Leo Africanus described the inhabitants of Timbuktu as being very rich with a king that possessed large quantities of gold. The perception of Timbuktu as a very wealthy city had been fuelled by various accounts published in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Caillié recorded his first impression of the town: “I had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of Timbuktu. The city presented, at first view, nothing but a mass of ill looking houses, built of earth.”

After spending a fortnight in Timbuktu, Caillié left the city on 4 May 1828 accompanying a caravan of 600 camels heading north across the Sahara Desert. After six days the caravan reached Araouane, a village 243 km (151 mi) north of Timbuktu that acted as an entrepôt in the trans-Sahara trade. When the caravan left Araouane on 19 May it included 1,400 camels and 400 men. It was transporting slaves, gold, ivory, gum, ostrich feathers, clothing and cloth. Caillie reached Fez on 12 August. From Tangier he returned by frigate to Toulon in France.

Postcard by Edmond Fortier showing the house where Caillié stayed in Timbuktu as it appeared in 1905–06

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Today is the birthday, in 1940, of American singer Ronald Mundy. He was a member of The Marcels who scored the 1961 US and UK No.1 with a doo-wop cover of the ballad ‘Blue Moon’ that began with the bass singer singing, “bomp-baba-bomp-ba-bomp-ba-bomp-bomp… vedanga-dang-dang-vadinga-dong-ding…”. The record sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. He died of pneumonia on 20 January 2017 age 76. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoi3TH59ZEs

On this day in 1907, the immigration center at Ellis Island processed 11,747 people, more than any other day.

Ellis Island was once the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, about 12 million immigrants arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey were processed there; according to one estimate, two-fifths of Americans may be descended from these immigrants.

At the time, immigrants did not need a passport, visa, or any other document to enter the country. Transportation companies were in charge of all checks; if the entry was denied, the company was fined $100 per each deported passenger, and covered the costs of their deportation. Initial immigration policy provided for the admission of most immigrants to the United States, other than those with mental or physical disabilities, or a moral, racial, religious, or economic reason for exclusion. At first, the majority of immigrants arriving were Northern and Western Europeans, with the largest numbers coming from the German Empire, the Russian Empire and Finland, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Eventually, these groups of peoples slowed in the rates that they were coming in, and immigrants came in from Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, The Middle East, and North Africa, including Jews. These people immigrated for a variety of reasons including escaping political and economic oppression, as well as persecution, destitution, and violence. Often among these groups were Swedes, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Croats, Serbs, Slovaks, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Syrians, Lebanese, Egyptians, and Persians.

Following the Immigration Act of 1924, which both greatly reduced immigration and allowed processing overseas, Ellis Island was only used by those who had problems with their immigration paperwork, as well as displaced persons and war refugees. This affected both nationwide and regional immigration processing: only 2.34 million immigrants passed through the Port of New York from 1925 to 1954, compared to the 12 million immigrants processed from 1900 to 1924.

Italo-Albanian woman at Ellis Island, 1905. Original caption: This woman is wearing her native costume. At times the Island looked like a costume ball with the multicolored, many-styled national costumes.

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SIGNS AND EDITING – FAILURES…

Here’s Gloria Estafan and the Miami Sound Machine… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54ItEmCnP80

On this day in 1838, the French army captured Veracruz in the Pastry War.

During the early years of the new Mexican republic there was widespread civil disorder as factions competed for control of the country. The fighting often resulted in the destruction or looting of private property. Average citizens had few options for claiming compensation as they had no representatives to speak on their behalf. Foreigners whose property was damaged or destroyed by rioters or bandits were usually also unable to obtain compensation from the Mexican government and they began to appeal to their own governments for help and compensation.

In a complaint to King Louis-Philippe, a French pastry chef known only as Monsieur Remontel said that in 1832 Mexican officers looted his shop in Tacubaya (then a town on the outskirts of Mexico City). Mexican sources said that the officers, from Santa Anna’s government, simply refused to pay their bills. Remontel demanded 60,000 pesos as reparations for the damage (his shop was valued at less than 1,000 pesos).

In view of Remontel’s complaint (which gave its name to the ensuing conflict) and of other complaints from French nationals (among them the looting in 1828 of French shops at the Parian market and the execution in 1837 of a French citizen accused of piracy), in 1838 prime minister Louis-Mathieu Molé demanded from Mexico the payment of 600,000 pesos (3 million Francs) in damages.

When President Anastasio Bustamante made no payment, the French king ordered a fleet under Rear Admiral Charles Baudin to declare and carry out a blockade of all Mexican ports on the Gulf of Mexico from Yucatán to the Rio Grande, to bombard the Mexican fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, and to seize the city of Veracruz, which was the most important port on the Gulf coast. French forces captured Veracruz and Mexico declared war on France.

The French forces withdrew on 9 March 1839 after a peace treaty was signed. As part of the treaty, the Mexican government agreed to pay 600,000 pesos as damages to French citizens, while France received promises for future trade commitments in place of war indemnities. The damages were never paid, and this fact was later used as one of the justifications for the second French intervention in Mexico of 1861.

Épisode de l’expédition du Mexique en 1838 Scene from the Mexican Expedition in 1838, the Prince of Joinville on the poop of the corvette Créole listens to the report from the vessel’s Lieutenant, Penaud, and sees the explosion of the tower of the Fort of Saint-Jean d’Ulloa on 27 November 1838. The frigate Gloire can be seen in the background.

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Here’s a good Canadian poem…

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Here are The Seekers… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKySE1Ukupg