50 Historic Anniversaries in February 2013 for you to write about (and make money from)

Here are 50 newsworthy anniversaries in February 2013 for you to write about (and make money from). The anniversaries are listed 6 months in advance to give you enough time for research and writing.

We have painstakingly cross-checked every entry, but you are advised to check all facts again as part of your research. Please let us know of any errors you find.

This list is a small sample of the entries for February in  The Date-A-Base Book 2013. There are more than 290 anniversaries for this month in the book.

The Date-A-Base Book 2013 covers the whole of 2013 from January to December, and gives details of more than 4,000 anniversaries.

500 years ago (21 Feb 1513)
Death of Pope Julius II

250 years ago (10 Feb 1763)
The French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years’ War) ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. France ceded Canada to Britain and Louisiana to Spain, and Spain ceded Florida to Britain.

200 years ago (26 Feb 1813)
Death of Robert R. Livingston, American lawyer, politician and diplomat; a founding father of the United States of America

150 years ago (24 Feb 1863)
Arizona Territory was established in the USA

150 years ago (25 Feb 1863)
The U.S. Congress passed the National Currency Act, creating the national banking system with a single national currency, and establishing the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

100 years ago (2 Feb 1913)
Grand Central Terminal opened in New York City, USA. It is the largest train station in the world

100 years ago (3 Feb 1913)
The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. It authorised the U.S. Congress to levy a federal income tax

100 years ago (4 Feb 1913)
Birth of Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist. She famously refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, leading to the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which ignited the U.S. civil rights movement

100 years ago (6 Feb 1913)
Birth of Mary Leakey, British archaeologist and anthropologist; with her husband Louis Leakey she discovered several significant fossils in Africa that were important in the understanding of human evolution

100 years ago (14 Feb 1913)
Birth of Jimmy Hoffa, controversial American trade union leader, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. (Disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1975, presumed dead in 1982)

100 years ago (25 Feb 1913)
Birth of Jim Backus, American radio, television and film actor, best known for playing upper-crust roles (‘Gilligan’s Island’, ‘Rebel Without a Cause’); he also provided the voice of cartoon character Mr Magoo

90 years ago (16 Feb 1923)
British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the sealed doorway to Tutankhamen’s tomb in Thebes, Egypt

80 years ago (17 Feb 1933)
The Blaine Act was passed, ending Prohibition in the United States

80 years ago (17 Feb 1933)
Newsweek magazine was first published in the USA

80 years ago (27 Feb 1933)
The German Reichstag (parliament) in Berlin was destroyed by fire

80 years ago (28 Feb 1933)
England’s cricket team beat Australia 4-1 to win the Ashes. The series was highly controversial as the England team employed the infamous ‘bodyline’ tactics

75 years ago (7 Feb 1938)
Death of Harvey Firestone, American businessman; founder of the Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company

75 years ago (21 Feb 1938)
Death of George Ellery Hale, American astronomer

70 years ago (2 Feb 1943)
World War II – the Battle of Stalingrad ended; Soviet victory over the Germans

70 years ago (9 Feb 1943)
World War II – the Battle of Guadalcanal ended; Allied victory

70 years ago (13 Feb 1943)
The U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve was established

60 years ago (5 Feb 1953)
Sweet rationing ended in Britain

60 years ago (5 Feb 1953)
Walt Disney’s animated movie ‘Peter Pan’ was released in the USA. (UK: 27th July)

50 years ago (8 Feb 1963)
The government of Iraq was overthrown in a Ba’athist coup; Prime Minister Abdul Karim Kassem was executed

50 years ago (11 Feb 1963)
Death of Sylvia Plath, Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, novelist and short story writer who wrote about alienation, death and self-destruction; wife of the British poet Ted Hughes

50 years ago (25 Feb 1963)
British rock group The Beatles released their first single in the USA: ‘Please Please Me’

50 years ago (28 Feb 1963)
Death of Rajendra Prasad, first President of India (1950-62)

30 years ago (1 Feb 1983)
The breakfast television station TV-am launched in the UK

30 years ago (3 Feb 1983)
Death of Tullio Campagnolo, Italian racing cyclist and inventor who founded the Campagnolo bicycle component company and invented the quick-release wheel

30 years ago (4 Feb 1983)
Death of Karen Carpenter, American singer and drummer (The Carpenters)

30 years ago (8 Feb 1983)
Champion racehorse Shergar was kidnapped in Ireland and a £2m ransom demanded. The horse’s fate is still unknown

30 years ago (10 Feb 1983)
British civil servant Dennis Nilsen was arrested in London after police discovered the remains of multiple murder victims in drains near his home

30 years ago (16 Feb 1983)
The Ash Wednesday bushfires hit Victoria and South Australia, killing 75 people and causing widespread destruction

30 years ago (22 Feb 1983)
Death of Sir Adrian Boult, British conductor

30 years ago (25 Feb 1983)
Death of Tennessee Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright (‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ and others)

25 years ago (1 Feb 1988)
Death of Heather O’Rourke, American child actress who played Carol Anne in the films ‘Poltergeist I, II and III’

25 years ago (5 Feb 1988)
Comic Relief held its first Red Nose Day in the UK

25 years ago (14 Feb 1988)
Death of Frederick Loewe, German-born American composer, best known for his collaborations with Alan Jay Lerner on a series of hit Broadway musicals including ‘My Fair Lady’ and ‘Camelot’

20 years ago (6 Feb 1993)
Death of Arthur Ashe, American tennis player; the first black player to win a major championship

20 years ago (12 Feb 1993)
Two 10-year-old boys abducted 2-year-old James Bulger from a shopping centre in Liverpool, UK. His mutilated body was found on a nearby railway line two days later

20 years ago (18 Feb 1993)
The South African government and the African National Congress (ANC) agreed a deal to share power in a 5-year transitional government

20 years ago (20 Feb 1993)
Death of Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian industrialist who founded Lamborghini, the luxury sports car manufacturer

20 years ago (24 Feb 1993)
Death of Bobby Moore, British footballer, captain of the England squad that won the 1966 World Cup

10 years ago (1 Feb 2003)
The U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during reentry, killing all seven astronauts

10 years ago (14 Feb 2003)
Dolly the sheep, the first successfully cloned mammal, was put to sleep at the age of 6 due to progressive lung disease. She had been expected to live for 11 to 12 years, so her early death raised considerable controversy. However, scientists now think the disease was caused by a virus and was not connected with cloning

10 years ago (15 Feb 2003)
The largest anti-war rally in history took place as millions of people in 60 countries expressed their opposition to the imminent war with Iraq. (The war began on 20th March)

10 years ago (17 Feb 2003)
London’s Congestion Charge scheme began

10 years ago (27 Feb 2003)
Rowan Williams became Archbishop of Canterbury

10 years ago (27 Feb 2003)
Death of Fred Rogers, award-winning American children’s television host, producer, writer and songwriter (‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’)

10 years ago (28 Feb 2003)
Death of Chris Brasher, British athlete and sports journalist; co-founded the London Marathon

– – – – – – –

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Members’ News

Our regular correspondent Wendy Green has another book out: 50 Things You Can do Today To Manage Stress, published by Summersdale.

Wendy has now written ten books in the series on a variety of topics, including Menopause, Migraine, IBS and Eczema. Excerpts have featured in the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Express and most of the books have been translated into other languages including Greek, Italian, Serbian, Indonesian & Portuguese.

Wendy has also recently completed an ebook entitled Defeat Depression – your holistic guide to healing your mind and reconnecting with happiness. This was a joint venture with SuperLiving Online Pharmacy and is available in PDF and Kindle formats.

All of Wendy’s books offer easy-to-follow up-to-date information, as well as a wealth of practical advice and a holistic approach to managing common health problems.

How does she manage to write so many books? 

Wendy answers: ‘Whenever I’m writing a book I always flick through The Fastest Way To Write Your Book as I find the ideas and tips really helpful and motivational.’

Great answer!

What If…? 10 Creative Writing Prompts for August

Here’s this month’s selection of “What If . . . ?” creative writing prompts to inspire you – let’s see what you can do with these!

What if . . .

1. newspapers could publish any document they wanted to, as long as they could get hold of it?

2. your children always wore masks in public?

3. you could see through other people’s eyes?

4. the world didn’t know you existed?

5. your message did not have the impact you expected it to?

6. you were asked to apologise?

7. you had Tourette’s Syndrome?

8. an ambulance kept following you?

9. you didn’t have a license?

10. you always did everything to 100% of your ability?

Now available on Kindle:
The Fastest Way to Get Ideas:
4,400 Essential What If’s for Writers
Our complete collection of “What If . . . ?” creative writing prompts. (Still at the low introductory price!)
Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

50 Historic Anniversaries in January 2013 for you to write about (and make money from)

Here are 50 newsworthy anniversaries in January 2013 for you to write about (and make money from). The anniversaries are listed 6 months in advance to give you enough time for research and writing.

We have painstakingly cross-checked every entry, but you are advised to check all facts again as part of your research. Please let us know of any errors you find.

This list is a small sample of the entries for January in  The Date-A-Base Book 2013. There are more than 400 anniversaries for this month in the book.

The book covers the whole of 2013 from January to December, and gives details of more than 4,000 anniversaries.

400 years ago (29 Jan 1613)
Death of Sir Thomas Bodley, English diplomat and scholar who founded the Bodleian Library in Oxford

200 years ago (2 Jan 1813)
The Luddite trial opened in York, England to try 66 people accused of destroying mechanised looms. 17 of them were later executed, and others transported to Australia

200 years ago (4 Jan 1813)
Birth of Sir Isaac Pitman, British school teacher, inventor of Pitman shorthand

200 years ago (19 Jan 1813)
Birth of Sir Henry Bessemer, British engineer and inventor who developed the first inexpensive method of mass-producing steel

200 years ago (28 Jan 1813)
Jane Austen’s novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was first published

150 years ago (1 Jan 1863)
The Emancipation Proclamation: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared that all slaves in states that had seceded from the USA would be freed

150 years ago (8 Jan 1863)
Yorkshire County Cricket Club was founded in England

150 years ago (10 Jan 1863)
The first section of the London Underground Railway (the Metropolitan line) was opened. It was the world’s first underground railway service

150 years ago (17 Jan 1863)
Birth of David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister (1916-22)

100 years ago (1 Jan 1913)
The domestic parcel post service began operating in the USA, stimulating national trade and commerce

100 years ago (1 Jan 1913)
The British Board of Film Censors (now the British Board of Film Classification) began operating, and issued its first certificates (U: suitable for children, and A: suitable for public exhibition)

100 years ago (9 Jan 1913)
Birth of Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States

100 years ago (17 Jan 1913)
Raymond Poincaré was elected President of France

100 years ago (18 Jan 1913)
Birth of Danny Kaye, American actor, singer, dancer, comedian and humanitarian (‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, ‘The Inspector General’, ‘Hans Christian Andersen’, ‘White Christmas’ and others)

100 years ago (19 Jan 1913)
Birth of Minnesota Fats (Rudolf Wanderone), American pool and billiards player and TV host who helped popularise the game

100 years ago (29 Jan 1913)
Birth of Victor Mature, American stage and film actor (‘One Million B.C.’, ‘My Darling Clementine’, ‘Samson and Delilah’, ‘The Robe’, and others) (Some sources give his year of birth as 1916; official records say 1913)

100 years ago (30 Jan 1913)
Birth of Percy Thrower, British gardener, TV/radio broadcaster and writer; Britain’s first celebrity gardener

90 years ago (1 Jan 1923)
The Railways Act of 1921 came into effect, and Britain’s 120 railway companies were grouped into the ‘Big Four’: Great Western Railway (GWR); London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS); London and North Eastern Railway (LNER); and Southern Railway (SR) (See 1948 below)

80 years ago (5 Jan 1933)
Death of Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States

80 years ago (17 Jan 1933)
Death of Louis Comfort Tiffany, American artist and designer renowned for his work with stained glass

80 years ago (18 Jan 1933)
White Sands National Monument was established in New Mexico, USA

80 years ago (30 Jan 1933)
Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany

75 years ago (5 Jan 1938)
Birth of King Juan Carlos I of Spain

75 years ago (9 Jan 1938)
Death of Johnny Gruelle, American artist, illustrator, cartoonist and children’s author, creator of ‘Raggedy Ann and Andy’

65 years ago (1 Jan 1948)
Britain’s ‘Big Four’ railway companies were nationalised to form British Railways (later renamed British Rail)

60 years ago (5 Jan 1953)
Samuel Beckett’s play ‘Waiting for Godot’ was first performed, at the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris, France (as ‘En Attendant Godot’)

60 years ago (7 Jan 1953)
In his final State of the Union address, U.S. President Harry S. Truman announced that the USA had developed a hydrogen bomb

60 years ago (14 Jan 1953)
Josip Broz Tito became President of Yugoslavia

60 years ago (20 Jan 1953)
Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated as 34th President of the United States. It was the first inauguration to be televised live coast to coast

60 years ago (22 Jan 1953)
American playwright Arthur Miller’s drama ‘The Crucible’ was first performed, at the Martin Beck Theatre, Broadway, New York City

50 years ago (7 Jan 1963)
American computer scientist Ivan Sutherland introduced ‘Sketchpad’ as part of his PhD thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It was the first software that allowed objects to be directly manipulated on a computer screen, and is the ancestor of today’s graphical user interfaces and computer-aided design (CAD) software

50 years ago (11 Jan 1963)
The Whisky-a-Go-Go night club opened in Los Angeles, California – it was the first discotheque in the USA

50 years ago (18 Jan 1963)
Death of Hugh Gaitskell, British statesman, Chancellor of the Exchequer (1950-51), leader of the Labour Party (1955-63)

50 years ago (23 Jan 1963)
British intelligence officer and Soviet spy Kim Philby defected to the Soviet Union

40 years ago (1 Jan 1973)
Britain, Ireland and Denmark were admitted into the European Economic Community (EEC – now the European Union)

40 years ago (22 Jan 1973)
Abortion was legalised in the USA

40 years ago (22 Jan 1973)
Death of Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States

40 years ago (27 Jan 1973)
The Paris Peace Accords were signed, officially ending the Vietnam War

30 years ago (1 Jan 1983)
The internet was created when the ARPANET officially switched to using Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

30 years ago (19 Jan 1983)
Apple introduced the ‘Lisa’, the first commercial personal computer to have a graphical user interface and mouse

30 years ago (26 Jan 1983)
Lotus Development Corporation released the spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3. It was the first ‘killer application’ for PCs

30 years ago (31 Jan 1983)
The wearing of seatbelts became compulsory in Britain for drivers and front seat passengers

25 years ago (7 Jan 1988)
Death of Trevor Howard, award-winning British film, stage and television actor (‘Brief Encounter’, ‘The Third Man’, ‘Sons and Lovers’, ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, ‘Gandhi’ and others)

25 years ago (26 Jan 1988)
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ opened at the Majestic Theatre, Broadway, New York. (At the time of writing it is still running and is the longest-running musical in Broadway history)

20 years ago (1 Jan 1993)
Czechoslovakia split into two separate countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia

20 years ago (20 Jan 1993)
Bill Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States

20 years ago (20 Jan 1993)
Death of Audrey Hepburn, Academy Award-winning Belgian-born British stage and film actress (‘Gigi’, ‘Roman Holiday’, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, ‘My Fair Lady’ and others)

10 years ago (5 Jan 2003)
Death of Roy Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, British politician, first leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) (1982-83)

10 years ago (12 Jan 2003)
Death of Maurice Gibb, British pop singer, songwriter and musician (The Bee Gees)

– – – – – – –

Become a lifetime member of ideas4writers for just £49.95 and you’ll receive The Date-A-Base Books for 2012 and 2013 (plus all future editions) as well as The Fastest Way to Write Your Book, The Fastest Way to Get Ideas, our complete 5,000+ collection of writing ideas, unlimited use of our forums and exclusive writing software, and much more
(total value: over £150!)
Click here for full details

What If…? 10 Creative Writing Prompts for July

Here’s this month’s selection of “What If . . . ?” creative writing prompts to inspire you – let’s see what you can do with these!

What if . . .

1. you met the person who was writing your life story – including the parts that hadn’t happened yet?

2. there was no gravity, it was light that pushed us down (so when it got dark … ?)

3. your illness was all in your mind?

4. there were rainbows in all directions?

5. you could change your own DNA?

6. people had no memories?

7. you applied for a patent?

8. a company somehow managed to patent a major event or holiday, such as Christmas?

9. you read the wrong book?

10. you sold shares in your book?

 

Now available on Kindle:
The Fastest Way to Get Ideas:
4,400 Essential What If’s for Writers
Our complete collection of “What If . . . ?” creative writing prompts. (Still at the low introductory price!)
Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Book spine poetry

One of our members recently introduced me to book spine poetry. You make up a poem using the titles of books you find around you. Stack up the books to spell out your poem, and take a photo. It’s easy, great fun, and highly addictive.

Here’s one I came up with:

Kill For Me,
Angel,
One Last Time.
Harm Done,
In Silence,
Bones To Ashes.
What Happened To The Corbetts?
Brother And Sister,
Sleeping With Ghosts.
Lost Boy, Lost Girl.

And here’s the photo of the books stacked up to spell it out:

(I have a bit of an advantage here, because I work in a charity shop that’s raising money to build a swimming pool for the town, and we have hundreds of used books on sale. It’s an amusing way of passing the time when it’s pouring with rain and there aren’t many customers.)

Here’s a dark one from Bec Zugor:

Dark Places.
The Accusers
Fall From Grace.
The Caretakers
Feed
The Crucifixion Squad.
Pray.

And the photo:

You’ll find several more book spine poems in our Facebook group (facebook.com/groups/ideas4writers). Come on over and have a go!

50 Historic Anniversaries in December 2012 for you to write about (and make money from)

Here are 50 newsworthy anniversaries in December 2012 for you to write about (and make money from). The anniversaries are listed 6 months in advance to give you enough time for research and writing.

We have painstakingly cross-checked every entry, but you are advised to check all facts again as part of your research. Please let us know of any errors you find.

The list presented below is a small sample of the entries for December in  The Date-A-Base Book 2012. There are more than 180 anniversaries for this month in the book, which also covers the whole of 2012.

The Date-A-Base Book 2013 is also available if you need to work further ahead.

 

– – – – – – –

200 years ago (15 Dec 1812)
Birth of Joseph Moses Levy, British newspaper editor and publisher, founder of the ‘Daily Telegraph’

200 years ago (20 Dec 1812?)
Death of Sacagawea, Native American Shoshone guide and translator for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. (Some sources say she died on 9th April 1884)

100 years ago (1 Dec 1912)
Birth of Minoru Yamasaki, American architect who designed the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, New York City (destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001)

100 years ago (4 Dec 1912)
Birth of Pappy Boyington, American fighter pilot, best known for his prominent role in the South Pacific during WWII. He was awarded the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross

100 years ago (9 Dec 1912)
Birth of Thomas P. (‘Tip’) O’Neill, American politician, Speaker of the U.S House of Representatives (1977-87)

100 years ago (18 Dec 1912)
The discovery of Piltdown Man was announced. Fossilised remains of a previously unknown species of hominid were found in East Sussex, UK, and were thought to prove the missing evolutionary link between apes and humans. (Proved to be a hoax in 1953)

100 years ago (22 Dec 1912)
Birth of Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the United States (1963-69)

90 years ago (6 Dec 1922)
The Irish Free State came into existence

90 years ago (30 Dec 1922)
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (also known as the Soviet Union) was founded

80 years ago (27 Dec 1932)
Radio City Music Hall in New York City, USA opened to the public

75 years ago (4 Dec 1937)
‘The Dandy’ children’s comic was first published in the UK

75 years ago (13 Dec 1937)
Second Sino-Japanese War – Nanjing Massacre, China (also known as the Rape of Nanjing, also spelt Nanking). The Japanese seized the city and killed about 300,000 people over the next 6 weeks. (Exact total unknown)

75 years ago (21 Dec 1937)
Death of Frank B. Kellogg, U.S. Secretary of State (1925-29), winner of the 1929 Nobel Peace Prize for co-authoring the Kellogg-Briand Pact

75 years ago (22 Dec 1937)
The Lincoln Tunnel opened to traffic. It links Manhattan in New York City to Weehawken, New Jersey

75 years ago (28 Dec 1937)
Death of Maurice Ravel, French composer, best known for ‘Boléro’

75 years ago (29 Dec 1937)
The Irish Free State adopted a new constitution and became the independent sovereign state of Ireland. (The UK monarch remained head of state until April 1949 when it became the Republic of Ireland)

70 years ago (1 Dec 1942)
The British Government published the Beveridge Report, which formed the basis of the welfare state

70 years ago (2 Dec 1942)
The first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved at the University of Chicago, Illinois, USA by Enrico Fermi and his team

60 years ago (1 Dec 1952)
The first successful gender reassignment operation was announced. American man George Jorgensen, Jr. had hormone-replacement therapy and surgery in Denmark and became Christine Jorgensen

60 years ago (5 Dec 1952)
The Great Smog of London. Dense, cold, smoke-filled fog descended upon London, bringing the city to a standstill for 4 days. Over 4,000 people died

50 years ago (14 Dec 1962)
NASA’s Mariner 2 spacecraft flew within 21,600 miles of Venus and sent back the first close-up images of another planet. (Launched 27th Aug 1962)

50 years ago (15 Dec 1962)
Death of Charles Laughton, British-born American stage and film actor and director (played Captain Bligh in ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’, Quasimodo in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’, and many other notable roles)

50 years ago (17 Dec 1962)
Death of Thomas Mitchell, American actor, playwright and screenwriter, the first person to win an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony Award

50 years ago (22 Dec 1962 to 5th Mar 1963)
The Big Freeze in Britain – one of the coldest winters on record

50 years ago (23 Dec 1962)
Over 1,100 U.S. military personnel were released by Cuba in exchange for a $53 million ransom paid in food and medical supplies. They had been held by Cuba since the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961

40 years ago (7 Dec 1972)
Apollo 17 was launched – NASA’s last manned mission to the Moon. Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were the last men to walk on the Moon

40 years ago (21 Dec 1972)
The leaders of East and West Germany signed an agreement establishing basic diplomatic ties between them. (Came into effect June 1973.) This led to both German nations being recognised by the international community

40 years ago (22 Dec 1972)
14 people were found alive in the Andes over 2 months after their plane crashed. The group had survived by eating dead passengers. 2 other survivors had made a 10-day trek in Arctic conditions to find help

40 years ago (26 Dec 1972)
Death of Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States

40 years ago (27 Dec 1972)
Death of Lester B. Pearson, Prime Minister of Canada (1963-68), winner of the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to solve the Suez crisis

30 years ago (2 Dec 1982)
American dentist Barney Clark became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart. He survived for 112 days

30 years ago (2 Dec 1982)
Death of Marty Feldman, award-winning British comedian, comedy writer and actor, notable for his bulging eyes

30 years ago (6 Dec 1982)
An Irish National Liberation Army bomb exploded at a pub/disco in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland that was regularly visited by British Army soldiers. 17 people were killed, including 11 soldiers

30 years ago (7 Dec 1982)
American murderer Charles Brooks, Jr. became the first person in the USA to be executed by lethal injection. (Texas State Penitentiary, Huntsville)

30 years ago (12 Dec 1982)
30,000 women joined hands around the Greenham Common RAF base in Berkshire, UK to protest against the siting of U.S. Cruise missiles there

30 years ago (16 Dec 1982)
Death of Colin Chapman, influential British engineer, car designer and manufacturer, founder of Lotus Cars

30 years ago (20 Dec 1982)
Death of Artur Rubinstein, Polish-born American virtuoso pianist, considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century

30 years ago (26 Dec 1982)
‘Time’ magazine’s Man of the Year award was given to a machine: the computer

25 years ago (8 Dec 1987)
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., USA by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

25 years ago (8 Dec 1987)
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the First Intifada began – a Palestinian uprising against the Israelis occupying Palestinian territories. (Ended 1993)

25 years ago (8 Dec 1987)
Queen Street Massacre, Melbourne, Australia. Frank Vitkovic shot 8 people dead and injured 5 others at the Australia Post building before diving through an 11th floor window and falling to his death

20 years ago (9 Dec 1992)
British Prime Minister John Major announced the separation of Charles and Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales

20 years ago (12 Dec 1992)
Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, married Royal Navy commander Timothy Laurence at Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral, Scotland

20 years ago (17 Dec 1992)
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in San Antonio, Texas by U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas. (Came into effect 1st January 1994)

10 years ago (5 Dec 2002)
Death of U Ne Win, President of Burma (1974-81)

10 years ago (5 Dec 2002)
Death of Roone Arledge, American sports broadcasting pioneer and TV executive, president of ABC News; introduced instant replay, slow-motion replay, freeze-frame, and multiple camera angles

10 years ago (17 Dec 2002)
The civil war in Congo ended as all parties signed a peace agreement and agreed to establish a power-sharing transitional government. (Established July 2003)

10 years ago (22 Dec 2002)
Death of Joe Strummer, British punk/rock singer, guitarist and songwriter (The Clash)

10 years ago (26 Dec 2002)
Death of Armand Zildjian, American businessman and cymbal manufacturer

10 years ago (30 Dec 2002)
Death of Mary Wesley, British novelist, best known for ‘The Camomile Lawn’

– – – – – – –

Become a lifetime member of ideas4writers for just £49.95 and you’ll receive The Date-A-Base Books for 2012 and 2013 (plus all future editions) as well as The Fastest Way to Write Your Book, The Fastest Way to Get Ideas, our complete 5,000+ collection of writing ideas, unlimited use of our forums and exclusive writing software, and much more
(total value: over £150!)
Click here for full details

What If…? 10 Creative Writing Prompts for June

Here’s this month’s selection of “What If . . . ?” creative writing prompts to inspire you – let’s see what you can do with these!

What if . . .

1. you couldn’t stop biting your nails?

2. everything was exaggerated?

3. you earned all the money you needed without working?

4. humans had antlers?

5. you refused to step down?

6. the person with the least votes was the winner?

7. you suspected someone’s job application was too good to be true?

8. there was only one recipe in the world?

9. you stopped loving your partner?

10. all buildings were tree houses?

Now available on Kindle:
The Fastest Way to Get Ideas:
4,400 Essential What If’s for Writers
Our complete collection of “What If . . . ?” creative writing prompts. (Low introductory price!)
Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

How to Win Short Story Competitions

I’ve written (with Geoff Nelder) a new book that you might like.

Two competition judges (Dave and Geoff) discuss everything they know about entering, judging and (most importantly) winning short story competitions, in an easy-to-follow question and answer format.

Click on the cover image on the left  if you’re desperate to buy it immediately. Or read on for some entertaining anecdotes about how we created it.

We actually wrote this book in August 2009. And when I say ‘wrote’ I mean spoke – because it was intended to be an audio recording. For various reasons,  that didn’t work out too well (the voice recorder I’d ordered didn’t turn up until three days afterwards, the microphone I purchased at very short notice sounded like you were speaking down a cardboard tube, and our voices were not at their best). We did end up with a recording (not good enough to sell) and (later) a transcript that we thought would make a very good book if we tidied it up a bit.

The plan was to record it at the beach – because writers can work anywhere, so let’s live the dream! So, once he had finished judging the 2009 Whittaker Prize, Geoff caught the train down to Devon and spent a day revisiting his past, with the intention of meeting me at the seaside the next day. Next day dawned . . . and it was raining. So we recorded it in the hotel’s dining room instead.

While we were there we tried taking a photo of the two of us together, which we could use for things like blogs, magazine reviews, etc. But the microphone (the one that sounded like a cardboard tube) used up all the batteries. Here is the only photo we have (taken just before the batteries died completely). The flash didn’t go off so it was murky and blurred, but we’ve brightened and sharpened it as best we can. It isn’t great, but it’s all we’ve got!

The transcript passed back and forth between us a few times. And then time passed, and some more time passed, and we both got engrossed in other projects. And then suddenly it was spring 2012 and Geoff said he was judging the Whittaker Prize again. It was time to get this book finished!

This was the first book I formatted for Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader, and the process turned out to be a nostalgic blast into the past. It’s exactly the same process and coding system that I used back in 1996 when I created web pages by hand using Windows Notepad. I used something a little more advanced this time around, but I still went back to Notepad a couple of times, as its search and replace function works with curly quotes and the other software doesn’t recognise them.

You can of course cheat and use Amazon’s Word-to-Kindle converter, but I’ve seen too many examples of mangled formatting to trust it. I’d been meaning to learn how to do it properly anyway, so this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

The medal on the cover was knitted by Mary, a volunteer in the swimming pool fundraising shop I manage. (My role is also voluntary I’d like to point out!) She brought in some medals she’d made to sell in the shop, and I thought they had just the right sort of quirky touch to make our cover stand out. So she made one especially for us (and donated her fee to the swimming pool fund.)

The text in the cover photo is from a sample story we included in the book to show how the judging process works. The story is ‘Return to Cairo’ by Jonathan Pinnock – and it includes a few naughty words. (Geoff chose it, not me!) Despite arranging the medal as artfully as I could, one unfortunate word remained uncovered – and featured rather prominently. So I had to airbrush it out using Photoshop. It isn’t a terrible word, but you really don’t want it taking pride of place on your book’s cover!

Photographing the cover took longer than ‘writing’ the book. (Such is the life of a perfectionist – or a ‘control freak’ as some people call me.) It took 80 shots over three days using two different cameras to get a result I was happy with. (And I am very happy with it.) I tried different angles, lighting conditions and camera settings, with and without a tripod, and ended up going back to the camera I first started with. The photo on the cover was shot number 78.

So that’s the story of how this brilliant little book was created. If you enter short story competitions, or have ever considered doing so, you’ll definitely find it useful, and it should boost your chances of success considerably. If you win any please let us know so we can brag about it celebrate your success.

How to Win Short Story Competitions is available from the following outlets:

Kindle – Amazon.com
Kindle – Amazon.co.uk
PDF – ideas4writers.co.uk

If you’re a full lifetime member of ideas4writers you’re entitled to receive the PDF version at no cost. Please email Dave if you would like one. We ask that you send us a one-paragraph review in exchange.

Enjoy!

50 Historic Anniversaries in November 2012 for you to write about (and make money from)

NEWS: Printed copies of The Date-A-Base Book 2013 are now available. See www.ideas4writers.co.uk/2013

Here are 50 newsworthy anniversaries in November 2012 for you to write about (and make money from). The anniversaries are listed 6 months in advance to give you enough time for research and writing.

The list presented here is just a fraction of that contained in The Date-A-Base Book 2012. There are more than 170 anniversaries for this month in the book, which also covers the whole of 2012.

The Date-A-Base Book 2013 is also available if you need to work further ahead.

We have painstakingly cross-checked every entry, but you are advised to check all facts again as part of your research. Please let us know of any errors you find.

500 years ago (1 Nov 1512)
Michelangelo finished painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and his work was exhibited to the public for the first time

250 years ago (1 Nov 1762)
Birth of Spencer Perceval, British Prime Minister (1809-12). He is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated

100 years ago (5 Nov 1912)
Woodrow Wilson was elected as the 28th President of the United States. (Inaugurated 4th March 1913)

100 years ago (5 Nov 1912)
The British Board of Film Censors (now the British Board of Film Classification) was founded

100 years ago (12 Nov 1912)
The bodies of British Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his team were found, 8 months after they died. (See 29th March 1912)

100 years ago (28 Nov 1912)
Albania declared its independence from Turkey

90 years ago (4 Nov 1922)
British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen. On 26th November he reached a second sealed doorway and discovered the famous treasures

80 years ago (8 Nov 1932)
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as the 32nd President of the United States. (Inaugurated 4th March 1933)

75 years ago (9 Nov 1937)
Death of Ramsay MacDonald, British Prime Minister (1924, 1929-35)

75 years ago (17 Nov 1937)
Birth of Peter Cook, British satirist, comedian, actor and writer. (Died 1995)

75 years ago (23 Nov 1937)
Death of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, Indian physicist and biologist who carried out pioneering work in radio and microwave optics

70 years ago (5 Nov 1942)
World War II: the Second Battle of El-Alamein ended. British troops led by Generals Alexander and Montgomery defeated Rommel’s German forces in Egypt

70 years ago (11 Nov 1942)
World War II: Nazi Germany invaded Vichy France

65 years ago (20 Nov 1947)
Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey, London

65 years ago (25 Nov 1947)
New Zealand became a fully independent sovereign state when the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act received Royal Assent

65 years ago (29 Nov 1947)
The United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. (Israel became an independent Jewish state in May 1948; Arab leaders rejected the partition, leading to civil war)

60 years ago (1 Nov 1952)
The USA carried out the first successful detonation of a hydrogen bomb, in a test on the Pacific island of Elugelab, Marshall Islands. The island was completely destroyed in the explosion and no longer exists

60 years ago (4 Nov 1952)
Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected as the 34th President of the United States. (Inaugurated 20th January 1953)

60 years ago (9 Nov 1952)
Death of Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel (1949-52)

60 years ago (13 Nov 1952)
Death of Margaret Wise Brown, American children’s writer

60 years ago (14 Nov 1952)
Britain’s first pop singles chart was published in the ‘New Musical Express’

60 years ago (25 Nov 1952)
The world’s longest running play, ‘The Mousetrap’ by Agatha Christie, opened in London. (It is still running)

50 years ago (7 Nov 1962)
Death of Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States (1933-45)

50 years ago (17 Nov 1962)
Dulles International Airport (now Washington Dulles International Airport) in Washington, D.C. was dedicated by U.S. President John F. Kennedy

50 years ago (18 Nov 1962)
Death of Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on atomic and molecular structure, and quantum mechanics

50 years ago (20 Nov 1962)
The Cuban Missile Crisis formally ended. U.S. President John F. Kennedy lifted the military quarantine (blockade) of Cuba

50 years ago (21 Nov 1962)
The Sino-Indian War ended. China declared a unilateral cease-fire, and withdrew its forces from the disputed territory on the Himalayan border

50 years ago (28 Nov 1962)
Death of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (1890-1948), mother of Queen Juliana who succeeded her when she abdicated due to ill health

40 years ago (29 Nov 1972)
Pong, the first commercially successful video game, was released by Atari as a coin-operated arcade game. The first machine was installed in Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California, USA

30 years ago (2 Nov 1982)
Channel 4 was launched in the UK

30 years ago (5 Nov 1982)
Death of Jacques Tati, French film director and actor who played ‘Monsieur Hulot’ in a series of popular comedy films

30 years ago (10 Nov 1982)
Death of Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union (1964-82). Succeeded by Yuri Andropov

30 years ago (16 Nov 1982)
Death of Arthur Askey, popular British comedian who performed in music halls, radio, television and film

25 years ago (8 Nov 1987)
Remembrance Day bombing, Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. 11 people were killed and 63 injured when an IRA bomb exploded during a Remembrance Day service

25 years ago (11 Nov 1987)
Boris Yeltsin was fired as Mayor of Moscow (First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party) after criticising the slow pace of Soviet reform

25 years ago (18 Nov 1987)
King’s Cross underground station fire, London. 31 people were killed and more than 60 injured when a fire broke out in an escalator shaft and spread to the ticket hall

25 years ago (18 Nov 1987)
U.S. Congress published the final report on the Iran-Contra Affair, which stated that President Ronald Reagan was ultimately responsible for his aides’ wrongdoing

25 years ago (25 Nov 1987)
Death of Harold Washington, American lawyer and politician, the first African-American mayor of Chicago (1983-87)

20 years ago (2 Nov 1992)
Death of Hal Roach, American film and television director and producer, best known for his comedies of the 1920s and 30s, particularly those featuring Laurel & Hardy and Harold Lloyd

20 years ago (3 Nov 1992)
Bill Clinton was elected as the 42nd President of the United States. (Inaugurated 20th January 1993)

20 years ago (11 Nov 1992)
The General Synod of the Church of England voted to allow women to become priests. (The first women were ordained as priests in March 1994)

20 years ago (20 Nov 1992)
Windsor Castle fire, UK. A fire broke out in a private chapel and spread to a large part of the building, causing extensive damage. (Buckingham Palace was opened to the public for the first time to raise money to fund the repairs, which cost around £40 million and took 5 years)

20 years ago (21 Nov 1992)
The Anglican Church of Australia voted to allow women to become priests

20 years ago (26 Nov 1992)
Queen Elizabeth II agreed to pay tax on her personal income, pay council tax on her country estates, and fund her children’s Civil List costs herself

15 years ago (10 Nov 1997)
British nanny Louise Woodward was released from prison in the USA after her murder conviction was reduced to involuntary manslaughter and her life sentence reduced to the 279 days she had already served

15 years ago (12 Nov 1997)
Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were convicted of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York City, USA. (In Jan 1998 Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to life imprisonment + 240 years. In April 1998 Eyad Ismoil was sentenced to 240 years imprisonment. Both also received hefty fines)

15 years ago (22 Nov 1997)
Death of Michael Hutchence, Australian rock singer and songwriter (INXS)

10 years ago (3 Nov 2002)
Death of Lonnie Donegan, Scottish musician and singer known as ‘the king of skiffle’ (‘Rock Island Line’, ‘Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (on the Bedpost Overnight)?’, ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’)

10 years ago (15 Nov 2002)
Death of Myra Hindley, British serial killer, one of the notorious ‘Moors Murderers’, along with Ian Brady

10 years ago (18 Nov 2002)
Death of James Coburn, award-winning American film and television actor (‘The Magnificent Seven’, ‘The Great Escape’, ‘Our Man Flint’, ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid’, and many more)

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You’ll find lots more anniversaries in
The Date-A-Base Book 2012, which covers the whole of 2012 and lists over 2,250 newsworthy and notable anniversaries – more than three times as many entries each month than we feature here in the blog. You’ll find out about  hundreds of fascinating anniversaries that other writers don’t know about – giving you a huge advantage!

The Date-A-Base Book 2012 is a terrific source of ideas for writers, journalists, film-makers, editors, researchers, producers, teachers, students, speakers and event planners.

Click here for more details
(You’ll also be able to download a complete sample chapter.)

The Date-A-Base Book 2013 is also available.

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Become a lifetime member of ideas4writers for just £49.95 and you’ll receive The Date-A-Base Books for 2012 and 2013 (plus all future editions) as well as The Fastest Way to Write Your Book, The Fastest Way to Get Ideas, our complete 5,000+ collection of writing ideas, unlimited use of our forums and exclusive writing software, and much more
(total value: over £150!)
Click here for full details

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