Anne of Cleves

Happy birthday (for yesterday) Anne of Cleves. That's the one whom Henry VIII is supposed to have called a "fat Flanders mare" when they first met, and although as far as we can tell that phrase wasn't recorded until over 200 years after the event, it is fair to say that they did not click as a couple. Nevertheless it remains one of Henry VIII's least unhappy marriages. Brought together for political reasons that were already disappearing before the best man's speech, the couple held off from consummating the marriage (once bitten twice shy, in his case) and it was easily annulled a few months later. By that stage, Henry had his eye on Catherine Howard.

Catherine turned out to be a blessing in disguise. In exchange for a quick and amicable separation, Henry granted Anne £3000 per year for life, and she remained in England a very wealthy and exceptionally independent woman.
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My Coney Island Baby

Delighted to learn that the funfair on Coney Island housed a baby incubator display. Dr Martin Couney's "Incubator Baby Exhibits" were a regular feature at the World's Fairs, as well as at their permanent site on Coney Island. In part this is because it was one of the most electrically endowed sites in the USA; but is is also because ticket sales funded his pioneering treatment of premature babies, and Coney Island guaranteed a high freak-show-friendly footfall. In August 1904 half a million people turned out to see the world's tiniest baby fight for its one-pound-six-ounce life (it succeeded, and according to the New York Times of September 4th, met the smallest woman in the world).

History xls: the history of the world in a spreadsheet