Did playing the bagpipes keep a Scottish soldier from being shot in World War II?

May. The fifth month of the year.

It wasn’t always, you know. Original calendars began with March with the first day of spring also being New Year’s Day.

That’s why September has its name – it used to be the seventh month. October was the eighth, November the ninth, and December the tenth, all based on numeric prefixes. February was the last month of the year, and got the leftover days of the 365.

Blame the change on Pope Gregory XIII, who noticed in 1582 that the first day of spring had changed over time. He lopped off 11 days from that year’s calendar and moved New Year’s to January 1.

It’s his fault.

The trivia that follows, however, is my fault, and I plead guilty as charged!

Did you know …

… baseball star, Babe Ruth (1895-1948), had a rather unique way to keep himself cool during hot summer games? The Sultan of Swat would keep a cabbage in a water cooler, and every inning he’d place a chilled leaf from the plant inside his cap. (He used cool cabbage to earn all that cool cabbage.)

… the best-selling fiction writer of all time is a woman? Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976) crafted 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections over her career. She created the popular fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Christie herself served as the inspiration for the character of Jessica Fletcher, played so brilliantly by Dame Angela Lansbury (born 1925), in the television series, Murder, She Wrote. (Does this make Cabot Cove the murder capital of the world?)

… the first American radio “soap opera” was created in 1930? Painted Dreams premiered October 20 of that year, and wrapped in 1943. The show aired initially on WGN radio in Chicago, then went nationwide in 1932. It was created by Irna Phillips (1901-1973), who would go on to create more soap operas for radio and television, including “The Guiding Light,” “As The World Turns” and “Another World.” Additional trivia note: Those “daytime dramas” are called soap operas because for many years, they were sponsored exclusively by soap companies. (Some pretty clean sponsorship, eh?)

… the cartoon character of Minnie Mouse has a full name? Her full first name is Minerva. (Mice to know these things.)

… at any given moment, about 0.7% of the population of the world is drunk? That means about 50 million people worldwide are drunk right now. (How many of those are in Washington, D.C.?)

… the easternmost and westernmost points in the United States are in the same state? Alaska is the state that extends farthest west, following the chain of Aleutian islands. The chain actually extends to and beyond the 180˚ line of longitude, known as the International Date Line – the point at which it becomes tomorrow. Anything beyond that line is considered east of North America. The island of Unyax, also called Semisopochnoi, is the farthest island in the chain that belongs to the U.S., and it is ten miles beyond the 180˚ line, in the Eastern Hemisphere. (Alaska, the last frontier whichever way you go.)

… a Scottish soldier in World War II avoided being shot because of his bagpipes? During the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944, Bill Millin (1922-2010) broke out his pipes and marched up and down the beach, playing to keep up the spirits as the troops moved inland. When his unit later captured German snipers, they were asked why nobody fired a shot at Millin. The Germans replied that they didn’t shoot the bagpiper because they thought he had gone insane. Instead, he was following orders – orders which were in direct opposition to British Army policy. Pipers had been used in Scottish regiments for centuries, but by World War II they were only used in rear areas away from the battle lines. Millin’s commanding officer, Lord Lovat (Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser, 1911-1995), told Millin that those were “English” orders and, as they were Scottish, the order not to play did not apply. (Never tell a Scotsman he can’t play the bagpipes. Never!)

… every bridge and tunnel in Switzerland was designed with built-in explosives? This would enable the country to be turned into a mountain fortress very quickly in time of war. (It’s inadvisable to mess with the Swiss, it seems.)

… your hair grows faster in the morning than at any other time of day? (That’s if it grows at all, of course – like mine doesn’t any more.)

… a famous Russian composer was also a scientist? Aleksandr Borodin (1833-1887) composed two string quartets, symphonies, and an opera. His “day job” was as a respected professor of chemistry at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Imagine being more famous for your moonlighting job than your day job.)

… Mother Nature really had it in for one poor fellow? Walter Summerford (1883-1932) was hit by lightning three times during his life. As if that wasn’t insulting enough, two years after his death, lightning struck his gravestone. (Shocking!)

… wombat droppings are shaped like a cube? Wombats, short marsupials that live in Australia, use their droppings to mark their territory, and the cube shape prevents it from rolling off of logs or rocks. (Another of those instances where the jokes just write themselves. If you really want to get to the bottom of this, do a bit of research to square yourself away.)

Now … you know!

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