Everyone knows what a witch looks like – tall pointed hat, hooked nose, long chin, not to mention the obligatory broomstick. It should be easy to spot one a mile off! The only problem is that witches, throughout history, looked very much like anyone else. Luckily, there were several sure-fire ways of identifying whether Mr or Mrs Jones down the road was secretly doing you harm.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of one of the most iconic TV shows in television history. It created such devotion amongst its viewers, that fans of the show became commonly known as “X-Philes,” a term coined from the Greek root “-phil-” meaning love or obsession. No surprise then that when the series ended in 2002, it had run for 202 episodes making it the longest-consecutive running science fiction series in U.S. television history. This record was only surpassed years later by Stargate SG-1 in 2007 and Smallville in 2011. In honour of a television show, which made a whole generation see the world in a surprisingly different way, we’ve unearthed twenty unusual facts to show the truth really is out there.
It’s 1963 and Beatlemania is in full swing with “I Want to Hold Your Hand” rocking the charts. Martin Luther King, Jr. has delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech and Lawrence of Arabia is the wowing cinema crowds. Meanwhile, in the UK an obscure TV science fiction drama, originally intended as an educational programme, launches on the BBC. Doctor Who, the universe’s most famous Time Lord, had arrived. Fast forward fifty years, and eleven incarnations, and he’s still going strong.
In homage to his half a century here, we’re unearthed fifty out of this world facts about the greatest gentleman adventurer in the galaxy. Hold unto your hats and join us going back in time.
