Sybil Bruncheon’s “Celebrity Birthdays In History”... January 7th, 1846...

... Prudence "Poo-Poo" Charmondeley. Although she seemed to live on the streets of London, no one was ever really able to figure out exactly WHERE! Her great sense of humor and her ability to play five different instruments and sing clever little ditties, romantic ballads, and popular songs kept her constantly busy with a frying pan in front of her filled with coins from her devoted following.

Prudence apparently had perfect pitch and a savant's ability to remember perhaps over 15,000 songs according to musicologists who came under her spell. She was offered contracts at prominent theatres and music halls, but she remained out on the sidewalks with assorted "buskers" and "pearlies" whom she often paired with in impromptu "Musical-Ettes" as she called them.

In addition to all her other talents, she had an uncanny knack for composing both poems and songs on the spot when audience members would provide her with a word or a name to build all her rhymes and meters on... Scientists from Oxford, Cambridge, and the Filbert Academy for Exceptional Ladies & Their Deportment measured her intelligence at a "genius level".....comparable to Dickens, Dante, and Sir Gyrus Quzzizzleton.

She died at a very great age, although it was impossible to determine exactly what at the time. She was buried in Potters' Field in a grave marked by a simple wooden cross. It wasn't until 3 months later when her butler and several of her 34 servants and employees finally discovered her fate and tracked her down. Prudence Charmondeley had in fact been a great lady of noble birth. Her estate lay just a few miles out of the city, and she was known by her staff to go on what she called "little jaunts to friends" for days at a time. They never suspected that she spent her "away time" on the street or in basements, sheds, and abandoned shops... She also had been building her already considerable fortune with weekly bank deposits of hundreds of pounds!!....all made in small change!! Her butler told the press that it had always puzzled him when he would help her carry little paper bags filled with coins....

After all the legal rigamarole, she left vast amounts of money to her loving servants, to various friends of hers on the street, and finally to the building of a luxurious sanctuary for wayward cats and stray dogs who had been her trusted confidantes and dinner companions through the years! The townhouse in Belgravia still stands and has a bronze plaque on it inscribed "The Charmondeley Foundation For Four-Legged Friends Of Humans"....

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Happy Birthday to the Cullinan Diamond!… January 26th, 1905…

Happy Birthday to the Cullinan Diamond.... the largest gem-quality diamond ever found, at 3106.75 carat (621.35 g, 1.37 lb) rough weight. About 10.5 cm (4.1 inches) long in its largest dimension, it was found on 26 January 1905, in the Premier No. 2 mine, near Pretoria, South Africa. 

In 1905 due to the immense value of the Cullinan, the authorities in charge of the transportation were posed with a huge potential security problem. Detectives from London were placed on a steamboat that was rumored to carry the stone, where a parcel was ceremoniously placed in the Captain's safe and guarded throughout the entire journey. However this was a diversionary tactic. The stone on that ship was a fake, meant to attract those who would be interested in stealing it. The actual diamond was sent to England in a plain box via parcel post, albeit registered.

It was cut into three large parts by Asscher Brothers of Amsterdam, and eventually into 9 large gem-quality stones and a number of smaller fragments. At the time, technology had not yet evolved to guarantee quality of the modern standard, and cutting the diamond was considered difficult and risky. To enable Asscher to cleave the diamond in one blow, an incision was made, half an inch deep. Then, a specifically designed knife was placed in the incision and the diamond was split in one heavy blow. The diamond split through a defective spot, which was shared in both halves of the diamond.

The story goes that when the diamond was split, the knife broke during the first attempt. "The tale is told of Joseph Asscher, the greatest cleaver of the day," wrote Matthew Hart in his book Diamond: A Journey to the Heart of an Obsession, "that when he prepared to cleave the largest diamond ever known, the 3,106 carats (621.2 g) Cullinan, he had a doctor and nurse standing by and when he finally struck the diamond and it broke perfectly in two, he fainted dead away." Lord Ian Balfour, in his book "Famous Diamonds" (2000), dispels the fainting story, stating it was more likely Joseph Asscher would have celebrated, opening a bottle of champagne.

The largest polished gem from the stone is named Cullinan I or the Great Star of Africa, and at 530.4 carats (106.08 g) was the largest polished diamond in the world until the 1985 discovery of the Golden Jubilee Diamond, 545.67 carats (109.134 g), also from the Premier Mine. Cullinan I is now mounted in the head of the Sceptre with the Cross. The second largest gem from the Cullinan stone, Cullinan II or the Second Star of Africa, at 317.4 carats (63.48 g), is the fourth largest polished diamond in the world. Both gems are in the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. The Cullinan was split and cut into 9 major stones and 96 smaller stones. Edward VII had the Cullinan I and Cullinan II set respectively into the Sceptre with the Cross and the Imperial State Crown, while the remainder of the seven larger stones and the 96 smaller brilliants remained in the possession of the Dutch diamond cutting firm of Messrs I. J. Asscher of Amsterdam who had split and cut the Cullinan, until the South African Government bought these stones and the High Commissioner of the Union of South Africa presented them to Queen Mary on 28 June 1910.

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