IN: Randi was born on August 7, 1928 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of Marie Alice (nee Paradis) and George Randall Zwinge. He has a younger brother and sister. He took up magic after seeing Harry Blackstone Sr. and reading conjuring books while spending 13 months in a body cast following a bicycle accident. He confounded doctors who expected he would never walk again.

Randi is the author of ten books, among them Conjuring (1992), a biographical history of noted magicians. The book is subtitled Being a Definitive History of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who have Perpetrated these Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, in short, MAGIC! The book's cover says that it is by "James Randi, Esq., A Contrite Rascal Once Dedicated to these Wicked Practices but Now Almost Totally Reformed". The book selects the most influential magicians and tells some of their history, often in the context of strange deaths and careers on the road. This work expanded on Randi's second book titled Houdini, His Life and Art. This illustrated work was published in 1976 and was co-authored with Bert Sugar. It focuses on the professional and private life of Houdini. Randi also wrote a children's book in 1989 titled The Magic World of the Amazing Randi, which introduced children to magic tricks. In addition to his magic books, he has written several educational works about paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. These include biographies of Uri Geller and Nostradamus as well as reference material on other major paranormal figures. He is currently working on A Magician in the Laboratory, which recounts his application of skepticism to science. He was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of his good friend Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. Other books are Flim-Flam! (1982), The Faith Healers (1987), James Randi, Psychic Investigator (1991), Test Your ESP Potential (1982) and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural (1995). Randi was a regular contributor to Skeptic magazine, penning the "'Twas Brillig..." column, and also served on its editorial board. He is also a frequent contributor to Skeptical Inquirer magazine, which is published by CSI, of which he is also a Fellow.

what else did he publish as an author?

OUT: Other books are Flim-Flam! (1982), The Faith Healers (1987), James Randi, Psychic Investigator (1991), Test Your ESP Potential (1982)

IN: Richard was born on 2 October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle, the twelfth of thirteen children of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville at the beginning of what has traditionally been labelled the "Wars of the Roses", a period of "three or four decades of political instability and periodic open civil war in the second half of the fifteenth century", between supporters of Richard's father (a potential claimant to the throne of King Henry VI from birth)--"Yorkists"--in opposition to the regime of Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and those loyal to the crown ("Lancastrians"). When his father and the Nevilles were forced to flee to Ludlow in 1459, Richard and his older brother, George (later Duke of Clarence), were placed in the custody of the Duchess of Buckingham, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. When his father and elder brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were killed at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460, Richard, who was eight years old, and George were sent by his mother, the Duchess of York, to the Low Countries. They returned to England following the defeat of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton and participated in the coronation of Richard's eldest brother as King Edward IV in June 1461.

In 1485, following his death in battle against Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field, Richard III's body was buried in Greyfriars Church in Leicester. Following the discoveries of Richard's remains in 2012, it was decided that they should be reburied at Leicester Cathedral, despite feelings in some quarters that he should have been reburied in York Minster. His remains were carried in procession to the cathedral on 22 March 2015, and reburied on 26 March 2015 at a religious re-burial service at which both the Right Reverend Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester, and the Most Reverend Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated. The British Royal Family was represented by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Countess of Wessex. The actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who is a distant relation of the king and later portrayed him in The Hollow Crown television series, read a poem by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. His cathedral tomb was designed by the architects van Heyningen and Haward. The tombstone is deeply incised with a cross, and consists of a rectangular block of white Swaledale fossil stone, quarried in North Yorkshire. It sits on a low plinth made of dark Kilkenny marble, incised with Richard's name, dates and motto (Loyaulte me lie - loyalty binds me). The plinth also carries his coat of arms in pietra dura. The remains of Richard III are in a lead-lined coffin, inside an outer English oak coffin crafted by Michael Ibsen, a direct descendant of Richard's sister Anne of York, and laid in a brick-lined vault below the floor, and below the plinth and tombstone. The original 2010 raised tomb design had been proposed by Langley's "Looking For Richard Project" and fully funded by members of the Richard III Society. The proposal was publicly launched by the Society on 13 February 2013 but rejected by Leicester Cathedral in favour of a memorial slab. However, following a public outcry, the Cathedral changed its position and on 18 July 2013 announced its agreement to give King Richard III a raised tomb monument.

Was this a big deal?

OUT:
His cathedral tomb was designed by the architects van Heyningen and Haward.