Attila the Hun was the last and most powerful king of the European
Huns. He reigned from 434 until his death over what was then Europe's
largest empire, which stretched from Central Europe to the Black Sea
and from the Danube River to the Baltic. During his rule he was among
the direst enemies of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires: he
invaded the Balkans twice, encircling Constantinople in the second
invasion; he marched through France as far as Orleans before being
turned back at Chalons; and he drove the western emperor Valentinian
III from his capital at Ravenna in 452. Though his empire died with
him and he left no remarkable legacy, he has become a legendary
figure in the history of Europe: he is remembered as the epitome of
cruelty and rapacity in much of Western Europe; while he is lionized
as a great king in the national history of Hungary.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila_the_Hun
Today's selected anniversaries:
1740 Maria Theresa, an "enlightened monarch", assumed the throne
of Austria, succeeding her father, Charles VI.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa_of_Austria)
1827 An allied British, French, and Russian naval force
destroyed a combined Turkish and Egyptian fleet at the
Battle of Navarino, a decisive moment in the Greek War of
Independence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Navarino)
1935 The Chinese People's Liberation Army completed the Long
March from Jiangxi province in southern China to in Shaanxi
province, an organized maneuver covering a distance of 6000
km (3700 mi.)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March)
1968 Former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek
shipping business magnate Aristotle Onassis
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Kennedy_Onassis)
1973 The Sydney Opera House was formally opened by Queen
Elizabeth II. The opening was televised and included
fireworks and a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that
is granted, all else follows." ~ George Orwell in Nineteen
Eighty-Four
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty%2dFour)
The margin of error is an expression of the extent to which a poll's
reported percentages would vary if the same poll were taken multiple
times. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one has
that the poll's reported percentages are close to the "true"
percentages, i.e. the percentages in the whole population. The margin
of error can be calculated directly from the sample size (the number
of poll respondents) and may be reported at different levels of
confidence - the 99 percent level is more conservative, while the 95
percent level is more common.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error
Today's selected anniversaries:
202 BC At the Battle of Zama, Carthaginian general Hannibal was
defeated by Roman proconsul Scipio Africanus, ending the
Second Punic War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zama)
1781 After losing the Battle of Yorktown, British forces led by
Lord Charles Cornwallis officially surrendered, ending the
American Revolutionary War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War)
1943 Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis,
was first isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptomycin)
1985 The first Blockbuster Video store opened in Dallas, Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_Video)
1987 Black Monday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 22%,
the largest one-day decline in history. Stock markets
around the world soon followed with similar collapses.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday)
Wikiquote of the day:
"These children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds
are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what
they're going through..." ~ David Bowie
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Bowie)
Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated Darwin,
Australia, on 24-25 December, 1974. It was recorded by The Age as
being a "disaster of the first magnitude... and without parallel in
Australia's history." It killed 65 people and destroyed over 70
percent of Darwin's buildings, leaving over 20,000 people homeless.
Most of Darwin's population was evacuated to Adelaide, Whyalla, Alice
Springs and Sydney and many never returned to Darwin. The town was
subsequently rebuilt with newer materials and techniques. Cyclone
Tracy, due to its severity, has entered into Australian popular
culture in a way that no other meteorological event had before, or
has since.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Tracy
Today's selected anniversaries:
1009 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church now
within the walled Old City of Jerusalem, was destroyed by
the "mad" Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre)
1851 "Moby-Dick", a novel by Herman Melville, was first
published as "The Whale".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick)
1922 The British Broadcasting Company was founded by a
consortium to establish a network of radio transmitters to
provide a national broadcasting service in the United
Kingdom.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC)
1954 Texas Instruments introduced the first transistor radio.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio)
1977 German Autumn: a national crisis revolving around the
kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer in Cologne and the
hijacking of a Lufthansa airplane to Somalia by the Red
Army Faction (RAF) came to an end when various RAF members
committed suicide in prison and Schleyer was executed in
France. The German government later stated that it would
never again negotiate with terrorists.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try." ~ "Yoda" in Star Wars
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Wars)
The Roche limit is the distance within which an object (typically a
satellite in orbit) near a celestial body (typically a moon, planet
or star) and held together only by its own gravity will start to
disintegrate due to tidal forces exceeding the satellite's
gravitational self-attraction. Within the Roche limit the net forces
experienced by opposite ends of the satellite, gravity acting more
strongly on the side closest to the body orbited and less strongly on
the far side, are stronger than the force holding the satellite
together, the satellite's own gravitational attraction. The term is
named after Édouard Roche, the French astronomer who first
discovered this theoretical limit in 1848.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit
Today's selected anniversaries:
1469 Ferdinand II of Aragon married Isabella of Castile. Their
marriage led to the unification of Aragon and Castile into
a single country, Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_II_of_Aragon)
1604 Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler
observed that an exceptionally bright star had suddenly
appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus. This 'new star'
turned out to be the last supernova observed in our own
galaxy, the Milky Way.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1604)
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake: The largest earthquake to occur on
the San Andreas Fault in California since 1906, struck the
San Francisco Bay Area at 5:04 pm local time and measured
7.1 on the Richter scale.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loma_Prieta_earthquake)
2003 The pinnacle was fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a
106-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the
Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 50 meters (165
feet) and become the World's tallest building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Nothing endures but change." ~ Heraclitus
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heraclitus)
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25
October 1760 until 1 January 1801, and thereafter King of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death. During George
III's reign, Great Britain lost many of its colonies in North
America; the rebellious colonies later formed the United States. Also
during his reign, the realms of Great Britain and Ireland united to
form the United Kingdom. George III suffered from a mental disease,
now thought to be porphyria. After a final relapse in 1811, George's
eldest son, The Prince George, Prince of Wales reigned as Prince
Regent. Upon George III's death, the Prince of Wales succeeded his
father to become George IV.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III_of_the_United_Kingdom
Today's selected anniversaries:
456 Magister militum Ricimer defeated the Emperor Avitus at
Piacenza and became master of the western Roman Empire. He
spent the rest of his life as the Patrician, ruling through
a number of puppet emperors.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricimer)
1813 The Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon Bonaparte in the
Battle of Leipzig, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic
Wars .
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leipzig)
1940 Warsaw Ghetto, the largest of the Jewish ghettos in Nazi
Germany-occupied Poland, was established by the German
Generalgouverneur Hans Frank.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto)
1978 Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła became Pope John Paul II,
the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first ever
from a Slavic country.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II)
2002 Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, a
commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in
antiquity, was officially inaugurated.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotheca_Alexandrina)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens
can change the world." ~ Margaret Mead
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead)
The Humpback Whale is a mammal which belongs to the baleen whale
suborder. It is a large whale: an adult usually ranges between 12-16m
long and weighs approximately 36 metric tons. It is well known for
its breaching (leaping out of the water) and its complex whale song.
Humpback Whales live in oceans and seas around the world, and are
regularly sought out by whale-watchers. Humpback Whales are easy to
identify. It has a stocky body with an obvious hump and black
upperparts. The head and lower jaw are covered with knobs called
tubercles, and are actually hair follicles that are characteristic of
the species. The tail flukes, which are lifted high in the dive
sequence, have wavy rear edges.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpback_Whale
Today's selected anniversaries:
1582 Pope Gregory XIII implemented the Gregorian Calendar. In
Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, October 4 of this year
was followed immediately by October 15, skipping over 10
calendar days. Other countries followed at various later
dates.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_Calendar)
1815 Napoleon I of France began his exile on St. Helena, a
remote island in the Atlantic Ocean.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_I_of_France)
1894 The Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery
officer in the French military, was wrongly arrested for
treason in a political scandal later exposed by �mile
Zola.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dreyfus)
1917 Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari, also a courtesan who might
have had affairs with many military officers and
politicians in France, was executed by a firing squad for
spying for Germany.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mata_Hari)
2003 China launched Shenzhou 5, their first manned space
mission, with Lt. Col. Yang Liwei aboard as the republic's
first astronaut.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_5)
Wikiquote of the day:
"It is better to debate a question without deciding it than to
decide it without debate." ~ Joseph Joubert
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Joubert)
Rondane National Park was the first national park in Norway,
established on December 21, 1962. The park contains a number of
peaks, with the highest being Rondslottet. It is an important habitat
for herds of wild reindeer. The park was extended in 2003, in Oppland
and Hedmark. Rondane lies just to the east of Gudbrandsdal and two
other mountain areas, Dovre and Jotunheimen are nearby. As well as
being known for its beauty, Rondane is the setting for Henrik Ibsen's
play Peer Gynt.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondane_National_Park
Today's selected anniversaries:
1066 Battle of Hastings: The Norman invasion forces of William
the Conqueror defeated the English army and killed King
Harold II of England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings)
1926 The children's book "Winnie-the-Pooh", by A. A. Milne, was
published for the first time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie_the_Pooh)
1947 Chuck Yeager flew a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of
sound, the first person to do so in level flight.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager)
1953 Qibya massacre: Israeli military commander Ariel Sharon and
his Unit 101 special forces were ordered to "inflict heavy
damage on the inhabitants" in a village on the West Bank.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibya_massacre)
1981 Hosni Mubarak was elected President of Egypt, one week
after Anwar Sadat was assassinated.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosni_Mubarak)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is
finished: If you're alive, it isn't." ~ Richard Bach
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Bach)
In the history of cryptography, the Enigma machine was a portable
cipher machine used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. More
precisely, Enigma was a family of related electro-mechanical rotor
machines — there are a variety of different models. The Enigma was
used commercially from the early 1920s on, and was also adopted by
military and governmental services of a number of nations — most
famously, by Nazi Germany before and during World War II. The German
military model, the Wehrmacht Enigma, is the version most commonly
discussed. Allied codebreakers were, in many cases, able to decrypt
messages protected by the machine (see cryptanalysis of the Enigma).
The intelligence gained through this source — codenamed ULTRA — was a
significant aid to the Allied war effort. Some historians have
suggested that the end of the European war was hastened by up to a
year or more because of the decryption of German ciphers.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine
Today's selected anniversaries:
54 Claudius I was fatally poisoned by his wife Agrippina the
younger, making her 17-year old son Nero the next Roman
Emperor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero)
1307 Grand Master Jacques de Molay and thousands of members of
the Knights Templar, a monastic military order, were
simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair and
subsequently tortured into "admitting" heresy. From that
Friday on, Friday the 13th was considered by followers of
the Templars as an evil and unlucky day.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar)
1843 The Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, the oldest
continually-operating Jewish service organization in the
world, was founded in New York City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27nai_B%27rith)
1845 Voters in the Republic of Texas approved a proposed
constitution, that if accepted by the United States
Congress, would make Texas a U.S. state.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas)
1943 World War II: With a new government led by General Pietro
Badoglio, parts of Italy switched sides to the Allies and
declared war on Germany and Japan as well as Northern Italy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Badoglio)
Wikiquote of the day:
"So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem
improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become
inevitable." ~ Christopher Reeve
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Reeve)
"Vulgar Latin" is a blanket term covering the vernacular dialects of
the Latin language spoken mostly in the western provinces of the
Roman Empire, starting from the second and third century CE, until
its direct merging with the early Romance languages in the ninth
century. This spoken Latin differed from the literary language of
classical Latin in its pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Some
features of Vulgar Latin did not appear until the late Empire. Other
features are likely to have been in place in spoken Latin, in at
least its basilectal forms, much earlier. Our knowledge of Vulgar
Latin comes from three chief sources. First, the comparative method
can reconstruct the underlying forms from the attested Romance
languages, and note where they differ from classical Latin. Second,
various prescriptive grammar texts from the late Latin period condemn
linguistic errors that Latin users were likely to commit, providing
insight into how Latin speakers used their language. Finally, the
solecisms and non-Classical usages that occasionally are found in
late Latin texts also shed light on the spoken language of the writer.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin
Today's selected anniversaries:
1810 The first Oktoberfest was held in Munich.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest)
1960 Nikita Khrushchev became enraged at a United Nations
conference and told the Filipino delegate that he was "a
jerk, a stooge and a lackey of imperialism."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev)
1999 A military coup in Pakistan led by General
Pervez Musharraf ousted the government of Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Musharraf)
2002 A terrorist bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali killed
202 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Bali_terrorist_bombing)
Wikiquote of the day:
"I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something
inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to
do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in
me. All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that
unites all life, everything that is on this planet." ~ Wangari
Maathai
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wangari_Maathai)
The Hebrew calendar is the annual calendar used in Judaism. It is a
lunisolar calendar, based upon both lunar months and a solar cycle
(which defines its years). This is in contrast to the Gregorian
calendar, which is based solely upon a solar cycle, or the Islamic
calendar, which is purely lunar. Jews use this calendar to determine
when the new Hebrew months start; this calendar determines the Jewish
holidays, which Torah portions to read, and which set of Psalms
should be read each day. Jews have been using a lunisolar calendar
since Biblical times, but originally referred to the months by number
rather than name. The epoch of the modern Hebrew calendar is Monday,
October 7, 3761 BCE, corresponding to 1 Tishri AM 1 (AM meaning Anno
Mundi, "in the year of the world"). This date is about one year
before the traditional Jewish date of Creation on 25 Elul AM 1.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar
Today's selected anniversaries:
1899 A second Boer War erupted between the United Kingdom and
the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State in South
Africa.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War)
1962 Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convened the first
ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council)
1954 Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh took control of North
Vietnam, which then became a communist state.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Minh)
1968 NASA launched Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_7)
1975 Saturday Night Live was broadcasted for the first time
(George Carlin was guest host).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live)
Wikiquote of the day:
"You are educated when you have the ability to listen to almost
anything without losing your temper or self-confidence." ~ Robert
Frost
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Frost)