There are three types of Japanese toilets. The oldest type is a
simple Asian squat toilet, which is still common in public restrooms.
After World War II, modern Western-type flush toilets and urinals
became common. Current state of the art is a high-tech bidet toilet,
known as a Washlet, which as of 2004 is installed in over half of
all Japanese households. These high-tech toilets include a built-in
bidet for both the anus and vulva, where a water jet cleans the
private regions of the user. Many additional features are also often
included, such as a blow dryer, seat heating, massage options and
other adjustments for the water jet of the bidet, automatic opening
of the lid and flushing after use, a wireless toilet control panel,
heating and air conditioning for the toilet room, etc.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_toilet
Today's selected anniversaries:
1871 "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?": Henry Morton Stanley located
missing missionary and explorer, David Livingstone in
Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika in presentday Tanzania.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley)
1928 Hirohito was crowned the 124th Emperor of Japan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito)
1969 Sesame Street debuted on National Educational Television.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street)
1975 The United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution
3379, which equated Zionism with racism.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_General_Assembly_Resolution_3379)
1995 Playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa along
with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the
Ogoni People were executed by the Nigerian military
government.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro%2dWiwa)
Wikiquote of the day:
"The time has come", the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes - and ships - and sealing wax -
Of cabbages - and Kings -
And why the Sea is boiling hot -
And whether pigs have wings."
~ Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Through_the_Looking%2dGlass)
The Shrine of Remembrance, located in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, is
one of the largest war memorials in Australia. It was built as a
memorial to the the 114,000 men and women of Victoria who served in
World War I, but soon came to be seen as Australia's major memorial
to all the 60,000 Australians who died in that war. It now serves as
a memorial for all Australians who served in war, and is the site of
annual observances of ANZAC Day (25 April) and Remembrance Day (11
November). Around the Sanctuary walls is a frieze of 12 carved panels
depicting the armed services at work and in action during World War
I. The Sanctuary is surrounded by a narrow walkway called the
Ambulatory. Along the Ambulatory are 42 bronze caskets containing
hand-written, illuminated Books of Remembrance with the names of
every Victorian who enlisted for active service with the Australian
Imperial Force (AIF) or Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary
Force in World War I or died in camp prior to embarkation.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_Remembrance
Today's selected anniversaries:
1799 The 18 Brumaire coup led by Emmanuel Joseph Siey�s and
Napol�on Bonaparte deposed the government of France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18_Brumaire)
1872 The Great Boston Fire of 1872 began, eventually destroying
over 700 buildings in Boston, Massachusetts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Boston_Fire_of_1872)
1965 In the Northeast Blackout of 1965 several U.S. states and
parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up
to 13 1/2 hours.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_1965)
1989 The Berlin Wall fell, marking the beginning of the collapse
of the Soviet Union and communism in Europe
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall)
Wikiquote of the day:
"It took a couple of hundred million years to develop a thinking
ape and you want a smart one in a lousy few hundred thousand?" ~
Spider Robinson
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Spider_Robinson)
The Parliament of Canada is Canada's legislative branch, seated at
Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario. According to section 17 of the
Constitution Act, 1867, Parliament consists of three components: the
Sovereign, the Senate, and the House of Commons. The Sovereign is
normally represented by the Governor General, who appoints the 105
members of the Senate on the advice of the Prime Minister. The 308
members of the House of Commons are directly elected by the people,
with each member representing a single electoral district (or
riding). The democratically elected "Lower House," the House of
Commons, is the dominant branch of the Canadian Parliament. The
"Upper House," the Senate, rarely opposes the will of the other
Chamber, and the duties of the Sovereign and Governor General are
purely ceremonial. The Prime Minister and Cabinet must retain the
support of a majority of Members of the Lower House in order to
remain in office; they need not have the confidence of the Upper
House.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Canada
Today's selected anniversaries:
1519 Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlán where
Aztec ruler Moctezuma II welcomed him with great pomp as
would befit a returning god.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern%E1n_Cort%E9s)
1793 In Paris, the Louvre was opened to the public as a museum
by the French Revolutionary government.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre)
1895 Wilhelm Röntgen discovered x-rays.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_R%F6ntgen)
1942 Operation Torch of World War II began when United States
and United Kingdom forces landed in French North Africa.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch)
2002 The UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441
forcing Iraq to disarm or face "serious consequences".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to
all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer
memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do." ~ Wendell Berry
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry)
The Lord Chancellor is one of the most senior and important
functionaries in the government of the United Kingdom. He is a Great
Officer of State, and is appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of
the Prime Minister and is, by convention, always a peer, although
there is no legal impediment to the appointment of a commoner. The
Lord Chancellor's responsibilities are wide-ranging; they include
presiding over the House of Lords, participating in the Cabinet,
acting as the custodian of the Great Seal and heading the judiciary.
Concerns over these wide-ranging powers have led to a proposal to
abolish the office from Tony Blair's ministry. A bill to achieve the
desired effect has been proposed, but has not been passed into law.
Since 2003, Lord Falconer of Thoroton has served as Lord Chancellor.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Chancellor
Today's selected anniversaries:
1688 Glorious Revolution: Protestant Prince William of Orange
landed at Brixham in Devon, on his way to depose his
father-in-law King James II, the last Catholic monarch in
England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution)
1838 The United States of Central America began to disintegrate
when Honduras separated from the federation.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Central_America)
1872 Suffragette Susan B. Anthony voted in the U.S. presidential
election for the first time. She was later fined $100 for
this.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_B._Anthony)
1917 St. Tikhon of Moscow was elected the Patriarch of Moscow
and of the Russian Orthodox Church.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikhon_of_Moscow)
1935 Parker Brothers released the board game Monopoly.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_%28game%29)
Wikiquote of the day:
"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US." ~ CATS of Zero Wing
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zero_Wing)
Baroque was a cultural movement and style in European art,
originating around 1600 in Rome. The Council of Trent (1545-63), in
which the Roman Catholic Church answered many questions of internal
reform, addressed the representational arts by demanding that
paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the
illiterate rather than to the well-informed. This turn toward a
populist conception of the function of ecclesiastical art is seen by
many art historians as driving the innovations of Caravaggio and the
Carracci brothers, all of whom were working (and competing for
commissions) in Rome around 1600. The appeal of Baroque style turned
consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th century
Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed
an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, and theatrical.
Baroque art drew on certain broad and heroic tendencies in Annibale
Caracci and his circle, and found inspiration in other artists like
Correggio and Caravaggio and Federico Barocci, nowadays sometimes
termed 'proto-Baroque'. Germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be
found in the work of Michelangelo.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque
Today's selected anniversaries:
1852 Count Cavour became the prime minister of
Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expanded to become Italy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Camillo_Benso_di_Cavour)
1869 Nature, one of the oldest and most reputable general
purpose scientific journals, was first published.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_%28journal%29)
1956 Soviet troops invaded Hungary to crush the Hungarian
Uprising, killing thousands. Nearly a quarter million fled
the country as refugees.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Hungarian_Revolution)
1979 Iranian radicals seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held
the occupants hostage for 444 days.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis)
1995 Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was mortally wounded
at a peace rally in Tel Aviv by Yigal Amir.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin)
Wikiquote of the day:
"I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown.
It places me on a far higher plane than any politician." ~ Charlie
Chaplin
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin)
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, mystic and public
figure. Yeats was one of the driving forces behind the Irish Literary
Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. His early work
tended towards a romantic lushness and dreamlike quality best
described by the title of his 1893 collection The Celtic Twilight,
but in his 40s, inspired by his relationships with modernist poets
such as Ezra Pound and his active involvement in Irish nationalist
politics, he moved towards a harder, more modern style. As well as
his role as member of the board of the Abbey, Yeats served as an
Irish Senator. He took his role as a public figure seriously and was
a reasonably hard-working member of the Seanad. He was awarded the
Nobel Prize for literature in 1923 for what the Nobel Committee
described as "his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic
form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation".
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Butler_Yeats
Today's selected anniversaries:
1793 French playwright, journalist and outspoken feminist Olympe
de Gouges was guillotined for her revolutionary ideas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympe_de_Gouges)
1838 The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English
language daily broadsheet newspaper was founded.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_India)
1848 A new constitution of the Netherlands drafted by Johan
Rudolf Thorbecke, severely limiting the powers of the
monarchy, was proclaimed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Rudolf_Thorbecke)
1957 The Sputnik 2 spacecraft was launched, carrying Laika the
Russian space dog, the first living being to orbit the
Earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_2)
1971 The UNIX Programmer's Manual was first published.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX)
Wikiquote of the day:
"We'd all like t'vote fer th'best man, but he's never a candidate."
~ Kin Hubbard
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kin_Hubbard)
Air Force One is the airline call sign of any U.S. Air Force aircraft
carrying the President of the United States. Since 1990, the
presidential fleet has consisted of two specifically-configured,
highly customized Boeing 747-200B series aircraft—tail numbers 28000
and 29000—with Air Force designation VC-25A. These planes are
maintained by the U.S. Air Force solely for presidential air
transport. From its inception, Air Force One has become a symbol of
Presidential power and prestige, carrying the president on several
diplomatic missions. Before these planes entered service, two Boeing
707-320B-type aircraft—tail numbers 26000 and 27000—had operated as
Air Force One, starting in 1962. The Secret Service refers to Air
Force One by the codename "Angel."
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_One
Today's selected anniversaries:
1817 The Bank of Montreal, Canada's oldest chartered bank,
opened in Montreal, Quebec.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Montreal)
1917 The Balfour Declaration proclaimed British support for
Jewish settlements in Palestine.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_1917)
1947 Howard Hughes flew Spruce Goose, the largest flying boat
ever built, on its maiden flight in Long Beach, California.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Goose)
1959 After being struck in the face with a hockey puck, Jacques
Plante played the rest of the game wearing a goalie mask,
now an everyday equipment for goalkeepers in ice hockey.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Plante)
2000 The first crew arrived at the International Space Station.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station)
Wikiquote of the day:
"The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes,
which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the
philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all
events profitable, all days holy, all men divine." ~ Ralph Waldo
Emerson
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson)
The World Wide Web is a distributed hypertext system that operates
over the Internet. Hypertext is browsed using a program called a web
browser which retrieves pieces of information (called "documents" or
"web pages") from web servers (or "web sites") and displays them on
your screen. You can then follow hyperlinks on each page to other
documents or even send information back to the server to interact
with it. The act of following hyperlinks is often called "surfing"
the web. The Web can be traced back to a project at CERN in 1989 when
Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau built ENQUIRE.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web
Today's selected anniversaries:
1512 The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican was
re-painted in fresco by Michelangelo Buonarroti.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel)
1755 Lisbon was destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami,
killing between sixty and ninety thousand people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake)
1800 John Adams became the first President of the United States
to take residence in the Executive Mansion, later re-named
the White House.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House)
1954 The "Front de Lib�ration Nationale" began the Algerian War of
Independence against French rule, with guerrilla attacks in
various parts of Algeria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War_of_Independence)
1963 The Arecibo Observatory, with the world's largest radio
telescope, officially opened in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Merry meet, and merry part, and Blessed Be." ~ A pagan expression
of blessing.