A mains power plug is a mechanical connector that fits into a power
point or electrical socket. It has male features, usually brass and
often tin or nickel plated, that interface mechanically and
electrically to the mains. Such plugs have live, neutral and an
optional earth contact. Large appliances with higher voltages use
three-phase current and have phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, neutral and
an optional earth contact. The reason why we now have over a dozen
different styles of plugs and wall outlets is because many countries
preferred to develop plug designs of their own, instead of adopting
a common standard. In many countries, there is no single standard,
with multiple plug designs in use, creating extra complexity and
potential safety problems for users.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_power_plug
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1813 - The Battle of Lake Erie is fought between the United States
and Great Britain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Erie)
* 1960 - Mickey Mantle hit what is thought to be the Major League's
longest home run an estimated 643 feet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mantle)
* 1974 - Guinea-Bissau's independence from Portugal is officially
recognized.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea-Bissau)
* 2003 - Anna Lindh, the foreign minister of Sweden was stabbed and
died of the wounds on September 11.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Lindh)
Wikiquote of the day:
"The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not
discouraged— keep on— there are divine things, well envelop'd;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words
can tell." -- Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman)
The Milgram experiment was a famous scientific experiment of social
psychology described by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram
in 1974. It was intended to measure the willingness of a subject to
obey an authority who instructs the subject to do something that may
conflict with the subject's personal conscience. The subject is
assigned the role of "teacher". He is then given simple memory tasks
to give to the "learner" (an actor) and instructed to administer a
shock by pressing a button each time the learner makes a mistake.
He is also told that the voltage is to be raised by 15 volts after
each mistake. In reality, there are no actual shocks being given to
the learner - he is acting. The experiment raised questions about the
ethics of scientific experimentation itself because of the extreme
emotional stress suffered by the subjects. Most modern scientists
would consider the experiment unethical today, though it resulted in
valuable insights into human psychology.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1839 - John Herschel took the first glass plate photograph.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Herschel)
* 1942 - World War II: A Japanese floatplane dropped an incendiary
bomb on Oregon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War)
* 1982 - Princess Grace of Monaco died a day after suffering a stroke
whilst driving.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Kelly)
* 2001 - Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, was
assassinated in Afghanistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Shah_Massoud)
Wikiquote of the day:
"I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved.
I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of
silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of
light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are
very dear." -- George Eliot
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Eliot)
In prosody, alliterative verse is any of a number of closely related
verse forms that are the common inheritance of the older Germanic
languages. This was the verse form in which the Old English epic
Beowulf was written, as well as most of the other Old English poetry;
so were the Bavarian Muspillo and the Old Saxon Heliand. A modified
form of alliterative verse is found in the Elder Edda. Alliterative
verse exists from the earliest attested monuments of the Germanic
languages; extended passages of alliterative verse are attested in
Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, and Old Saxon. The basic
shape of the inherited form of alliterative verse is that a line of
verse is divided into two half-lines by a cæsura, and each half-line
has two strongly stressed words, or "lifts."
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_verse
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1331 - Stefan Dušan declared himself king of Serbia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Dusan)
* 1636 - A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony establishes Harvard College as the first college
founded in the Americas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University)
* 1900 - Galveston Hurricane of 1900: A powerful hurricane hits
Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900)
* 1941 - World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins - German forces begin
a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad)
* 1978 - Iranian Revolution: Mass protests in Tehran were met with
military tanks and helicopter gunship on Black Friday.
Hundreds of demonstrators were killed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King%2C_Jr.)
Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 1558-11-17
until her death. Sometimes referred to as The Virgin Queen, Elizabeth
I was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding her
half-sister, Mary I. She reigned over a period of deep religious
division in English history. Elizabeth's reign is referred to as the
Elizabethan era and was marked by several changes in English culture.
Elizabeth was a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler. Like her
father Henry VIII, she was a writer and poet. She granted Royal
Charters to several famous organisations, including Trinity College,
Dublin (1592) and the British East India Company (1600).
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England
Today's selected anniversaries:
September 7: Independence Day in Brazil (1822)
* 1191 - Saladin and the Seljuk Turks were defeated by the Crusaders
in the Battle of Arsuf.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arsuf)
* 1818 - Carl III of Sweden was crowned king of Norway.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XIV_of_Sweden)
* 1940 - The Blitz began when Nazi Germany bombs landed on London,
England, the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz)
* 1986 - Desmond Tutu became the first black to lead the Anglican
Church in South Africa.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu)
* 1997 - The first test flight of the F/A-22 Raptor took place.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F/A-22_Raptor)
Wikiquote of the day:
"In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is
misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood."
-- Henry David Thoreau
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau)
The Warsaw Uprising was an armed struggle during the Second World War
by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German
occupation and Nazi rule. It started on 1944-08-01 as a part of a
nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the
German-led forces until October 2. An estimated 85% of the city was
destroyed during the urban guerrilla war and after the end of
hostilities. The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the
Soviet army was approaching Warsaw. Although the Soviet army was within
a few hundred metres of the city from September 16 onward, the link
between the uprising and the advancing army was never made. This failure
and the reasons behind it have been a matter of controversy ever since.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1522 - The Victoria, carrying Juan Sebastián Elcano and 17 survivors
of Ferdinand Magellan's 265-man expedition, returned to Sanlúcar
de Barrameda, Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate
the globe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Sebasti%E1n_Elcano)
* 1901 - U.S. President William McKinley is fatally wounded by anarchist
Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley)
* 1972 - Munich Massacre : Israeli athletes and coaches were killed by
terrorists known as 'Black September' at the Olympic Games.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Massacre)
* 1995 - Baltimore Oriole shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. played his 2131st
consecutive professional baseball games, breaking the 56-year old
record set by New York Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Ripken_Jr.)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you
have received." -- Seneca
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Seneca)
Anno Domini (Latin for "In the Year of the Lord"; commonly abbreviated
AD) refers to the conventional numbering of years in the Julian and
Gregorian calendars. It defines an epoch based on the traditionally
reckoned year of the birth of Jesus. Years before the epoch were
denoted a.C.n. (for Ante Christum Natum, Latin for "before the birth
of Christ"), although BC (Before Christ) is now usually used in
English. The Anno Domini era is the only system in everyday use in the
Western hemisphere, and the main system for commercial and scientific
use in the rest of the world. Some non-Christians or secular persons,
however, object to a system based upon an event in the Christian faith;
for this reason, the same epoch is also referred to as the Common Era,
abbreviated CE.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1666 - The Great Fire of London ended after burning for three days.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London)
* 1793 - In France, the French National Convention voted to implement
terror measures to repress French Revolutionary activities.
The ensuing "Reign of Terror" lasted until the spring of 1794
and killed 35,000-40,000 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror)
* 1836 - Sam Houston was elected as the first president of the
Republic of Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston)
* 1877 - Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United
States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse
at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse_%28person%29)
* 1977 - At 12:56 (UTC), Voyager 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral,
Florida on a mission to leave the solar system
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1)
Wikiquote of the day:
"The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails."
-- William Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare)
In computer security, PaX is a patch for the Linux kernel that
implements least privilege protections for memory pages. This approach
allows computer programs to do only what they have to be able to do to
execute properly, and nothing more. PaX flags data memory as non-
executable and program memory as non-writable; and randomly arranges
the program memory. This effectively prevents many security exploits,
such as those stemming from buffer overflows. The former prevents
direct code injection absolutely; while the latter makes so-called
return-to-libc (ret2libc) attacks indeterminate, relying on luck to
succeed. PaX was first released in 2000.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PaX
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 476 - Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman
Empire, was deposed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_Augustus)
* 1781 - Los Angeles was founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la
Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula by 44 Spanish
settlers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles%2C_California)
* 1870 - France's Third Republic was declared.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Republic)
* 1888 - Inventor George Eastman registered the trademark "Kodak".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eastman)
* 1957 - Little Rock Crisis: The Governor of Arkansas tried to prevent
nine African-American students from attending Little Rock
Central High School.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Crisis)
Wikiquote of the day:
"I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I
have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff— I mean
if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have
to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all
day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy,
but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."
-- J. D. Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._D._Salinger,
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Catcher_in_the_Rye)
The Behistun Inscription is to cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to
Egyptian hieroglyphs: the document most crucial in the decipherment of
a previously lost script. The inscription is approximately 15 metres
high by 25 metres wide, and 100 metres up a cliff from an ancient road
connecting the capitals of Babylonia and Media (Babylon and Ecbatana).
It is extremely inaccessible as the mountainside was removed to make
the inscription more visible after its completion. The text itself is a
statement by Darius I of Persia, written three times in three different
scripts and languages: two languages side by side, Old Persian and
Elamite, and Akkadian above them.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1189 - Richard I of England was crowned in Westminster.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England)
* 1783 - Signing of the Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_%281783%29)
* 1878 - The passenger steamship Princess Alice sunk in the Thames,
over 600 died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Alice)
* 1967 - Dagen H in Sweden: traffic changed from driving on the left
to driving on the right.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H)
* 1976 - The Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars and took the first
close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_2)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw)
Laika was one of the Russian space dogs, and the first living being to
enter orbit as a passenger on the Soviet Sputnik 2 spacecraft. Some
classify her as the first animal to enter space, although others point
to previous missions that placed animals into sub-orbital flights. She
was found as a stray wandering the streets of Moscow, a female part-
Samoyed terrier weighing approximately 6 kg (13 lb). Laika died a few
hours after launch from stress and overheating. Her true cause of death
was not made public until years after the flight, with officials always
stating that she was either euthanized by poisoned food or died when
the oxygen supply ran out. Russian officials have since expressed
regret for allowing Laika to die; to this date, Laika is the only
living passenger ever to have been launched into space with no hope of
retrieval.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 31 BC - Battle of Actium - Off the western coast of Greece, forces of
Octavian defeated troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Actium)
* 1666 - Great Fire of London: A large fire started in London in the
house of Charles II's baker on Pudding Lane near London
Bridge and burned for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings
including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 16 people are known
to have died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London)
* 1752 - The United Kingdom adopted the Gregorian Calendar, nearly
two centuries later than most of Western Europe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_Calendar)
* 1898 - Battle of Omdurman - Troops led by Sir Horatio Kitchener
defeated Sudanese tribesmen, establishing British dominance
in northeastern Africa.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Omdurman)
* 1945 - The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on the deck
of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, formally ending World War II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Instrument_of_Surrender)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"There is no sudden entrance into Heaven. Slow is the ascent by the
path of Love." -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ella_Wheeler_Wilcox)
Under English common law, a common scold was a species of public
nuisance--a troublesome and angry woman who broke the public peace by
habitually arguing and quarrelling with her neighbours. The Latin name
for the offender, communis rixatrix, appears in the feminine gender,
and makes it clear that only women could commit this crime. The
prescribed penalty for this offence involved dunking the convicted
offender in water in an instrument called the cucking stool, which by
folk etymology became ducking stool. The stool consisted of a chair
attached to a lever, suspended over a body of water; the prisoner was
strapped into the chair and dunked into the water for her punishment.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_scold
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1715 - Louis XIV of France the "Sun King" died after a reign of 72
years, longer than any other French or other major European
monarch. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV_of_France)
* 1923 - Great Kanto earthquake devastated Tokyo and Yokohama,
killing about 100,000 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Kanto_earthquake)
* 1939 - After staging the Attack on Sender Gleiwitz the day before,
Nazi Germany attacked Poland and started World War II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II)
* 1951 - Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed a mutual
defense pact known as the ANZUS Treaty.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANZUS_Treaty)
* 1983 - The civilian airliner Korean Air Flight 7, carrying 246
passengers and 23 crew, was shot down by Soviet fighters.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_7)