The Krag-Petersson rifle was the first repeating rifle adopted by the
armed forces of Norway, and one of the first repeating arms adopted
anywhere in the world. Developed by Ole Herman Johannes Krag, the
action of the Krag-Petersson was uniquely actuated by the oversized
hammer. Another distinguishing feature is that the cartridge rising
from the magazine is not seated automatically, but has to be pushed
into the breech of the rifle. Testing by the Norwegian military
revealed that the Krag-Peterssen was a robust, accurate and quick
firing weapon, and the Royal Norwegian Navy adopted the rifle in 1876.
The rifle was also extensively tested by other nations, but not
adopted. After being phased out around 1900, the remaining rifles were
sold off to civilians, and often extensively rebuilt. Today it is so
difficult to find one in original condition that the Krag-Petersson
has been described as "the rifle everybody has heard about, but hardly
anybody has ever seen". It was the first rifle designed by Ole H. J.
Krag that was adopted by an armed force.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krag-Petersson
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1644:
Giovanni Battista Pamphili became Pope Innocent X.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_X)
1835:
Aboard the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin reached the Galápagos
Islands, where he began to develop his theories of evolution.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_Islands)
1916:
Tanks, the "secret weapons" of the British Army during World War I,
were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme_%281916%29)
1935:
Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German Jews
of citizenship, and adopted a new national flag emblazoned with a
swastika.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_policy_of_Nazi_Germany)
1950:
Korean war: U.S. armed forces landed at Incheon, Korea.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_war)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will,
your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is
revealed by your actions." -- Agatha Christie
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie)
Sandy Koufax is a former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball
who played his entire career for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers
from 1955 to 1966. He is best known for his string of six amazing
seasons from 1961 to 1966 before arthritis ended his career at the age
of 31. A notoriously difficult pitcher to hit against, he was the
first major leaguer to pitch more than three no-hitters, the first to
allow fewer than seven hits per nine innings pitched over his career,
and the first to strike out more than nine batters per nine innings
pitched in his career. Among National League pitchers with at least
2000 innings pitched who have debuted since 1913, he has both the
highest career winning percentage (.655) and the lowest career earned
run average (2.76); his 2396 career strikeouts ranked seventh in major
league history upon his retirement, and trailed only Warren Spahn's
total of 2583 among left-handers. Retiring virtually at the peak of
his career, Koufax later became–at age 36–the youngest person ever
elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Koufax
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1683:
Great Turkish war: Polish troops led by Jan III Sobieski joined forces
with an Habsburg army to defeat the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of
Vienna.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna)
1933:
Leó Szilárd conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd)
1942:
The Laconia incident: RMS Laconia, carrying some 80 civilians and 268
British soldiers, and about 1800 Italian POWs with 160 Polish soldiers
on guard, was struck by a torpedo from a U-boat off the coast of West
Africa and sank.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconia_incident)
1977:
South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko was killed in police
custody.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko)
1992:
Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Peruvian Maoist guerrilla organization
Shining Path, was captured in Lima.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shining_Path)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error
is identical with the discovery of the truth — that error and truth
are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world
turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply
another error, and maybe one worse than the first one." -- H. L.
Mencken
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken)
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a
period of great cultural change and achievement from the 14th to the
16th century. The word renaissance means "rebirth," and the era is
best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical
antiquity. The Italian Renaissance began in northern Italy, centering
in Florence. It then spread south, having an especially significant
impact on Rome, which was largely rebuilt by the Renaissance popes.
The Italian Renaissance is best known for its cultural achievements.
This includes works of literature by such figures as Petrarch,
Castiglione, and Machiavelli; artists such as Michaelangelo and
Leonardo da Vinci, and great works of architecture such as The Duomo
in Florence and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. At the same time,
present-day historians also see the era as one of economic regression
and of little progress in science. Furthermore, some historians argue
that the lot of the peasants and urban poor, the majority of the
population, worsened during this period.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Renaissance
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1297:
: Scots under William Wallace defeated English troops in the Battle of
Stirling Bridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stirling_Bridge)
1922:
: The British Mandate of Palestine began.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_of_Palestine)
1955:
: The Bern Switzerland Temple, the first Temple of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints in Europe, was dedicated.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bern_Switzerland_Temple)
1973:
: A military coup in Chile headed by Augusto Pinochet overthrew the
government of President Salvador Allende. In total, some 3,000 people
were killed or disappeared.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet)
2001:
: September 11 Attacks: Three passenger airliners were hijacked to
destroy the World Trade Center in New York City and part of The
Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. In
total, almost 3,000 people were killed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_attacks)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy.
But September 11 also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not
just to America but to the world at large. The target of the
terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very values of
freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life." --
Tony Blair
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tony_Blair)
Anarcho-capitalism is a socio-economic ideology based on the idea of
individual sovereignty (or "self-ownership"), an unlimited right to
private property, and a prohibition against initiatory coercion and
fraud, with contracts between sovereign individuals being the basis of
law. From this is derived a rejection of the state (an entity claiming
a territorial monopoly on the use of force) and the embrace of
absolute laissez-faire capitalism. Anarcho-capitalists would protect
individual liberty and property by replacing a government monopoly
that is involuntarily funded through taxation, with private and
competing businesses. The philosophy embraces stateless capitalism as
one of its foundational principles. The first well-known version of
anarcho-capitalism to identify itself with this term was developed by
Austrian School economists and libertarians Murray Rothbard and Walter
Block in the mid-20th century as an attempted synthesis of Austrian
School economics, classical liberalism, and 19th-century American
individualist anarchism. While Rothbard bases his philosophy on
natural law, others, such as David Friedman take a pragmatic
consequentialist approach by arguing that anarcho-capitalism should be
implemented on the basis that such a system would have superior
consequences than other alternatives.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1000:
: King Olaf I of Norway fell overboard during the Battle of Svolder
and disappeared in the Baltic Sea.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Svolder)
1513:
: King James IV of Scotland (pictured right) was killed at the Battle
of Flodden Field in Northumberland while leading an invasion of
England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_IV_of_Scotland)
1850:
: As part of the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted into the
United States as a free state.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California)
1971:
: The Attica Prison riots broke out at the Attica Correctional
Facility in Attica, New York, United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attica_Prison_riots)
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:
"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only
because I love." -- Leo Tolstoy
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy)
Wladyslaw Sikorski was a Polish military and political leader.
Before World War I, he became a founder and member of several
underground organizations that promoted the cause of Polish
independence. He fought with distinction during the Polish-Soviet War,
in which he played a prominent role in the decisive Battle of Warsaw.
During World War II he became Prime Minister of the Polish Government
in Exile, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces, and a staunch
advocate of the Polish cause on the diplomatic scene. He supported the
reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Poland and the Soviet
Union, which had been severed after the Soviet alliance with Germany
in the 1939 invasion of Poland. In April 1943, however, Soviet
dictator Joseph Stalin broke off Soviet-Polish diplomatic relations
following Sikorski's request that the International Red Cross
investigate the Katyn Massacre. In July 1943, Sikorski was killed in a
plane crash into the sea immediately on takeoff from Gibraltar. The
exact circumstances of his death remain in dispute, which has given
rise to ongoing conspiracy theories.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%3Fadys%C5%3Faw_Sikorski
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1331:
: Stefan Dusan (pictured right) of the House of Nemanjić declared
himself Tsar of Serbia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Du%C5%A1an)
1504:
: David, a marble statue by Michelangelo, was unveiled in Florence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo%27s_David)
1888:
: The inaugural season of The Football League in England began with
six matches.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Football_League)
1923:
: The Honda Point Disaster: Twenty-three sailors died when nine U.S.
Navy destroyers ran aground off the coast of California.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Point_Disaster)
1978:
: Hundreds of demonstrators in Tehran were killed on Black Friday
during the Iranian Revolution.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth
can give." -- David O. McKay
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_O._McKay)
Jean Schmidt is an American politician. She is a U.S.
Representative-elect of the Republican Party from the U.S. state of
Ohio who is scheduled to be sworn in at 6:30 p.m. EDT on September 6,
2005, after winning a special election on August 2 in the state's
second district to replace Rob Portman. Schmidt is the second Ohio
woman of her party to be elected to Congress without succeeding her
husband and the first woman to represent southwestern Ohio in
Congress. Schmidt is a lifelong resident of Clermont County and won an
11-candidate primary on June 14, 2005. Schmidt faced Democratic
nominee Paul Hackett, an attorney and Marine who served in the Iraq
War in the special election, in which she won by 3.5 percent amid
national attention. The narrowness of her victory in a district
accustomed to Republican landslides led many Democrats to claim a
victory for their party and forecast trouble for the Republicans in
the 2006 House election.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Schmidt
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
394:
: The Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeated the pagan usurper
Eugenius in the Battle of Frigidus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius_I)
1522:
: The Victoria returned to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, with Juan
Sebastián Elcano and 17 survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's 265-man
expedition, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Sebasti%C3%A1n_Elcano)
1941:
: Holocaust: All Jews over the age of 6 were required to wear the Star
of David in areas controlled by Nazi Germany.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_David)
1955:
: Ethnic Greeks in Istanbul were attacked by an overwhelming Turkish
mob during the Istanbul Pogrom.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Pogrom)
1995:
: Baltimore Oriole shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. played his 2131st
consecutive major league baseball game, breaking the 56-year old
record set by New York Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Ripken%2C_Jr.)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise
tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are
fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other
kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals
are in doubt." -- Robert M. Pirsig
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig)
The Zambezi is the fourth longest river in Africa, and the largest
flowing into the Indian Ocean. The 2,574 km (1,599 mi) long river has
its source in Zambia and flows through Angola, along the border
Zambia and Zimbabwe, to Mozambique, where it empties into the Indian
Ocean. The Zambezi's most spectacular feature is Victoria Falls, one
of the world's largest waterfalls. Other notable falls include the
Chavuma Falls at the border between Zambia and Angola, and Ngonye
Falls, near Sioma in Western Zambia. Over its entire course, the
Zambezi is spanned by only five bridges: at Chinyingi, Katima Mulilo,
Victoria Falls, Chirundu and Tete. There are two main sources of
hydroelectric power on the river. These are the Kariba Dam, which
provides power to Zambia and Zimbabwe and the Cabora-Bassa Dam in
Mozambique which provides power to South Africa.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambezi
_______________________________
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.
1923:
The Great Kanto earthquake devastated Tokyo and Yokohama,
about 100,000 people.
1939:
Germany launched the Polish Campaign and attacked Poland at Wieluń and
Westerplatte, starting World War II.
1951:
Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed a mutual defence
pact known as the ANZUS Treaty.
1983:
The civilian airliner Korean Air Flight 007, carrying 246
and 23 crew, was shot down by Soviet fighter aircraft.
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize
how much worrying he has done over the squalls." -- Bruce Fairchild
Barton
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bruce_Fairchild_Barton)