Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 black-and-white independent horror
film directed by George A. Romero. The film stars Duane Jones as Ben
and Judith O'Dea as Barbra. The plot revolves around the mysterious
reanimation of the dead and the efforts of Ben, Barbra and five others
to survive the night while trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse.
Romero produced the film on the low budget of $114,000, but after a
decade of theatrical re-releases it had grossed an estimated $12
million in the United States and $30 million internationally.
Reviewers criticized the graphic contents, but three decades later the
Library of Congress placed Night of the Living Dead on the United
States National Film Registry with other films deemed "historically,
culturally or aesthetically important." The culture of Vietnam-era
America had a tremendous impact on the film. It is so thoroughly riven
with critiques of late 1960s American society that one historian
described the film as "subversive on many levels." While not the first
zombie film made, Night of the Living Dead influenced subsequent films
in the sub-genre. The film is the first of five Living Dead films
(completed or pending) directed by Romero, and has been remade twice.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1517:
According to traditional accounts, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses
onto the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, marking the
beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/95_Theses)
1863:
The New Zealand land wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led
by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato along
the Waikato River.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Waikato)
1922:
Benito Mussolini became the youngest Premier in the history of Italy
at age 39.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini)
1941:
Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers completed the colossal busts of U.S.
Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt,
and Abraham Lincoln at Mount Rushmore.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore)
1984:
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India was assassinated by two of her
own bodyguards. Riots soon broke out in New Delhi.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
-- John Keats
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Keats)
The Defense of Sihang Warehouse took place from 26 October to 1
November 1937, and marked the beginning of the end of the three-month
Battle of Shanghai in the opening phase of the Second Sino-Japanese
War. The defenders of the warehouse, popularly known as both the
"Eight Hundred Heroes" and the "Lone Battalion", held out against
numerous waves of Japanese forces and covered the movements of the
Chinese forces retreating west during the Battle of Shanghai. The
successful defense of the warehouse provided a morale-lifting
consolation to the Chinese army and people in the demoralizing
aftermath of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. The warehouse's
location just across the Suzhou River from the foreign concessions in
Shanghai meant the battle took place in full view of the western
powers. This drew the attention, if only briefly, of the international
community to Chiang Kai-shek's bid for worldwide support against
Japanese aggression.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Sihang_Warehouse
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1470:
Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, restored Henry VI as the King of
England during the Wars of the Roses.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville%2C_16th_Earl_of_Warwick)
1831:
African American slave Nat Turner was captured after leading a
brutally suppressed slave rebellion.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner)
1905:
Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II reluctantly signed the "October
Manifesto", establishing the State Duma as the elected legislature in
Imperial Russia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1905)
1938:
The radio drama The War of the Worlds frightened many listeners in the
United States into believing that an actual Martian invasion was in
progress.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1905)
1961:
The Soviet hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba was detonated over Novaya Zemlya
Island in the Arctic Sea as a test; with a yield of around 50
megatons, it was the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
The fundamental article of my political creed is that depotism, or
unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of
a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto,
and a single emperor. -- John Adams
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Adams)
0.999... (also denoted [0.9 with a bar on top of 9] or
[0.9 with a dot on top of 9] is a recurring decimal which is exactly
equal
to 1. In other words, the symbols 0.999… and 1 represent the same real
number. Mathematicians have formulated a number of proofs of this
identity, which vary with their level of rigor, preferred development
of the real numbers, background assumptions, historical context and
target audience. The equality 0.999… = 1 has long been taught in
textbooks, and in the last few decades, researchers of mathematics
education have studied the reception of this equation among students,
who often vocally reject the equality. Their reasoning is often based
on an expectation that infinitesimal quantities should exist, that
arithmetic may be broken, or simply that 0.999… should have a last 9.
These ideas are false in the real numbers, as can be proven by
explicitly constructing the reals from the rational numbers, and such
constructions can also prove that 0.999… = 1 directly.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999...
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1147:
Reconquista: Forces under King Afonso I of Portugal captured Lisbon
from the Moors after a four-month siege during the Second Crusade.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Lisbon)
1415:
Hundred Years' War: Henry V of England and his lightly armoured
infantry and archers defeated the heavily armoured French cavalry in
the Battle of Agincourt on Saint Crispin's Day.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt)
1616:
The Dutch sailing ship Eendracht reached Shark Bay on the western
coastline of Australia, as documented on the Hartog Plate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eendracht_(1615_ship))
1922:
The Third Dáil adopted the Constitution of the Irish Free State.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Irish_Free_State)
1971:
The People's Republic of China replaced the Republic of China as
China's representative at the United Nations.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_the_United_Nations)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
A man doesn't begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes that he is no
longer indispensable. -- Richard E. Byrd
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_E._Byrd)
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt
against the authoritarian communist government of Hungary and its
Soviet imposed policies, lasting from October 23 until November 10 of
1956. It began as a student demonstration which attracted thousands as
it marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building. The
revolt spread quickly across Hungary, and the government fell.
Thousands organized into militias, battling the State Security Police
and Soviet troops. The new government formally disbanded the ÁVH,
declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to
re-establish free elections. On November 4, a large Soviet force
invaded Budapest using artillery and air strikes, killing thousands of
civilians. Organized resistance ceased by 10 November 1956, and mass
arrests began. An estimated 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees. By
January 1957 the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all
public opposition. Soviet actions alienated many Western Marxists, yet
strengthened Soviet control over Eastern Europe, cultivating the
perception that communism was both irreversible and monolithic. Public
discussion about this revolution was suppressed in Hungary for over 30
years, but since the thaw of the 1980s it has been a subject of
intense study and debate.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
4004 BC:
The universe was created, according to the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher-Lightfoot_Calendar)
1911:
First use of heavier-than-air aircraft in war: an Italian pilot flew
from Libya to survey Turkish lines during the Italo-Turkish War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Turkish_War)
1958:
Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced a new set of comic strip
characters, The Smurfs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs)
1983:
Lebanese Civil War: Suicide bombers destroyed two barracks in Beirut,
Lebanon, killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers of the
international peacekeeping force.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing)
2002:
Chechen rebels seized a crowded theater in Moscow, taking
approximately 700 theatergoers and performers hostage in the Moscow
theater hostage crisis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
I am certain there is too much certainty in the world. -- Michael
Crichton
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton)
Vivien Leigh was an English theatre and film actress. Although her
film appearances were relatively few, she won two Academy Awards
playing "Southern belles", Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind and
Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, a role she had also played
in London's West End. She was a prolific stage performer, frequently
in collaboration with her husband, Laurence Olivier, who directed her
in several of her roles. During her thirty-year stage career, she
played parts that ranged from the heroines of Noël Coward and George
Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such as
Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet and Lady Macbeth. Lauded for her beauty,
Leigh felt that it sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously
as an actress, but ill health proved to be her greatest obstacle.
Affected by bipolar disorder for most of her adult life, she gained a
reputation for being difficult, and her career went through periods of
decline. She was further weakened by recurrent bouts of tuberculosis,
which was first diagnosed in the mid-1940s. She and Olivier divorced
in 1960, and Leigh worked sporadically in film and theatre until her
death from tuberculosis.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Leigh
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1805:
Napoleonic Wars: Lord Nelson led the British fleet to victory in the
Battle of Trafalgar, defeating Pierre-Charles Villeneuve and his
combined French and Spanish navy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar)
1824:
English stonemason, bricklayer and inventor Joseph Aspdin patented
Portland cement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Aspdin)
1854:
Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean
War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale)
1944:
World War II: HMAS Australia was hit in the first kamikaze attack; 30
crewmen, including the commanding officer, were killed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze)
1969:
Siad Barre became President after a military coup in Somalia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siad_Barre)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
He prayeth well, who loveth wellBoth man and bird and beast. He
prayeth best, who loveth bestAll things both great and small;For the
dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. -- Samuel Taylor
Coleridge
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge)
Nirvana was a popular American rock band from Aberdeen, Washington.
With the lead single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from their 1991 album
Nevermind, Nirvana exploded into the mainstream, bringing along with
it an offshoot of punk and alternative rock referred to as grunge. As
Nirvana's frontman, Kurt Cobain found himself referred to in the media
as the "spokesman of a generation", with Nirvana the "flagship band"
of "Generation X". Cobain was uncomfortable with the attention, and
placed his focus on the band's music, challenging the band's audience
with their third studio album In Utero. While Nirvana's mainstream
popularity waned in the months following its release, their core
audience cherished the band's dark interior, particularly after their
1993 performance on MTV Unplugged. Nirvana's brief run ended with the
death of Cobain in 1994, but the band's popularity expanded in the
years that followed. Since their debut, the band has sold more than
fifty million albums worldwide, including more than ten million copies
of Nevermind in the US alone.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_%28band%29
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
202 BC:
Proconsul Scipio Africanus of the Roman Republic defeated Hannibal and
the Carthaginians in the Battle of Zama, concluding the Second Punic
War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zama)
1469:
Ferdinand II of Aragon wedded Isabella of Castile, a marriage that
paved the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single
country, Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_II_of_Aragon)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_of_Castile)
1781:
American Revolutionary War: British forces led by Lord Charles
Cornwallis officially surrendered to Franco-American forces under
George Washington, ending the Siege of Yorktown.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yorktown)
1943:
Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, was first
isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptomycin)
1987:
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 22% on Black Monday, the
largest one-day decline in history.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987))
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
There is surely a piece of divinity within us, something that was
before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. -- Thomas Browne
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne)
Al-Kateb v Godwin was an important Australian court case decided in
the High Court of Australia on 6 August 2004. It concerned a stateless
man who was detained under the policy of mandatory immigration
detention. His application for a protection visa had been denied, and
because he was stateless no other country would accept him. The issue
in the case was whether indefinite immigration detention was lawful,
and the court ultimately decided that it was. The court considered two
main questions, firstly, whether the Migration Act 1958 (the
legislation which governs immigration in Australia) permitted a person
in Al-Kateb's situation to be detained indefinitely, and secondly, if
it did, whether that was permissible under the Constitution of
Australia. A majority of the court decided that the Act did allow
indefinite detention, and that the Act was not unconstitutional.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Kateb_v_Godwin
_______________________________
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)
1016:
Danish forces led by Canute the Great decisively defeated Edmund
Ironside in the Battle of Ashingdon, gaining control over most of the
Kingdom of England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ashingdon)
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/British_Broadcasting_Company)
1954:
Texas Instruments introduced the first transistor radio.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
Give me my freedom for as long as I be All I ask of livin' is to have
no chains on me All I ask of livin' is to have no chains on me And all
I ask of dyin' is to go naturally... And when I die, and when I'm gone
There'll be one child born, in our world To carry on, to carry on...
-- Laura Nyro
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Laura_Nyro)
The Chola dynasty was a Tamil dynasty that ruled primarily in southern
India until the 13th century CE. The dynasty originated in the fertile
valley of the Kaveri River. Territories under their domain stretched
from the islands of Maldives in the south to as far north as the banks
of the river Ganges in Bengal. The dynasty was at the height of its
power during the tenth and the eleventh centuries. Under Rajaraja
Chola I (Rajaraja the Great) and his son Rajendra Chola, the dynasty
rose as a military, economic and cultural power in Asia. The legacy of
Chola rule has lasted in the region through modern times. Their
patronage of Tamil literature and their zeal in building temples have
resulted in some great works of Tamil architecture and poetry. The
Chola kings were avid builders and envisioned the temples in their
kingdoms not only as places of worship, but also as centres of
economic activity, benefiting their entire community. They pioneered a
centralised form of government and established a disciplined
bureaucracy.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_dynasty
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
456:
Magister militum Ricimer defeated Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and
became master of the Western Roman Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricimer)
1813:
The Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon and the First French Empire in the
Battle of Leipzig, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leipzig)
1843:
William Rowan Hamilton first wrote down the fundamental formula for
quaternions on Broom Bridge in Dublin, Ireland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion)
1940:
World War II: Hans Frank established the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest
Jewish ghetto in occupied Poland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto)
1978:
Karol Józef Wojtyła, a cardinal from Kraków, Poland, became Pope
John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope since the 16th century and
the first
ever from a Slavic country.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others
to live as one wishes to live. -- Oscar Wilde
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde)
Banff National Park is Canada's first national park, established in
1885, in the Canadian Rockies. The park, located 120 kilometres west
of Calgary in the province of Alberta, encompasses 6,641 square
kilometres of mountainous terrain, with numerous glaciers and
icefields, dense coniferous forest, and alpine landscapes. The
Icefields Parkway extends from Lake Louise, connecting to Jasper
National Park in the north. Provincial forests and Yoho National Park
are neighbours to the west, while Kootenay National Park is located to
the south, and Kananaskis Country to the southeast. The main
commercial center of the park is the town of Banff, in the Bow River
valley. Millions more pass through the park on the Trans-Canada
Highway. As one of the world's most visited national parks, the health
of Banff's ecosystem has been threatened. In the mid-1990s, Parks
Canada responded by initiating a two-year study, which resulted in
management recommendations, and new policies that aim to preserve
ecological integrity.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banff_National_Park
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1066:
Battle of Hastings: The Norman invasion forces of William the Conqueror
defeated the English army and killed Harold Godwinson, the last crowned
Anglo-Saxon king of England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings)
1773:
The first recorded ministry of education, the Commission of National
Education, was formed in Poland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komisja_Edukacji_Narodowej)
1947:
Flying a Bell X-1, test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to
break
the sound barrier.
(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" of 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:
In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one
should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are
comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong. -- John Kenneth
Galbraith
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith)
The FA Premier League is a league competition for football clubs
located at the top of the English football league system (above The
Football League), making it England's primary football competition.
The Premier League is presently contested by twenty clubs each
season,
but in a total of fourteen seasons, the title has been won by only
four teams: Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea and Manchester
United.
Of these, the most successful is Manchester United, who have won the
title eight times. The current Premier League champions are Chelsea,
who won their second consecutive title in the 2005-06 season.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Premier_League
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1492:
Christopher Columbus makes landfall in the Caribbean, believing he has
reached East Asia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus)
1810:
The first Oktoberfest was held in Munich, to celebrate the wedding of
Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest)
1859:
Self-described "Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico"
Joshua A. Norton "ordered" the United States Congress to dissolve.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_A._Norton)
1984:
The Provisional Irish Republican Army failed in its attempt to
assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and most of her
cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombing)
2002:
A series of car bombs exploded in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 people
and injuring a further 209.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Bali_bombing)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
I have always read that the world, both land and water, was
spherical,
as the authority and researches of Ptolemy and all the others who
have
written on this subject demonstrate and prove, as do the eclipses of
the moon and other experiments that are made from east to west, and
the elevation of the North Star from north to south. -- Christopher
Columbus
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus)