The Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick is an order of chivalry
associated with Ireland. The Order was created in 1783 by George III.
The regular creation of knighthoods of St Patrick lasted until 1922,
when most of Ireland became independent as the Irish Free State. While
the Order technically still exists, no knighthood of St Patrick has
been created since 1934, and the last surviving knight, Prince Henry,
Duke of Gloucester, died in 1974. The patron saint of the Order is St
Patrick. Its motto is Quis separabit?, which is Latin for "Who will
separate us?". Most British orders of chivalry cover the entire
kingdom, but the three most exalted ones each pertain to one
constitutent nation only. The Order of St Patrick, which pertains to
Ireland, is the third-most senior in precedence and age. The Order of
St Patrick earned international coverage when in 1907 its insignia,
known generally as the Irish Crown Jewels, were stolen from Dublin
Castle shortly before a visit by the Order's Sovereign, King Edward
VII. Their whereabouts remain a mystery.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_St._Patrick
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1950:
The discovery of Californium, a radioactive transuranium element, was
announced.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium)
1958:
Vanguard 1, the first solar-powered satellite, was launched. It is
the oldest human-launched object still in space today.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_1)
1959:
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th and current Dalai Lama, fled Tibet for India.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzin_Gyatso%2C_14th_Dalai_Lama)
1969:
Golda Meir of the Labour Party became the fourth Prime Minister of
Israel.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golda_Meir)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. There is an idea, Mr.
Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof." -- "V" in V for Vendetta
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_%28film%29)
The Palazzo Pitti is a vast, mainly Renaissance palace in Florence,
Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short
distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present palazzo dates
from 1458 and was originally the town residence of Luca Pitti, an
ambitious Florentine banker. It was later bought by the Medici family
in 1549: as the official residence of the ruling families of the Grand
Duchy of Tuscany, it was enlarged and enriched almost continually over
the following three centuries. In the 19th century, the palazzo, by
then a great treasure house, was used as a power base by Napoleon I,
and later served for a brief period as the principal royal palace of
the newly united Italy. In the early 20th century, the palazzo
together with its contents was given to the Italian people by the King
Victor Emmanuel III, subsequently its doors were opened to the public
to serve as one of Florence's largest art galleries. Today housing
several major collections, in addition to those of the Medici family,
it is fully open to the public.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_Pitti
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1877:
Cricketers representing England and Australia played the first Test
match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cricket)
1906:
Charles Rolls and Henry Royce founded the automobile manufacturing
company Rolls-Royce.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce)
1917:
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was forced to abdicate in the
February Revolution, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russia)
1939:
German troops began the occupation of Czechoslovakia; the Protectorate
of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed the following day.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/occupation_of_Czechoslovakia)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but
especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation
through very slight forces." -- Julius Caesar
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar)
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States. He had
been the 25th Vice President before becoming President upon the
assassination of President William McKinley. Inaugurated at the age of
42, Roosevelt became the youngest President in U.S. history. Within
the Republican Party, he was a reformer who sought to bring the
party's conservative ideals into the 20th century. He broke with his
friend and successor William Howard Taft and ran as a third party
candidate in 1912 on the Progressive Party ticket. Before his
presidency, Roosevelt served as a New York State assemblyman, Police
Commissioner of New York City, U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, and
Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy. As a colonel, he commanded his
famous all-volunteer First U.S. National Cavalry regiment, the "Rough
Riders" during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt also served a
successful term as Governor of New York. He was a famous historian and
naturalist; his 15 books include works on outdoor life, natural
history, U.S. Western and political history, an autobiography and a
host of other topics. In his lifetime, he was considered a foremost
authority on North American big game animals and Eastern birds.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
874:
The remains of Saint Nicephorus were brought back to Constantinople to
be interred at the Church of the Holy Apostles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Nicephorus_I_of_Constantinople)
1781:
William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus)
1881:
Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in a Nihilist plot by
Ignacy Hryniewiecki.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia)
1921:
Mongolia, under the Black Baron, proclaimed its independence from
China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Ungern_von_Sternberg)
1954:
Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap unleashed a massive artillery
barrage on the French military to begin the Battle of Dien Bien Phu,
the final battle in the First Indochina War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Don't play for safety. It's the most dangerous thing in the world."
-- Hugh Walpole
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hugh_Walpole)
Marian Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who, in
1932, solved the Enigma machine, the main cipher machine then in use
by Germany. The success of Rejewski and his colleagues jump-started
British reading of Enigma in World War II, and the intelligence so
gained, code-named "Ultra", contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
While studying mathematics at Poznań University, Rejewski attended a
secret cryptology course conducted by the Polish General Staff's
Cipher Bureau, which he joined full-time in 1932. The Bureau had had
no success in reading Enigma, and set Rejewski to work on the problem
in late 1932. After only a few weeks he had deduced the secret
internal wiring of the Enigma. Rejewski and two mathematician
colleagues then developed an assortment of techniques for the regular
decryption of Enigma messages, including the cryptologic "card
catalog," the "cyclometer," and the cryptologic "bomb". Five weeks
before the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Rejewski and his
colleagues presented their results on Enigma decryption to their
French and British counterparts. Shortly after the outbreak of war,
the Polish cryptologists were evacuated to France, and later to
Britain. In Britain, Rejewski worked with a Polish unit solving
low-level German ciphers. In 1946 Rejewski returned to his family in
Poland and worked as an accountant, remaining silent about his
cryptologic work until the Enigma story became public in the 1970s.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1831:
The French Foreign Legion was established by King Louis-Philippe
to support his war in Algeria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion)
1861:
Toucouleur forces led by El Hadj Umar Tall seized Ségou and conquered
the Bambara Empire in presentday Mali.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambara_Empire)
1906:
More than a thousand coal miners were killed in the Courrières mine
disaster in Northern France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courri%C3%83%C2%A8res_mine_disaster)
1952:
Forbidden by law to seek re-election, former President Fulgencio
Batista staged a coup d'état to resume control in Cuba.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is
inhuman, and must be overcome." -- Kate Sheppard
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kate_Sheppard)
Kerala is a state on the southwestern tropical Malabar Coast of India.
To its east and northeast, Kerala borders Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; to
its west and south lie the Indian Ocean islands of Lakshadweep and the
Maldives, respectively. Kerala also envelops Mahé, a coastal exclave
of the Union Territory of Pondicherry. In prehistory, Kerala's
rainforests and wetlands — then thick with malaria-bearing mosquitoes
and man-eating tigers — were largely avoided by Neolithic humans. More
than a millennium of overseas contact and trade culminated in four
centuries of struggle between and among multiple colonial powers and
native Keralite states. Kerala was granted statehood on November 1,
1956. Radical social reforms begun in the 19th century by the kingdoms
of Kochi and Travancore — and spurred by such leaders as Narayana Guru
and Chattampi Swamikal — were continued by post-Independence
governments, making Kerala among the Third World's longest-lived,
healthiest, and most literate regions. Kerala's 31.8 million people
now live under a stable democratic socialist political system and
exhibit unusually equitable gender relations.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1841:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that captive Africans who seized control
of La Amistad, the trans-Atlantic slave-trading ship carrying them,
had been taken into slavery illegally.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amistad_%28ship%29)
1862:
Ironclad warships USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fought to a draw in the
Battle of Hampton Roads.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monitor)
1932:
Eamon de Valera of Fianna Fáil became President of the Executive
Council of the Irish Free State, succeeding W.T. Cosgrave of Cumann na
nGaedhael.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_de_Valera)
1945:
A bomb raid on Tokyo started a firestorm, killing 100,000.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_in_World_War_II)
1959:
Barbie, the world's best-selling doll, debuted at the American
International Toy Fair in New York City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Some choices will choose you. How you face these choices, these
turns in the road, with what kind of attitude, more than the choices
themselves, is what will define the context of your life." -- Dana
Reeve
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dana_Reeve)
The TARDIS is a fictional time machine and spacecraft in the British
science fiction television programme Doctor Who. A product of Time
Lord technology, a properly piloted and working TARDIS is capable of
transporting its occupants to any point in space and time. Its
interior exists in multidimensional space, leading to it being
significantly larger on the inside than it appears from outside.
Externally, the TARDIS resembles the shape of a 1950s British police
box, and the programme has become so much a part of British popular
culture that the shape of the police box is now more immediately
associated with the TARDIS than its original real-world function. The
word has also entered popular usage and is used to describe anything
that seems bigger on the inside than on the outside.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1618:
Johannes Kepler discovered the third law of planetary motion.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Kepler)
1702:
Princess Anne became the queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Great_Britain)
1782:
Almost 100 Native Americans died in the hands of Pennsylvanian
militiamen in a mass murder known as the Gnadenhütten massacre.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnadenh%C3%BCtten_massacre)
1844:
Oscar I acceded to the throne of Sweden-Norway.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_I_of_Sweden)
1966:
Nelson's Pillar, a large granite pillar with a statue of Lord Horatio
Nelson on top in Dublin, Ireland, was destroyed by a bomb.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson%27s_Pillar)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it
is done." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes%2C_Jr.)
The Battle of Badr was a key battle in the early days of Islam and a
turning point in Muhammad's war against his Quraish opponents in
Mecca. The battle has been passed down in Islamic history as a
decisive victory ascribed to either divine intervention or the genius
of Muhammad. Although it is one of the few battles mentioned by name
in the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an, virtually all contemporary
knowledge of the battle at Badr comes from traditional Islamic
accounts, both hadiths and biographies of Muhammad, written down
decades after the battle. Prior to the battle, the Muslims and Meccans
had fought several smaller skirmishes in late 623 and early 624, as
the Muslim ghazawÄ?t plundering raids grew increasingly commonplace,
but this was their first large-scale battle. Muhammad was leading a
raiding party against a caravan when he was surprised by a much larger
Quraishi army. Advancing to a strong defensive position, Muhammad's
well-disciplined men managed to shatter the Meccan lines, killing
several important leaders including Muhammad's chief opponent, Amr ibn
HishÄ?m. For the early Muslims, the battle was extremely significant
because it was the first sign that they might eventually overcome
their enemies in Mecca, one of the richest and most powerful pagan
cities in pre-Islamic Arabia.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Badr
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
161:
Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus succeeded Antoninus Pius to become
co-Emperors of the Roman Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius)
1862:
American Civil War: Union forces won the Battle of Pea Ridge and
cemented their control in Missouri.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pea_Ridge)
1936:
Germany re-occupied the demilitarized Rhineland, violating the Treaty
of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhineland)
1950:
The Soviet Union issued a statement denying that German nuclear
physicist Klaus Fuchs had served as a Soviet spy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs)
1965:
American Civil Rights Movement: Civil rights demonstrators marching
from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama were brutally attacked by police on
Bloody Sunday.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
Burn all the statutes and their shelves:
They stir us up against our kind;
And worse, against ourselves.
We have a passion - make a law,
Too false to guide us or control!
And for the law itself we fight
In bitterness of soul.
And, puzzled, blinded thus, we lose
Distinctions that are plain and few:
These find I graven on my heart:
*That* tells me what to do. -- William_Wordsworth in Rob Roy's Grave"
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth)
Barbara McClintock was a pioneering American scientist and one of the
world's most distinguished cytogeneticists. McClintock received her
PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927, where she was a leader
in the development of maize cytogenetics; the field remained the focus
of her research for the rest of her career. Her work was
groundbreaking: she developed the technique to visualize maize
chromosomes and used microscopic analysis to demonstrate many
fundamental genetic concepts, including genetic recombination by
crossing-over during meiosis—a mechanism by which chromosomes
exchange information. She produced the first genetic map for maize,
linking regions of the chromosome with physical traits, and she
demonstrated the role of the telomere and centromere, regions of the
chromosome that are important in the conservation of genetic
information. During the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock discovered
transposition and using this system showed how genes are responsible
for turning on or off physical characteristics. Awards and recognition
of her contributions to the field followed, including the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine awarded to her in 1983 for the discovery of
genetic transposition; she was the first and only woman to receive an
unshared Nobel Prize in that category.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_McClintock
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1521:
Ferdinand Magellan and his crew reached Guam and were greeted by the
Chamorros.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Guam)
1836:
Texas Revolution: Mexican forces captured the Alamo after a 13-day
siege.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alamo)
1857:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott Case, a landmark
decision that led to several constitutional amendments.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford)
1869:
Dmitri Mendeleev (pictured) presented the first Periodic Table of
Elements to the Russian Chemical Society.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev)
1987:
British ferry M/S Herald of Free Enterprise capsized while leaving the
harbour of Zeebrugge, Belgium, killing 193 on board.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%2FS_Herald_of_Free_Enterprise)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Give thought to life and liberty." -- Cyrano de Bergerac
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cyrano_de_Bergerac)
A central processing unit is the component in a digital computer that
interprets instructions and processes data contained in software. CPUs
provide the fundamental digital computer trait of programmability, and
are one of the core components found in almost all modern
microcomputers, along with primary storage and input/output
facilities. A CPU that is manufactured using integrated circuits,
often just one, is known as a microprocessor. Since the mid-1970s,
single-chip microprocessors have almost totally replaced all other
types of CPUs, and today the term "CPU" almost always applies to some
type of microprocessor. Early CPUs were custom-designed as a part of a
larger, usually one-of-a-kind, computer. However, this costly
methodology of designing custom CPUs for a particular application has
largely given way to the development of inexpensive and standardized
classes of processors that are suited for one or many purposes. This
standardization trend generally began in the era of discrete
transistor mainframes and minicomputers and has rapidly accelerated
with the popularization of the integrated circuit. Modern
microprocessors appear in everything from automobiles to cell phones
to children's toys.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_processing_unit
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1461:
Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI was deposed by
his Yorkist cousin, who then became King Edward IV.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI_of_England)
1681:
King Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter for the
Pennsylvania Colony.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn)
1825:
Despite having lost in both the electoral and popular votes in the
1824 presidential election, John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as the
sixth President of the United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quincy_Adams)
1877:
Emile Berliner invented the microphone.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/microphone)
1980:
Robert Mugabe (pictured) of the Zimbabwe African National Union was
elected to head the first government in Zimbabwe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
There was a young fellow from Trinity, Who took the square root of
infinity. But the number of digits, Gave him the fidgets; He dropped
Math and took up Divinity. -- George Gamow
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Gamow)
Triumph of the Will is a documentary-style propaganda film by the
German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl chronicling the 1934 Nazi Party
Congress in Nuremberg. It features footage of uniformed Nazi party
members marching and drilling to melodious major-keyed classical
music, as well as excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi Leaders
at the Congress, including portions of Adolf Hitler's own speeches.
The overriding theme of the film is that Germany is a great power once
again, and that Hitler is a German Messiah who will bring glory to the
nation. Triumph of the Will was released in 1935 and rapidly became
the best-known example of propaganda in the history of the cinema.
Riefenstahl's innovative techniques such as moving cameras, the use of
telephoto lenses to create a distorted perspective, aerial
photography, and revolutionary approach to the use of music and
cinematography have earned Triumph recognition as one of the greatest
films in history, although its glorification of the Nazi regime makes
it controversial.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Will
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1776:
Samuel Nicholas and the Continental Marines successfully landed on New
Providence and captured Nassau in the Bahamas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Nicholas)
1878:
The signing of the Treaty of San Stefano established Bulgaria as an
autonomous principality in the Ottoman Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Independent_Bulgaria)
1918:
Bolshevist Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central
Powers and exited from World War I.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk)
1931:
"The Star-Spangled Banner" officially became the national anthem of
the United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner)
1958:
Nuri as-Said became the Prime Minister of Iraq for the 14th time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuri_as-Said)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"In mathematics the art of asking questions is more valuable than
solving problems." -- Georg Cantor
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor)