The Tahirih Justice Center is a United States-based non-governmental
organization that serves immigrant women and girls who are fleeing
from gender-based violence and persecution through pro bono direct
legal services and social and medical service referrals. Tahirih
helps
women who are attempting to escape from such abuse as female genital
cutting, domestic violence, human trafficking, torture and rape. The
organization also conducts public policy initiatives designed to
achieve legislative change for women fleeing from human rights
abuses,
to highlight problems faced by immigrant women in the United States,
and to end the possible exploitation of mail-order brides by
international marriage brokers. The organization is named after
Táhirih, an influential female poet and theologian in nineteenth
century Persia who campaigned for women's rights. Tahirih is a
Bahá'í-inspired organization, although its clients and employees vary
widely in ethnicity, religious identification, and nationality.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahirih_Justice_Center
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1580:
The Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth, England, as Francis Drake
completed his circumnavigation of the globe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake)
1687:
The Parthenon in Athens was partially destroyed during an armed
conflict between Venetian and Ottoman forces.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon)
1907:
Newfoundland and New Zealand became dominions within the British
Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_and_Labrador)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand)
1957:
West Side Story, a musical written by Arthur Laurents, Leonard
Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and produced and directed by Jerome
Robbins, made its debut on Broadway.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Story)
1983:
Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Union averted a
worldwide nuclear war.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is
always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which
we
did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden.
--
T. S. Eliot in The Four Quartets
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot)
The British House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of
the United Kingdom. Parliament also includes the Sovereign and the
upper house, the House of Lords; the House of Commons is the dominant
branch. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body,
consisting of 646 members, who are known as "Members of Parliament"
or
MPs. Members are elected by the first-past-the-post system of
election, holding office until Parliament is dissolved (a maximum of
five years). Each member is elected by, and represents, an electoral
district known as a constituency. The House of Commons is the source
of the vast majority of government ministers and every Prime Minister
since 1902, with the very brief exception of Sir Alec Douglas-Home in
1963. The House of Commons evolved at some point during the 14th
century and has been in continuous existence since. The House of
Commons was once far less powerful than the House of Lords, but is
now
by far the dominant branch of Parliament. The House of Commons'
legislative powers exceed those of the House of Lords; under the
Parliament Act 1911, the Lords' power to reject most bills was
reduced
to a mere delaying power. Moreover, the Government of the United
Kingdom is answerable to the House of Commons; the Prime Minister
stays in office only as long as he or she retains the support of the
lower house.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_House_of_Commons
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1066:
Harold II of England defeated Harald III of Norway in the Battle of
Stamford Bridge, marking the end of Viking invasions of Great Britain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge)
1396:
Ottoman forces under Bayezid I defeated a Christian alliance led by
Sigismund of Hungary in the Battle of Nicopolis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nicopolis)
1513:
Conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa, upon a peak in presentday Darién,
Panama, became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean, which he
named Mar del Sur, or South Sea.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_Núñez_de_Balboa)
1962:
The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria was formally proclaimed.
Ferhat Abbas was elected President of the provisional government, with
Ahmed Ben Bella as Prime Minister.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Algeria_since_1962)
1996:
The last Magdalen Asylum in Ireland was closed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalen_Asylum)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"No battle is ever won... They are not even fought. The field only
reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion
of philosophers and fools." -- William Faulkner
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Faulkner)
A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a
galaxy core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound
by gravity, which gives them their spherical shape, and relatively
high stellar density towards their core. Globular clusters contain
considerably more stars than the less dense galactic, or open
clusters. Globular clusters are fairly numerous; there are about 150
currently known globular clusters in the Milky Way, with perhaps 10–
20
more undiscovered. Large galaxies can have more: Andromeda, for
instance, may have as many as 500. Some giant elliptical galaxies,
such as M87, may have as many as 10,000 globular clusters. These
globular clusters orbit the galaxy out to large radii, 40 kiloparsecs
or more. Every galaxy of sufficient mass in the local group has an
associated group of globular clusters, and almost every large galaxy
has been found to possess a system of globular clusters. The
Sagittarius Dwarf and Canis Major Dwarf galaxies appear to be in the
process of donating their associated globular clusters to the Milky
Way, such as Palomar 12.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1459:
Yorkist forces led by Richard Neville won the Battle of Blore Heath in
Staffordshire, England, the first major battle of the Wars of the
Roses.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blore_Heath)
1845:
Origins of baseball: Alexander Cartwright organized the first "base
ball" team, the New York Knickerbockers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Knickerbockers)
1846:
The planet Neptune was discovered by astronomers Urbain Le Verrier,
Johann Gottfried Galle and John Couch Adams.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune)
1868:
Ramón Emeterio Betances led the Grito de Lares, a revolt against
Spanish rule in Puerto Rico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grito_de_Lares_(The_Cry_of_Lares))
1932:
Hejaz and Nejd were merged and renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
with Ibn Saud as the first monarch and Riyadh as the capital city.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy
change." -- Euripides
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Euripides)
Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 film directed by Sidney Lumet and written
by Frank Pierson. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, Chris
Sarandon, and Charles Durning. Based on the events of an attempted
bank robbery in 1972, Dog Day Afternoon tells the story of Sonny
Wortzik, who holds employees of a bank hostage with his partner
Salvatore Naturile in Brooklyn, New York. The film was inspired by
the
article The Boys in the Bank, which tells a similar story of the
robbery of a Brooklyn bank by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile;
this article was first published in Life in 1972. The film received
generally positive reviews, some of which referred to its
anti-establishment tones. Although it was nominated for major
awards,
Dog Day Afternoon won just a sole Academy Award and failed to win a
Golden Globe. Pacino's memorable "ATTICA!" line from the film,
referencing the Attica Prison riots, has become widely quoted, and
was
#86 on American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Movie Quotes" list.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Day_Afternoon
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1792:
French Revolution: The National Convention voted to abolish the
monarchy, and the First Republic was proclaimed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Convention)
1823:
According to Joseph Smith, Jr., the angel Moroni appeared to him and
revealed the location of the hidden Golden Plates, which contained
the
ancient sacred texts of the Book of Mormon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroni_%28Mormonism%29)
1898:
The Hundred Days' Reform in China was abruptly terminated when
Empress
Dowager Cixi forced the reform-minded Guangxu Emperor into
seclusion and took over the government as regent.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days%27_Reform)
1937:
J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, a predecessor to The Lord of the
Rings,
was first published.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit)
1942:
The prototype model of the B-29 Superfortress flew for the first
time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-29_Superfortress)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir I have
tried
in my way to be free. -- Leonard Cohen
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen)
Cornell University is a private research university located in
Ithaca,
New York. The youngest member of the Ivy League, Cornell was founded
in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White as a coeducational,
nonsectarian institution where admission was offered irrespective of
religion or race. Conceived shortly after the American Civil War in
the midst of the Industrial Revolution, its founders intended that
the
new university would teach and make contributions in all fields of
knowledge — from the classics to the sciences and from the
theoretical
to the applied. The university is organized into seven undergraduate
colleges and seven graduate divisions, each defining its own academic
programs in near autonomy. From a new residential college housing
system to its 2001 founding of a medical college in Qatar, Cornell
claims "to serve society by educating the leaders of tomorrow and
extending the frontiers of knowledge." Cornell counts more than
240,000 living alumni and 40 Nobel laureates have been affiliated
with
the university as faculty or students. Research is a central element
of the university's mission; Cornell spent $561.3 million on research
and development in a diverse group of fields during the July 2004 to
June 2005 fiscal year.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1378:
Papal Schism: Unhappy with Pope Urban VI, a group of cardinals elected
a rival papacy in Antipope Clement VII, throwing the Roman Catholic
Church into a turmoil.
1854:
The Crimean War began with a Franco-British victory over Russian
forces in the Battle of Alma.
1870:
The Bersaglieri entered Rome, ending the temporal power of the Pope
and completing the unification of Italy.
1906:
The ocean liner RMS Mauretania, the largest and fastest ship in the
world at the time, was launched in Newcastle, England.
1973:
Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets before 30,492
spectators at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas in an internationally
televised tennis match dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes".
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"We control fifty percent of a relationship. We influence one
hundred
percent of it." -- Joyce Brothers
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joyce_Brothers)
Rush is a Canadian progressive rock band comprising bassist,
keyboardist and vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and
drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. Rush formed in the summer of 1968,
in
Willowdale, Ontario (now part of Toronto) by Lifeson, Lee, and John
Rutsey. Peart replaced Rutsey on drums in July of 1974, two weeks
before the group's first US tour, to complete the present lineup.
Since the release of their eponymous debut in 1974 the band has
become
well-known for their instrumental virtuosity, complex compositions,
erudite lyrics, and inspirational camaraderie. Rush's three decades
of
continued success under their current lineup of Lee, Lifeson, and
Peart has earned the band the respect of their musical peers, and
their supporters are often cited as some of the most intensely loyal
in rock. Rush has influenced various rock artists such as Metallica,
Smashing Pumpkins and Primus, as well as notable progressive bands
such as Dream Theater and Symphony X. Rush has been awarded the Juno
Award several times and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of
Fame in 1994.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_%28band%29
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1356:
Hundred Years' War: Despite a shortage of arrows, English and Welsh
forces led by Edward the Black Prince decisively won the Battle of
Poitiers and captured King Jean II of France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poitiers_%281356%29)
1692:
Giles Corey, who had refused to enter a plea, was pressed to his
death
during the Salem witch trials.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials)
1893:
New Zealand became the first country to introduce universal suffrage,
following the women's suffrage movement led by Kate Sheppard.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/women%27s_suffrage)
1982:
":-)" and ":-(" were first proposed by Scott Fahlman for use as
emoticons .
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/emoticon)
1995:
The Manifesto of "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski was published in The
Washington Post and The New York Times, almost three months after it
was submitted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of
the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began
to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body,
matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence,
the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the
true,
wise friend called Piggy." -- William Golding
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Golding)
Operation Ten-Go was the last major Japanese naval operation in the
Pacific campaign of World War II. The Japanese battleship Yamato,
the
largest battleship in the world, along with nine other Japanese
warships, sortied from Japan on an intentional one-way mission to
attack the Allied forces that were invading Okinawa. The Japanese
force was attacked, stopped, and almost completely destroyed before
reaching Okinawa by U.S. carrier aircraft which sank Yamato and five
other Japanese warships. The battle emphasized the aerial control
that
the U.S. had attained in the Pacific theater as well as the
vulnerability of surface ships to aerial attack. The battle also
apparently exhibited Japan's willingness to sacrifice large numbers
of
its people in desperate and suicidal tactics in an attempt to slow or
stop the Allied advance on the Japanese homeland.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ten-Go
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
786:
Harun al-Rashid became the Abbasid caliph upon the death of his
brother al-Hadi.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harun_al-Rashid)
1752:
The British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven
days (September 2 was followed directly by September 14).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar)
1812:
Napoleon's invasion of Russia: Napoleon and his Grande Armée captured
Moscow, only to find the city deserted and burning.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow)
1959:
The Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 crashed onto and became the first
man-made object to reach the Moon.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_2)
1960:
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was
founded by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"The acceptance of the principle of international cooperation is of
immense importance for all states. Even the states which are most
tempted to believe that they can stand by themselves have very much
to
gain by such cooperation. And for the smaller states — the weaker
states — it is vital to all their hopes of liberty and justice." --
Lord Robert Cecil
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil%
2C_1st_Viscount_Cecil_of_Chelwood)
Mariah Carey is an American pop and R&B singer, songwriter, record
producer, and actress. Carey made her debut in 1990 under the
guidance
of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola and became the first
recording act to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard
Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993, a series
of
subsequent hit records established her position as Columbia's
highest-selling act. According to Billboard magazine, she was the
most
successful artist of the 1990s in the United States. Carey took full
creative control over her image and music following her separation
from Mottola in 1997, and she introduced elements of hip hop into her
album material. Her popularity was in decline when she left Columbia
in 2001, and she was dropped by Virgin Records the following year
after a highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown and the
poor reception of Glitter, her film and soundtrack project. Carey
later signed with Island/Def Jam and, after an unsuccessful period,
returned to the forefront of popular music in 2005. In 2000 the
World
Music Awards named Carey the best-selling female artist of all time,
and she has recorded the most U.S. number-one singles for a female
artist.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariah_Carey
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
533:
Belisarius and his legions defeated Gelimer and the Vandals at the
Battle of Ad Decimum near Carthage, and began the "Reconquest of the
West" under Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ad_Decimum)
1814:
The bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore
inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner," which
later became the national anthem of the United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baltimore)
1847:
Mexican-American War: Six teenagers known as Los Niños Héroes fought
to their death defending the military academy at Castillo de
Chapultepec in Mexico City during the Battle of Chapultepec.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C3%B1os_H%C3%A9roes)
1987:
Goiânia accident: A radioactive item was stolen from an abandoned
hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating hundreds of people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident)
1993:
After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, PLO leader Yasser
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin formally signed the
Oslo Peace Accords.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
What I need is a good defense 'Cause I'm feeling like a criminal And
I
need to be redeemed To the one I've sinned against Because he's all I
ever knew of love. -- Fiona Apple
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fiona_Apple)
Tyrannosaurus is the most famous dinosaur genus and a fixture in
popular culture. Known colloquially as T. rex, the species
Tyrannosaurus rex hails from what is now western North America. Some
scientists consider the slightly older Tarbosaurus bataar from Asia
to
represent a second species of Tyrannosaurus, while others maintain
Tarbosaurus as a separate genus. Like other tyrannosaurid theropods,
Tyrannosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with a massive skull balanced
by
a long, heavy tail. Relative to the large and powerful hindlimbs,
Tyrannosaurus forelimbs were small, and retained only two digits.
Although other theropods rivaled or exceeded T. rex in size, it was
the largest known tyrannosaurid and one of the largest known land
predators, measuring over 12 meters (40 feet) in length and weighing
as much as an elephant. Fossils of T. rex have been found in North
American rock formations dating to the very end of the Cretaceous
Period; it was among the last dinosaurs to exist prior to the
Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. More than 30 specimens of T.
rex
have now been identified, some nearly complete, which has allowed
significant research into many aspects of its biology, including its
life history and biomechanics. However, the feeding habits and
potential speed of T. rex remain controversial.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1683:
Great Turkish war: Polish troops led by Jan III Sobieski joined forces
with a Habsburg army to defeat the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of
Vienna.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna)
1933:
Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in
Bloomsbury, conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd)
1942:
The Laconia incident: A U-boat sank RMS Laconia with a torpedo off
the
coast of West Africa and attempted to rescue the passengers, which
included some 80 civilians, 160 Polish and 268 British soldiers and
about 1800 Italian POWs.
(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:
"When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about
Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the
back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. When I came back to my
native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride
in
the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live
where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I
wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President,
either. -- Jesse Owens
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens)
The United States House of Representatives is, along with the United
States Senate, one of the two houses of the Congress of the United
States. Each state is represented in the House proportionally to its
population, but each state is entitled to at least one
Representative.
The total number of Representatives is currently fixed at 435 by the
Reapportionment Act of 1929, though Congress could increase that
number. Each Representative serves for a two-year term and may be
re-elected an unlimited number of times. The presiding officer of
the
House is known as the Speaker. The bicameral Congress arose from the
desire of the Founders to create a "house of the people" that would
closely resemble and follow public opinion, in addition to a more
deliberative, learned and reserved Senate which would be less
susceptible to the frenzies of mass sentiment. It is conventional to
consider the House as the "lower house," and the Senate as the "upper
house," although the Constitution does not use such language. The
Constitution provides that the approval of both houses is necessary
for the passage of legislation.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1793:
French Revolution: The National Convention voted to implement terror
measures, beginning the Reign of Terror.
(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)
1905:
The Treaty of Portsmouth was signed at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
in New Hampshire, USA, officially ending the Russo-Japanese War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Portsmouth)
1972:
Munich Massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black
September" attacked Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Massacre)
1977:
NASA launched the Voyager 1 spaceprobe, currently the most distant
man-made object from Earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"I've probably saved thousands of peoples' lives with my educational
message on snake bites — how to get in around venomous anything.
Yeah,
I'm a thrill seeker, but crikey, education's the most important
thing." -- Steve Irwin
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Irwin)