90px|Bono, lead singer of U2
Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by rock band U2. It was
produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 19
November 1991. Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and
Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate influences from
alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into
their sound. Thematically, the album is darker, more introspective, and
more flippant than their previous work. Recording began at Berlin's
Hansa Studios in October 1990, but the sessions were fraught with
conflict, as the band argued over the direction and quality of their
music. After nearly breaking up, they made a breakthrough with the
improvisation of the song "One". Morale improved during the subsequent
recording sessions in Dublin in 1991. Achtung Baby received favourable
reviews and went to number one in several countries. It spawned five
hit singles, including "One", "Mysterious Ways", and "The Fly". The
album has sold 18 million copies, and in 1993, it won the Grammy Award
for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The record and
the multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour were central to U2's 1990s
reinvention. Achtung Baby has regularly appeared on critics' lists of
the greatest albums of all time. (more...)
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Dynasty
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_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1493:
Christopher Columbus became the first European to land on Puerto Rico,
naming it San Juan Bautista after John the Baptist.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico>
1794:
The United States and Great Britain concluded the Jay Treaty, which was
the basis for ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Treaty>
1863:
American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the
Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery
in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address>
1941:
Second World War: The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the
German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran destroyed each other off the coast of
Western Australia in the Indian Ocean.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_between_HMAS_Sydney_and_German_auxiliar…>
2005:
Iraq War: A group of United States Marines allegedly massacred
twenty-four people in the town of Haditha in Iraq.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
emetic (n):
An agent that induces vomiting
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/emetic>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis.
--James A. Garfield
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield>
The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of the Croatian town of
Vukovar by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and paramilitaries from
Serbia, between August and November 1991. In 1990, Croatian Serb
separatists launched an armed uprising, supported by Serbian President
Slobodan Milošević, and seized control of Serb-populated areas of
Croatia. The JNA intervened in favour of the Croatian Serbs and
launched an offensive in August 1991 against Croatian government-held
territory. Vukovar was defended by around 1,800 lightly armed Croatian
soldiers and civilian volunteers, against 36,000 JNA soldiers and
Serbian paramilitaries equipped with heavy armour and artillery. When
the town fell on 18 November 1991 after prolonged fighting, hundreds
were massacred by Serb forces and the town's non-Serb population was
expelled. Vukovar was peacefully reintegrated into Croatia in 1998
after the end of the Croatian War of Independence and has since been
rebuilt, but deep ethnic divisions remain. Several Serb military and
political officials, including Milošević, were later indicted and in
some cases jailed for war crimes committed during and after the battle.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vukovar>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1210:
Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III
after he commanded the Pope to annul the Concordat of Worms.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_IV%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor>
1928:
Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, the first completely post-produced
synchronized sound animated cartoon, was released.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat_Willie>
1943:
Second World War: The Royal Air Force began its bombing campaign
against Berlin.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berlin_%28air%29>
1991:
Croatian War of Independence: Yugoslav People's Army forces captured
the Croatian city of Vukovar, ending an 87-day siege.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vukovar>
1999:
Texas A&M University's Aggie Bonfire collapsed , killing 12 people and
injuring 27 others, and causing the university to officially declare a
hiatus on the 90-year-old annual event.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggie_Bonfire>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
sny (v):
(now dialectal, intransitive) Abound, swarm, teem, be infested, with
something
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sny>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Ideas, unlike solid structures, do not perish. They remain immortal,
immaterial and everywhere, like all Divine things. Ideas are a golden,
savage landscape that we wander unaware, without a map. Be careful: in
the last analysis, reality may be exactly what we think it is.
--Alan Moore
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Moore>
60px|William of St Calais from an 11th-century manuscript
William de St-Calais was a medieval Norman monk, abbot of the abbey
of St. Vincent in Le Mans in Maine, who was nominated as Bishop of
Durham in 1080 by King William I of England. During his term as bishop,
St-Calais replaced the canons of his cathedral chapter with monks, and
began the construction of Durham Cathedral. In addition to his
ecclesiastical duties, he served as a commissioner for the Domesday
Book. He was also a councilor and advisor to both King William I and
his son, King William II, known as William Rufus. Following William
Rufus' accession to the throne in 1087, St-Calais was considered by
scholars to be the new king's chief advisor. However, when the king's
uncle, Odo of Bayeux, raised a rebellion against the king in 1088,
St-Calais was implicated in the revolt. Imprisoned briefly, St-Calais
was allowed to go into exile in Normandy, where he became a leading
advisor to Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. By 1091, St-Calais had
returned to England and regained royal favour. In England, St-Calais
once more became a leading advisor to the king. In 1093 he negotiated
with Anselm, Abbot of Bec, concerning Anselm's becoming Archbishop of
Canterbury; in 1095 it was St-Calais who prosecuted the royal case
against Anselm after he had become archbishop. Before his death in
1096, he had made his peace with Anselm, who blessed and consoled
St-Calais on his deathbed. (more...)
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Koval
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_de_St-Calais>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1292:
John Balliol was chosen to be King of Scots over Robert de Brus.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Balliol>
1869:
The Suez Canal opened, allowing shipping to travel between Europe and
Asia via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal>
1950:
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama , was enthroned as Tibet's head of
state at the age of fifteen.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Dalai_Lama>
1970:
The Soviet Union's Lunokhod 1 landed on the Moon to become the first
roving remote-controlled robot to operate on another celestial body.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1>
2009:
Administrators at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East
Anglia discovered their servers had been hacked and thousands of emails
and files on climate change had been stolen.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
factious (adj):
1. Of, pertaining to, or caused by factions.
2. Given to or characterized by discordance or insubordination
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/factious>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so
soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you
will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse,
nor liberty license"; and they will define and define freedom out of
existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's
determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper
declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to
exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for
tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name
of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon
sleeping men.
--Voltairine de Cleyre
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltairine_de_Cleyre>
100px|The Great Wall of China
The Ming Dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644.
The Ming was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic Han Chinese.
Ming rule saw the construction of a vast navy and a standing army of
one million troops. There were enormous construction projects,
including the restoration of the Grand Canal and the Great Wall
(pictured) and the establishment of the Forbidden City in Beijing.
Emperor Hongwu's rebuilding of China's agricultural base and
strengthening of communication routes through the militarized courier
system had the unintended effect of creating a vast agricultural
surplus that could be sold at burgeoning markets located along courier
routes. By the 16th century, China became involved in a new global
trade of goods, plants, animals, and food crops known as the Columbian
Exchange. Trade with European powers and the Japanese brought in
massive amounts of silver, which then replaced copper and paper
banknotes as the common medium of exchange in China. During the last
decades of the Ming the flow of silver into China was greatly
diminished, thereby undermining the entire Ming economy. The ensuing
breakdown of authority and people's livelihoods allowed rebel leaders
such as Li Zicheng to challenge Ming authority. (more...)
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1491:
Several Jews and conversos were executed in Toledo, Spain, for the
alleged ritual murder of an infant, who was later canonised as the Holy
Child of La Guardia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Child_of_La_Guardia>
1776:
American Revolutionary War: British and Hessian units captured Fort
Washington from the Patriots.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Washington>
1944:
World War II: Operation Queen commenced in Düren, Germany, with one of
the heaviest Allied tactical bombing attacks of the war.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Queen>
1959:
The Sound of Music, a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein based on The
Story of the Trapp Family Singers, opened on Broadway at the
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Music>
1997:
Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng was released from prison after nearly
18 years of on-and-off incarceration for "medical reasons" and deported
to the United States.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wei_Jingsheng>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
ostinato (n):
A piece of melody, a chord progression, or a bass figure that is
repeated over and over as a musical accompaniment
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ostinato>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
There will not be one kind of community existing and one kind of life
led in utopia. Utopia will consist of utopias, of many different and
divergent communities in which people lead different kinds of lives
under different institutions. Some kinds of communities will be more
attractive to most than others; communities will wax and wane. People
will leave some for others or spend their whole lives in one. Utopia is
a framework for utopias, a place where people are at liberty to join
together voluntarily to pursue and attempt to realize their own vision
of the good life in the ideal community but where no one can impose his
own utopian vision upon others.
--Robert Nozick
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick>
The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph
Bakshi. It combines animation and live action footage which is
rotoscoped to give it a look more consistent with the rest of the
movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of The Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the film follows a group of
hobbits, elves, men, dwarves and wizards who form a fellowship. They
embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring made by the Dark Lord Sauron,
and ensure his destruction. The film features the voices of William
Squire, John Hurt, Michael Graham Cox and Anthony Daniels of Star Wars
fame. The screenplay was written by Peter S. Beagle, based on an
earlier draft by Chris Conkling. Director Ralph Bakshi encountered
Tolkien's writing early in his career, and had made several attempts to
produce The Lord of the Rings as an animated film before being given
funding by producer Saul Zaentz and distributor United Artists.
Although the film was a financial success, it received a mixed reaction
from critics, and the original distributors refused to fund a sequel to
cover the remainder of the story. However, the film sparked new
interest in Tolkien's writing, inspiring the production of several
further adaptations of the story. (more...)
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Ridge, British Columbia
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Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_%281978_film%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
655:
Penda of Mercia was defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria at the Battle of
the Winwaed in modern-day Yorkshire, England.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penda_of_Mercia>
1859:
Sponsored by businessman Evangelos Zappas , the first modern revival of
the Olympic Games took place in Athens, Greece.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappas_Olympics>
1935:
The Commonwealth of the Philippines was officially established, with
Manuel L. Quezon inaugurated as its president.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_the_Philippines>
1943:
The Holocaust: Heinrich Himmler ordered that Romanies were to be put
"on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porajmos>
1983:
Turkish Cypriots on the northeastern portion of Cyprus declared the
creation of a new state known as the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus, which currently remains recognised only by Turkey.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
diametrically (adv):
Separated by a diameter, on exactly the opposite side
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/diametrically>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
A phrase begins life as a literary expression; its felicity leads to
its lazy repetition; and repetition soon establishes it as a legal
formula, undiscriminatingly used to express different and sometimes
contradictory ideas.
--Felix Frankfurter
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Felix_Frankfurter>
George Koval (1913–2006) was a Soviet intelligence officer. According
to Russian sources, Koval's infiltration of the Manhattan Project as a
GRU agent "drastically reduced the amount of time it took for Russia to
develop nuclear weapons". Koval was born to Jewish immigrants in Sioux
City, Iowa. Shortly after reaching adulthood he traveled with his
parents to the Soviet Union to settle in the Jewish Autonomous Region
near the Chinese border. Koval was recruited by the Soviet Main
Intelligence Directorate, trained, and assigned the code name DELMAR.
He returned to the United States in 1940 and was drafted into the US
Army in early 1943. Koval worked at atomic research laboratories and,
according to the Russian government, relayed back to the Soviet Union
information about the production processes and volumes of the polonium,
plutonium, and uranium used in American atomic weaponry, in addition to
descriptions of the weapon production sites. After the war, Koval left
on a European vacation but never returned to the United States. In 2007
Russian President Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded Koval the Hero of
the Russian Federation decoration for "his courage and heroism while
carrying out special missions". (more...)
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Columbia – Harry Cobby
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Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Koval>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1910:
Aviator Eugene Burton Ely performed the first takeoff from a ship,
flying from a makeshift deck on the USS Birmingham in Hampton Roads,
Virginia, US.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Burton_Ely>
1940:
Second World War: Coventry Cathedral and much of the city centre of
Coventry, England, were destroyed by the German Luftwaffe during the
Coventry Blitz.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Blitz>
1971:
NASA's Mariner 9 reached Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit
another planet.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_9>
1984:
Cesar Climaco, mayor of Zamboanga City, the Philippines, was
assassinated.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Climaco>
1990:
Germany and Poland signed the German–Polish Border Treaty, confirming
their border at the Oder-Neisse line, which was originally defined by
the Potsdam Agreement in 1945.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oder-Neisse_line>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
salacious (adj):
Promoting sexual desire or lust
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salacious>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The world of today has achieved much, but for all its declared love for
humanity, it has based itself far more on hatred and violence than on
the virtues that make one human. War is the negation of truth and
humanity. War may be unavoidable sometimes, but its progeny are
terrible to contemplate. Not mere killing, for man must die, but the
deliberate and persistent propagation of hatred and falsehood, which
gradually become the normal habits of the people. It is dangerous and
harmful to be guided in our life's course by hatreds and aversions, for
they are wasteful of energy and limit and twist the mind and prevent it
from perceiving truth.
--Jawaharlal Nehru
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru>
Astonishing Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine,
published by Popular Publications between 1940 and 1943. The magazine's
first editor was Frederik Pohl, who also edited a companion
publication, Super Science Stories. The budget for Astonishing was very
low, which made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but through his
membership of the Futurians, a group of young science fiction fans and
aspiring writers, Pohl was able to find material to fill the early
issues. The magazine was successful, and Pohl was able to increase his
pay rates slightly within a year. He managed to obtain stories by
writers who subsequently became very well known, such as Isaac Asimov
and Robert Heinlein. After Pohl entered the army in early 1943, wartime
paper shortages led Popular to cease publication of Astonishing. The
final issue was dated April of that year. The magazine was never
regarded as one of the leading titles of the genre, but despite the low
budget it published some well-received material. Science fiction critic
Peter Nicholls comments that "its stories were surprisingly good
considering how little was paid for them", and this view has been
echoed by other historians of the field. (more...)
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Edmund Fitzgerald
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astonishing_Stories>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1002:
St. Brice's Day massacre: King Ethelred II ordered the massacre of all
Danes in England.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethelred_the_Unready>
1927:
The Holland Tunnel, connecting New York City's Manhattan with Jersey
City, New Jersey, under the Hudson River, opened.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Tunnel>
1965:
The steamship SS Yarmouth Castle burned and sank about 60 miles
(100 km) northwest of Nassau, Bahamas, killing about 90 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Yarmouth_Castle>
1970:
The Bhola tropical cyclone hit the densely populated Ganges Delta in
East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Bhola_cyclone>
1992:
The High Court of Australia ruled in Dietrich v The Queen that although
there is no absolute right to have publicly funded counsel, in most
circumstances a judge should grant any request for an adjournment or
stay when an accused is unrepresented.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_v_The_Queen>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
pernoctation (n):
1. An overnight stay; action (or instance) of abiding through the night
at a location.
2. The action (or an instance) of walking about at night, especially
as a vigil or watch
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pernoctation>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is
a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but — what is worse — the
slave of as many masters as he has vices.
--Augustine of Hippo
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo>
120px|Tumbler Ridge Town Hall
Tumbler Ridge is a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains
in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of
the Peace River Regional District. The municipality, with its
population of 2,454 people, incorporates a townsite and a large area of
mostly Crown Land. The housing and municipal infrastructure were built
simultaneously in 1981 by the provincial government to service the coal
industry. In 1981, a consortium of Japanese steel mills agreed to
purchase 100 million tonnes of coal from two mining companies that were
to operate the Quintette mine and the Bullmoose mine. Declining global
coal prices after 1981, and weakening Asian markets in the late 1990s,
made the town's future uncertain. When price reductions were forced
onto the mines, the Quintette mine was closed in 2000 and the town lost
about half its population. Since 2000 rising coal prices have led to
the opening of new mines. After dinosaur footprints, fossils, and bones
were discovered in the municipality, the Peace Region Paleontology
Research Centre opened in 2003. Economic diversification has also
occurred with oil and gas exploration, forestry, and recreational
tourism. Nearby recreational destinations include numerous trails,
mountains, waterfalls, snowmobiling areas and provincial parks.
(more...)
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_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1028:
Future Byzantine empress Zoe first took the throne as empress consort
to Romanos III Argyros.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoe_Porphyrogenita>
1893:
Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of British India, and Abdur Rahman
Khan, Amir of Afghanistan, signed the Durand Line Agreement,
establishing what is now the international border between Afghanistan
and Pakistan.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durand_Line>
1936:
The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, connecting San Francisco and
Oakland, California across San Francisco Bay, opened to traffic.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_%E2%80%93_Oakland_Bay_Bridge>
1942:
World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal , the decisive engagement
in a series of naval battles between Allied and Japanese forces during
the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands, began.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal>
1991:
In Dili, East Timor, Indonesian forces opened fire on student
demonstrators protesting the occupation of East Timor, killing at least
250 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_massacre>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
eclaircissement (n):
An explanation of something obscure or unknown; clarification,
enlightenment
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eclaircissement>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
If the learned and worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind
to inhale the fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding
heart would apprehend the meaning of true liberty, and discover the
secret of undisturbed peace and absolute composure.
--Bahá'u'lláh
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27u%27ll%C3%A1h>
85px|Captain Harry Cobby in 1919
Harry Cobby (1894–1955) was the leading fighter ace of the Australian
Flying Corps during World War I. A bank clerk when war broke out, he
was prevented by his employer from enlisting in the military until
1916. After flying training, he was posted to the Western Front with
No. 4 Squadron AFC. In less than a year of combat he achieved 29
victories, all flying the Sopwith Camel. Acclaimed a national hero,
Cobby transferred to the newly formed Royal Australian Air Force in
1921. He commanded No. 1 Squadron and RAAF Station Richmond, before
leaving to join the Civil Aviation Board in 1936. Re-joining the RAAF
at the outbreak of World War II, Cobby was awarded the George Medal in
1943 for rescuing fellow survivors of an aircraft crash. The following
year he was appointed Air Officer Commanding No. 10 Operational Group,
but was relieved of his post in the wake of the "Morotai Mutiny" of
April 1945. Retiring from the RAAF in 1946, Cobby served with the
Department of Civil Aviation until his death on Armistice Day in 1955.
(more...)
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Kentucky
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_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1215:
The Fourth Lateran Council convened, defining the doctrine of
transubstantiation, the process by which bread and wine are transformed
into the body and blood of Christ.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/transubstantiation>
1620:
The Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of the Plymouth
Colony, was signed by 41 of the Mayflower's passengers while the ship
was anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Compact>
1805:
War of the Third Coalition: French, Austrian and Russian units all
suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Dürenstein.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_D%C3%BCrenstein>
1918:
The armistice treaty between the German Empire and the Allies was
signed in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne of France .
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_with_Germany>
1940:
World War II: The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis captured top secret
documents from SS Automedon that would later influence Japan's decision
to enter the war.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_auxiliary_cruiser_Atlantis>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
bell the cat (v):
To undertake a dangerous action in the service of a group
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bell_the_cat>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be
beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will
not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind.
And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I
help believing it? I have seen the truth — it is not as though I had
invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image
of it has filled my soul for ever. I have seen it in such full
perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to
have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall make some slips no doubt,
and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long: the
living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always
correct and guide me. Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I
will go on and on if it were for a thousand years! Do you know, at
first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them, but that was a
mistake — that was my first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I
was lying, and preserved me and corrected me. But how establish
paradise — I don't know, because I do not know how to put it into
words. After my dream I lost command of words. All the chief words,
anyway, the most necessary ones. But never mind, I shall go and I shall
keep talking, I won't leave off, for anyway I have seen it with my own
eyes, though I cannot describe what I saw. But the scoffers do not
understand that. It was a dream, they say, delirium, hallucination. Oh!
As though that meant so much! And they are so proud! A dream! What is a
dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this
paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on
preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour
everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others
like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing
else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And
yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times —
but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is
higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than
happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only
everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once.
--Fyodor Dostoevsky
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky>
110px|The Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a 729-foot (222 m) Great Lakes freighter
that made headlines after sinking in Lake Superior in a massive storm
on November 10, 1975, with near hurricane-force winds and 35-foot
(11 m) waves. The Fitzgerald suddenly sank approximately 17 miles
(27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay, at a depth of 530 feet
(160 m). Her crew of 29 perished without sending any distress signals,
and no bodies were recovered; she is the largest boat to have sunk in
the Great Lakes. The Fitzgerald carried taconite from mines near
Duluth, Minnesota, to iron works in Detroit, Toledo and other ports.
Many theories, books, studies and expeditions have examined the cause
of the sinking. Her sinking is one of the most well-known disasters in
the history of Great Lakes shipping and is the subject of Gordon
Lightfoot's 1976 hit song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".
(more...)
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Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1865:
Henry Wirz, the superintendent of the Confederacy's Andersonville
Prison, was hanged after a controversial conviction, becoming the only
American Civil War soldier executed for war crimes.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wirz>
1945:
Indonesian National Revolution: Following the killing of the British
officer Brigadier A. W. S. Mallaby a few weeks prior, British forces
began their retaliation by attacking Surabaya, Indonesia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Surabaya>
1958:
Merchant Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond , the "most famous
diamond in the world", to the Smithsonian Institution.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Diamond>
2006:
Prominent Sri Lankan Tamil politician and human rights lawyer Nadarajah
Raviraj was assassinated in Colombo.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadarajah_Raviraj>
2007:
At the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile, King Juan Carlos I of
Spain asked President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez "¿Por qué no te callas?"
after Chávez repeatedly interrupted a speech by Spanish Prime Minister
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%BFPor_qu%C3%A9_no_te_callas%3F>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
permablock (v):
(Internet slang) To permanently block the access of a user
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/permablock>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he
is only completely a man when he plays.
--Friedrich Schiller
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Friedrich_Schiller>