Tryon Creek is a 4.85-mile (7.81 km) tributary of the Willamette River
in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the drainage basin of the Columbia
River, its watershed covers about 6.5 square miles (16.8 km2) in
Multnomah and Clackamas counties. The stream flows southeast from the
Tualatin Mountains (West Hills) through the Multnomah Village
neighborhood of Portland and the Tryon Creek State Natural Area to the
Willamette in the city of Lake Oswego. Parks and open spaces cover
about 21 percent of the watershed, while single-family homes dominate
most of the remainder. The largest of the parks is the state natural
area, which straddles the border between the two cities and counties.
The bedrock under the watershed includes part of the last exotic
terrane, a chain of seamounts, acquired by the North American Plate as
it moved west during the Eocene. Named for mid-19th century settler,
Socrates Hotchkiss Tryon, Sr., the creek ran through forests of cedar
and fir. Efforts to establish a large park in the watershed began in
the 1950s and succeeded in 1975 when the state park was formally
established. As of 2005, about 37 percent of the watershed was wooded
and supported more than 60 species of birds as well as small mammals,
amphibians, and fish.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryon_Creek>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1660:
Charles II of England issued the Declaration of Breda, describing his
conditions for the Restoration of the crown of England.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Breda>
1841:
William Henry Harrison became the first U.S. President to die in
office, 32 days into his term, sparking a brief constitutional crisis
regarding questions of presidential succession that were left
unanswered by the U.S. Constitution.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison>
1969:
Surgeons Denton Cooley and Domingo Liotta implanted the first total
artificial heart.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/artificial_heart>
1975:
Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft>
1979:
Deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulfikar_Ali_Bhutto>
2002:
The Angolan government and UNITA rebels signed a peace treaty, agreeing
to follow the 1994 Lusaka Protocol and ending the decades-long Angolan
Civil War.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_Civil_War>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
roundabout (adj):
[[indirect
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/roundabout>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
182px
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
--Maya Angelou
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou>
The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident took place in Tiananmen
Square in central Beijing on 23 January 2001. The incident is disputed:
the official Chinese press agency, Xinhua News Agency, stated that five
members of Falun Gong, a banned spiritual movement, set themselves on
fire to protest the unfair treatment of Falun Gong by the Chinese
government. The Falun Dafa Information Center stated the incident was a
hoax staged by the Chinese government to turn public opinion against
the group and to justify the torture and imprisonment of its
practitioners. The incident received international news coverage, and
video footage was broadcast later in the People's Republic of China by
China Central Television. A wide variety of opinions and
interpretations of what may have happened emerged: the event may have
been set up by the government, it may have been an authentic protest,
or the self-immolators "new or unschooled" practitioners, among others.
The campaign of state propaganda that followed the event eroded public
sympathy for Falun Gong, and the government began sanctioning
"systematic use of violence" against the group.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_self-immolation_incident>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1043:
Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England, the last king of the
House of Wessex.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor>
1895:
The libel trial instigated by Irish author Oscar Wilde began,
eventually resulting in Wilde's arrest, trial and imprisonment on
charges of gross indecency.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde>
1922:
Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin>
1971:
The Japanese tokusatsu television series Kamen Rider premiered, marking
the beginning of the long-running Kamen Rider franchise.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamen_Rider_Series>
2007:
Texas law enforcement authorities raided the Fundamentalist Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' YFZ Ranch, eventually removing 533
women and children from the premises.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YFZ_Ranch>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
snail mail (n):
(retronym) Postal mail, especially as compared to email
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snail_mail>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
44px
We do not want our world to perish. But in our quest for knowledge,
century by century, we have placed all our trust in a cold, impartial
intellect which only brings us nearer to destruction. We have heeded no
wisdom offering guidance. Only by learning to love one another can our
world be saved. Only love can conquer all.
--Dora Russell
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dora_Russell>
Talbot Baines Reed (1852–1893) was an English writer of boys' fiction
who established a genre of school stories that endured into the second
half of the 20th century and was widely imitated. Among his best-known
work is The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's. He was a regular and prolific
contributor to The Boy's Own Paper, in which most of his fiction first
appeared. Through his family's business, Reed became a prominent
typefounder, and wrote a classic History of the Old English Letter
Foundries which, published in 1887, was hailed as the standard work on
the subject. Reed's affinity with boys, his instinctive understanding
of their standpoint in life and his gift for creating believable
characters, ensured that his popularity survived through several
generations. He also wrote regular articles and book reviews for his
cousin Edward Baines's newspaper, the Leeds Mercury. After struggling
with illness for most of 1893, Reed died in November that year, at the
age of 41. Tributes honoured him both for his contribution to
children's fiction and for his work as the definitive historian of
English typefounding.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talbot_Baines_Reed>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1513:
Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León reached Florida, becoming the
first European known to do so, purportedly while searching for the
Fountain of Youth in the New World.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Ponce_de_Le%C3%B3n>
1755:
A naval fleet led by Commodore William James of the East India Company
captured the fortress Suvarnadurg from the Marathas.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suvarnadurg>
1911:
The Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted the country's first
national census.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Australia>
1982:
Argentine special forces invaded the Falkland Islands, sparking the
Falklands War.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_invasion_of_the_Falkland_Islands>
2006:
Over 60 tornadoes touched down in the central United States, killing 27
people and causing about US$1.1 billion in damages.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2%2C_2006_Central_United_States_tornado_…>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
prosopagnosia (n):
A form of visual agnosia characterised by difficulty with face
recognition despite intact low-level visual processing
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prosopagnosia>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
My success and my misfortunes, the bright and the dark days I have gone
through, everything has proved to me that in this world, either
physical or moral, good comes out of evil just as well as evil comes
out of good. My errors will point to thinking men the various roads,
and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the
precipice without falling into it. It is only necessary to have
courage, for strength without self-confidence is useless.
--Giacomo Casanova
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Giacomo_Casanova>
Pigeon photography was an aerial photography technique invented in 1907
by Julius Neubronner, court apothecary of Empress Frederick, who also
used pigeons for film special effects and to deliver medications. A
homing pigeon was fitted with an aluminum breast harness to which a
lightweight time-delayed miniature camera could be attached. The
technique was publicized at the 1909 Dresden International Photographic
Exhibition. It was successfully demonstrated at the first German
Aviation Show and at the 1910 and 1911 Paris Air Shows. The lack of
military or commercial interest in the technology after the First World
War led Neubronner to abandon his experiments, but his idea was briefly
resurrected in the 1930s by a Swiss clockmaker, and reportedly also by
the German and French militaries. There was interest in the concept
even during the Cold War, by the American Central Intelligence Agency.
The construction of sufficiently small and light cameras with a timer
mechanism, and the training and handling of the birds to carry the
necessary loads, presented major challenges, as did the limited control
over the pigeons' position, orientation and speed when the photographs
were being taken. Today some researchers, enthusiasts, and artists
similarly employ small digital photo or video cameras with various
species of wild or domestic animals.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_photography>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1234:
An Englishman lost the Battle of the Curragh in Ireland , at the same
place where an Australian would win the 1297 Battle of Stirling Bridge
in Scotland many years later.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Curragh>
1918:
The British Armed Forces started to grant personnel the power to fly.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force>
1970:
The first of over 670,000 gremlins were released into North America to
crush imported machines.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Gremlin>
2002:
Five years after the Dutch government allowed more people to marry,
they decided it was acceptable to kill one's spouse.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_Netherlands>
2006:
As mandated by a 2005 Act of the British Parliament, several British
policing agencies joined together to become very serious and organised.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Organised_Crime_Agency>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
ataraxia (n):
(literary, Greek philosophy) A pleasure that comes when the mind is at
rest
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ataraxia>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
144px
I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to
treat everything as if it were a nail.
--Abraham Maslow
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow>