Peter Heywood (1772–1831) was a British naval officer who was aboard
HMS Bounty during the mutiny of 28 April 1789. Bounty had left England
in 1787 on a mission to collect breadfruit from the Pacific. Shortly
after the ship began its homeward voyage, discontented crew members led
by Fletcher Christian seized its captain, William Bligh, and took
control of the vessel. Bligh and 19 loyalists were set adrift in an open
boat; Heywood remained aboard Bounty. He and 15 others settled in
Tahiti, while Bounty sailed on to Pitcairn Island. Bligh eventually
reached England, where he implicated Heywood in the mutiny. In 1791
Heywood and his companions were captured and brought back to England.
Heywood was court-martialed and sentenced to hang, but was subsequently
pardoned by King George III. During his trial powerful family
connections worked on his behalf, and the extent of his guilt was
clouded by contradictory statements and possible false testimony.
Heywood's career subsequently prospered; he was given his first command
at the age of 27, and made a post-captain at 31. After leaving the navy
in 1816 he enjoyed a long and peaceful retirement.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Heywood>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1674:
Shivaji (pictured), who led a resistance to free the Maratha
from the Sultanate of Bijapur and the Mughal Empire, was crowned the
first Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivaji>
1813:
War of 1812: The British ambushed an American encampment near
present-day Stoney Creek, Ontario, capturing two senior officers.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stoney_Creek>
1844:
The YMCA, today a worldwide movement of more than 45 million
members from 124 national federations, was founded in London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA>
1859:
Queen Victoria signed letters patent separating the colony of
Queensland from New South Wales.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland>
1971:
Vietnam War: The Australian Army attacked a heavily fortified
Vietnamese communist forces base camp in the Battle of Long Khanh.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Long_Khanh>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
enfranchise:
To grant the franchise to an entity, generally meaning to grant the
privilege of voting to a person.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enfranchise>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are
about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven
these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and
prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company
with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will
bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination
of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for
ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower>
A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus
passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against the
solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small
black disk moving slowly across the face of the Sun. A transit is
similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon, but while the diameter of Venus
is more than three times that of the Moon it is much further from Earth
and so appears smaller and generally takes longer (up to eight hours) to
travel across the solar disk. Transits of Venus are among the rarest of
predictable astronomical phenomena—they occur in a pattern that
repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart
separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. The next transit
of Venus occurs on 5 and 6 June 2012, and will be the last Venus transit
this century. Historically, Venus transits were of great scientific
importance as they were used to gain the first realistic estimates of
the size of the solar system. A transit of Venus can be safely observed
by taking the same precautions used when observing the partial phases of
a solar eclipse.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1832:
The June Rebellion, an anti-monarchist uprising of students,
broke out in Paris.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Rebellion>
1849:
A new constitution was introduced in Denmark, establishing a
constitutional monarchy and the Rigsdag, a bicameral parliament
consisting of the Landsting and the Folketing.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark>
1941:
Second Sino-Japanese War: During one sortie in a five-year
bombing campaign on Chongqing, 4,000 people died of asphyxiation when
the tunnel they were hiding in became blocked.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Chongqing>
1981:
The Centers for Disease Control recorded a cluster of
Pneumocystis pneumonia cases among homosexual men in Los Angeles, the
first reported cases of AIDS.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS>
2001:
Tropical Storm Allison made landfall in southeast Texas,
causing $5.5 billion in damage to make it the costliest tropical storm
in US history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Allison>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
vulgarian:
A vulgar individual, especially one who emphasizes or is oblivious to
their vulgar qualities.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vulgarian>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on
the unthinking.
--John Maynard Keynes
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes>
Kaga was an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Originally
intended to be one of two Tosa-class battleships, Kaga was converted
under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty into an aircraft carrier
as the replacement for the battlecruiser Amagi, which had been damaged
during the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake. Kaga's aircraft first supported
Japanese troops in China during the Shanghai Incident of 1932 and
participated in the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s. With
other carriers, she took part in the Pearl Harbor raid in December 1941
and the invasion of Rabaul in the Southwest Pacific in January 1942. The
following month her aircraft participated in a [[combined carrier
airstrike on Darwin, Australia, helping secure the conquest of the Dutch
East Indies by Japanese forces. During the Battle of Midway in June,
Kaga and the other carriers were attacked by American aircraft from
Midway Atoll and the carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown. Dive
bombers from Enterprise severely damaged Kaga; when it became obvious
she could not be saved, she was scuttled by Japanese destroyers to
prevent her from falling into enemy hands. In 1999, debris from Kaga was
located on the ocean floor; the main body of the carrier has not yet
been found.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Kaga>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1792:
Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound in the
Pacific Northwest for Great Britain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound>
1920:
The Kingdom of Hungary was split into five countries with the
signing of the Treaty of Trianon in Paris.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon>
1939:
The German ocean liner St. Louis, carrying 937 Jewish refugees
seeking political asylum from Nazi persecution, was denied permission to
land in the United States, after already having been turned away from
Cuba.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis>
1987:
American intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard pleaded guilty
to charges of spying for Israel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard>
1989:
The People's Liberation Army violently cracked down on the
Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, leaving at least 241 dead and
7,000 wounded, and causing widespread international condemnation of the
Chinese government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
sexton:
A church official who looks after a church and its graveyard and may act
as a gravedigger and bell-ringer.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sexton>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks
and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.
--Robert Fulghum
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Fulghum>
The Sweet Track is an ancient causeway in the Somerset Levels, England.
It was built in 3807 or 3806 BC and has been claimed to be the oldest
road in the world. It is now known that the Sweet Track was largely
built over the course of an earlier structure, the Post Track. The track
extended across the marsh between what was then an island at Westhay,
although much of the marsh has now been drained, and a ridge of high
ground at Shapwick, a distance close to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft). The
track is one of a network that once crossed the Somerset Levels.
Construction was of crossed wooden poles which were driven into the
waterlogged soil to support a walkway that consisted mainly of planks of
oak, laid end-to-end. The track was only used for a period of around 10
years and was then abandoned, probably due to rising water levels.
Following its discovery in 1970, most of the track has been left in its
original location, with active conservation measures taken, including a
water pumping and distribution system to maintain the wood in its damp
condition. Some of the track is stored at the British Museum and a
reconstruction of a section was built at the Peat Moors Centre near
Glastonbury.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1839:
Qing government official Lin Zexu catalysed the First Opium War
after ordering the destruction of nearly 1.2 million kg (2.6 million
lbs) of opium in Humen, China.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Zexu>
1937:
Nearly six months after Edward, Duke of Windsor, abdicated the
British throne, he married American socialite Wallis Simpson in a
private ceremony near Tours, France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Simpson>
1943:
Off-duty US sailors fought with Mexican American youths in Los
Angeles, spawning the Zoot Suit Riots.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots>
1968:
American artist Andy Warhol and two others were shot and
wounded at his New York City studio "The Factory" by radical feminist
Valerie Solanas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol>
1973:
At the Paris Air Show, a Tupolev Tu-144 broke up in mid-flight
and disintegrated, killing the six members of the crew and eight
bystanders on the ground.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Paris_Air_Show_crash>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
guardian angel:
A spirit believed to protect and to guide a particular person.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/guardian_angel>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the
truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be
something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It
might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has
been part of our tradition for most of our history — free culture. If
this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.
--Lawrence Lessig
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig>
Elizabeth II (born 1926) is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign
states known as the Commonwealth realms, head of the 54-member
Commonwealth of Nations, and head of state of the Crown Dependencies and
British Overseas Territories. Her father, George VI, acceded to the
throne in 1936 on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII. She began
public duties during the Second World War, in which she served in the
Auxiliary Territorial Service. On George VI's death in 1952, she became
Head of the Commonwealth and Queen of seven independent Commonwealth
countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon. Her coronation service in 1953 was the
first to be televised. Since her accession, the number of her realms has
varied as territories gained independence and some realms became
republics. In 1947 she married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, with
whom she has four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward. Her reign
of 60 years is the second-longest for a British monarch; only Queen
Victoria has reigned longer. Elizabeth's Silver and Golden Jubilees were
celebrated in 1977 and 2002; her Diamond Jubilee is being celebrated
during 2012.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1848:
As part of the Pan-Slavism movement, the Prague Slavic Congress
began in Prague, one of the few times that voices from all Slav
populations of Europe were heard in one place.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Slavic_Congress,_1848>
1866:
Fenian raids: The Battle of Ridgeway, the first to be fought
only by Canadian troops and led exclusively by Canadian officers, took
place in Ontario.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ridgeway>
1886:
Grover Cleveland became the only U.S. President to marry in the
White House when he wed Frances Folsom (wedding pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Folsom_Cleveland_Preston>
1967:
German university student Benno Ohnesorg was killed during a
protest in West Berlin against the visit of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah
of Iran, sparking the formation of the militant group Movement 2 June.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_2_June>
2010:
A lone gunman went on a shooting spree in Cumbria, England,
killing 12 and injuring 11 others before committing suicide.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbria_shootings>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
superannuate:
1. (transitive) To retire or put out of use due to age.
2. (intransitive) To become obsolete or antiquated.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/superannuate>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
When Nature gives a gorgeous rose, Or yields the simplest fern, She
writes this motto on the leaves, — "To whom it may concern!" And so it
is the poet comes And revels in her bowers, And, — though another hold
the land, Is owner of the flowers.
--John Godfrey Saxe
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe>