Avery Brundage (1887–1975) was the fifth president of the
International Olympic Committee (IOC), serving from 1952 to 1972.
Brundage attended the University of Illinois to study engineering and
became a track star. In 1912, he competed in the Summer Olympics,
contesting the pentathlon and decathlon; both events were won by Jim
Thorpe. Following his retirement from athletics, Brundage became a
sports administrator, rising rapidly through the ranks in United States
sports groups. As leader of America's Olympic organizations, he fought
zealously against a boycott of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Nazi
Germany. Although Brundage was successful in getting a team to the
Games, its participation was controversial, and has remained so.
Brundage was elected to the IOC that year, and quickly became a major
figure in the Olympic movement. Elected IOC president in 1952, Brundage
fought strongly for amateurism and against commercialization of the
Olympic Games. His final Olympics as president, at Munich in 1972, was
marked by controversy: at the memorial service following the murder of
11 Israeli athletes by terrorists, Brundage decried the politicization
of sports, and refusing to cancel the remainder of the Olympics,
declared "the Games must go on".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avery_Brundage>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1781:
American Revolutionary War: General Benedict Arnold led British
forces to victory in the Battle of Groton Heights.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Groton_Heights>
1930:
Argentine President Hipólito Yrigoyen was deposed in a
military coup by José Félix Uriburu.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip%C3%B3lito_Yrigoyen>
1946:
United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes announced that
with regard to postwar Germany, the U.S. would from thereon follow a
policy of economic reconstruction.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restatement_of_Policy_on_Germany>
1952:
A prototype aircraft crashed at the Farnborough Airshow in
Hampshire, England, killing 29 spectators and the two on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Farnborough_Airshow_DH.110_crash>
1966:
South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the "architect
of apartheid", was stabbed to death by Dimitri Tsafendas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Verwoerd>
2000:
The Millennium Summit, a meeting of world leaders to discuss
the role of the United Nations at the turn of the 21st century, opened
in New York City.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Summit>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
munificent:
Very liberal in giving or bestowing; lavish; as a munificent benefactor.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/munificent>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
There is no contradiction. There never really can be between the core
terms of monistic philosophies. The One in India has got to be the same
as the One in Greece. If it's not, you've got two. The only
disagreements among the monists concern the attributes of the One, not
the One itself. Since the One is the source of all things and includes
all things in it, it cannot be defined in terms of those things, since
no matter what thing you use to define it, the thing will always
describe something less than the One itself. The One can only be
described allegorically, through the use of analogy, of figures of
imagination and speech.
--Robert M. Pirsig
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig>
Sebastian Shaw (1905–1994) was an English actor, director, novelist,
playwright and poet. During his 65-year career, Shaw appeared in dozens
of stage performances and more than 40 film and television productions.
Shaw was born and raised in Holt, Norfolk, and made his acting debut at
age eight at a London theatre. He studied acting at Gresham's School and
the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Although he worked primarily on the
London stage, he made his Broadway debut in 1929, when he played one of
the two murderers in Rope's End. He appeared in his first film, Caste,
in 1930 and quickly began to create a name for himself in films. Shaw
was particularly known for his performances in William Shakespeare
productions, which were considered daring and ahead of their time. In
1966, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he remained for a
decade and delivered some of his most acclaimed performances. He also
wrote several poems and a novel, The Christening, in 1975. He is also
known for his brief but important performance in Return of the Jedi, the
original third installment in the Star Wars franchise, in which he
portrayed an unmasked Darth Vader and as Anakin Skywalker's ghost in the
original version of the film.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Shaw_(actor)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1697:
War of the Grand Alliance: A French warship captured York
Factory, a trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company in present-day
Manitoba, Canada.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hudson%27s_Bay>
1793:
French Revolution: The National Convention began the Reign of
Terror, a ten-month period of systematic repression and mass executions
by guillotine of perceived enemies within the country.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror>
1877:
Oglala Lakota war leader Crazy Horse was fatally wounded after
surrendering while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in
present-day Nebraska.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse>
1927:
Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks' first popular character Oswald the
Lucky Rabbit made its debut in the animated cartoon Trolley Troubles.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_the_Lucky_Rabbit>
1980:
The St. Gotthard Tunnel (interior pictured) opened in
Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 24.51 km (15.3
miles) stretching from Goschenen to Airolo.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Road_Tunnel>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
canard:
A false or misleading report or story, especially if deliberately so.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/canard>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
A very great vision is needed, and the man who has it must follow it as
the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.
--Crazy Horse
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse>
The 1740 Batavia massacre was a pogrom against ethnic Chinese in the
port city of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. The violence inside the
city lasted from 9 to 22 October 1740. Unrest in the Chinese population
had been triggered by government repression and reduced income from
falling sugar prices prior to the massacre. In response, at a meeting of
the Council of the Indies, Governor-General Adriaan Valckenier declared
that any uprising was to be met with deadly force. His resolution took
effect on 7 October after hundreds of ethnic Chinese, many of them
sugar mill workers, killed 50 Dutch soldiers. The Dutch dispatched
troops who confiscated all weapons from the Chinese populace and placed
the Chinese under a curfew. Two days later, after being frightened by
rumours of Chinese atrocities, other Batavian ethnic groups began
burning Chinese houses along Besar Stream and Dutch soldiers launched an
assault using cannons on Chinese homes. The violence soon spread
throughout Batavia, killing more Chinese. Although Valckenier declared
an amnesty on 11 October, gangs of irregulars continued to hunt and
kill Chinese until 22 October, when Valckenier called more forcefully
for a cessation of hostilities. Historians have estimated that at least
10,000 ethnic Chinese were massacred.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1740_Batavia_massacre>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1774:
English explorer James Cook became the first European to sight
the island of New Caledonia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonia>
1812:
War of 1812: A coalition of Native American tribes began the
Siege of Fort Harrison in Terre Haute, Indiana, by setting the fort on
fire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Harrison>
1912:
The Albanian Revolt of 1912 came to an end when the Ottoman
government agreed to meet the rebels' demands.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Revolt_of_1912>
1964:
The Forth Road Bridge crossing the Firth of Forth in Scotland
opened to traffic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Road_Bridge>
1998:
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in Menlo Park,
California, to promote the web search engine that they developed as
Stanford University students.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google>
2007:
Three terrorists suspected to be a part of Al-Qaeda were
arrested in Germany after allegedly planning attacks on both Frankfurt
Airport and Ramstein Air Base.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_bomb_plot_in_Germany>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
snood:
1. A small hairnet or cap worn by women to keep their hair in place.
2. The flap of red skin on the beak of a male turkey.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snood>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Machines which ape people are tending to encroach on every aspect of
people's lives, and that such machines force people to behave like
machines. The new electronic devices do indeed have the power to force
people to "communicate" with them and with each other on the terms of
the machine. Whatever structurally does not fit the logic of machines is
effectively filtered from a culture dominated by their use. The machine-
like behaviour of people chained to electronics constitutes a
degradation of their well-being and of their dignity which, for most
people in the long run, becomes intolerable. Observations of the
sickening effect of programmed environments show that people in them
become indolent, impotent, narcissistic and apolitical. The political
process breaks down, because people cease to be able to govern
themselves; they demand to be managed.
--Ivan Illich
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich>
Authentic Science Fiction was a British science fiction magazine
published in the 1950s that ran for 85 issues. The magazine was
published by Hamilton and Co., and began in 1951 as a series of novels
appearing every two weeks; by the summer it had become a monthly
magazine, with readers' letters and an editorial page, though fiction
content was still restricted to a single novel. In 1952 short fiction
began to appear alongside the novels, and within two more years it had
completed the transformation into a science fiction magazine. Authentic
published little in the way of important or ground-breaking fiction,
though it did print Charles L. Harness's "The Rose", which later became
well-regarded. The poor rates of pay—£1 per 1,000 words—prevented
the magazine from attracting the best writers. During much of its life
it competed against three other moderately successful British science
fiction magazines, as well as the American science fiction magazine
market. Hamilton folded the magazine in October 1957, because they
needed cash to finance an investment in the UK rights to an American
best-selling novel.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_Science_Fiction>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
590:
Gregory I became pope, the first one to come from a monastic
background.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_I>
1189:
Richard the Lionheart was crowned King of England in
Westminster.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England>
1838:
Future American abolitionist Frederick Douglass escaped from
slavery.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass>
1901:
The National Flag of Australia, a Blue Ensign defaced with the
Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross, flew for the first time atop
the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Australia>
1942:
The Holocaust: In possibly the first Jewish ghetto uprising,
residents of the Łachwa Ghetto in occupied Poland, informed of the
upcoming "liquidation" of the ghetto, unsuccessfully fought against
their Nazi captors.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%81achwa_Ghetto>
2001:
The Troubles: Protestant loyalists began picketing a Catholic
primary school for girls in the Protestant portion of Ardoyne, Belfast,
Northern Ireland.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Cross_dispute>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
chirality:
The phenomenon, in chemistry, physics and mathematics, in which an
object differs from its mirror image.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chirality>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets
itself put down rightly on paper— whether little or great, it belongs
to Literature.
--Sarah Orne Jewett
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sarah_Orne_Jewett>
Augustine of Canterbury (c. first third of the 6th century – 604) was
a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the
year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of
the English Church. Augustine was the prior of a monastery in Rome when
Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead a mission, usually known
as the Gregorian mission, to Britain to Christianize King Æthelberht of
the Kingdom of Kent from his native Anglo-Saxon paganism. Before
reaching Kent the missionaries had considered turning back but Gregory
urged them on and, in 597, Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet and
proceeded to Æthelberht's main town of Canterbury. King Æthelberht
converted to Christianity and allowed the missionaries to preach freely,
giving them land to found a monastery outside the city walls. Augustine
was consecrated as a bishop and converted many of the king's subjects,
including thousands during a mass baptism on Christmas Day in 597. Roman
bishops were established at London and Rochester in 604, and a school
was founded to train Anglo-Saxon priests and missionaries. The
archbishop probably died in 604 and was soon revered as a saint.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Canterbury>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1666:
A large fire began on London's Pudding Lane and burned the city
for three days, destroying St Paul's Cathedral and the homes of 70,000
of the city's 80,000 inhabitants.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London>
1901:
U.S. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt first uttered the famous
phrase "speak softly and carry a big stick" (cartoon pictured) at the
Minnesota State Fair, describing his philosophy of negotiating
peacefully while simultaneously threatening to use military force.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology>
1946:
The interim government of India, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru,
formed to assist the transition of India from British rule to
independence.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interim_Government_of_India>
1967:
Paddy Roy Bates proclaimed HM Fort Roughs, a former Second
World War Maunsell Sea Fort in the North Sea off the coast of Suffolk,
England, as an independent sovereign state: the Principality of Sealand.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand>
1992:
An estimated magnitude 7.2 earthquake off the coast of the
coast of Nicaragua was the first tsunami earthquake to be captured on
modern broadband seismic networks.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Nicaragua_earthquake>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
punctilio:
A fine point in exactness of conduct, ceremony or procedure. Strictness
in observance of formalities.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/punctilio>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
As man is so constituted that it is utterly impossible for him to attain
happiness save by seeking the happiness of others, so does it seem to be
of the nature of things that individuals and classes can obtain their
own just rights only by struggling for the rights of others.
--Henry George
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_George>