The Battle of Cape Esperance took place on 11–12 October 1942 between
the Imperial Japanese Navy and U.S. Navy in the Pacific campaign of
World War II. The second major surface engagement of the Guadalcanal
Campaign, it took place at the entrance to the strait between Savo
Island and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese sent a major
supply and reinforcement convoy to their forces on Guadalcanal. At the
same time, five warships (under the command of Rear Admiral Aritomo
Gotō) were to bombard the Allied airfield on Guadalcanal. Shortly
before midnight on 11 October, the Americans surprised Gotō's force,
sinking two warships and heavily damaging another (Japanese cruiser
Aoba, pictured). Gotō was mortally wounded and his other warships were
forced to retreat. Meanwhile, the Japanese supply convoy unloaded and
began its return journey without being discovered; four of its
destroyers turned back to assist Gotō's retreating warships, but U.S.
aircraft sank two of them. The battle did not give either navy
operational control of the waters around Guadalcanal, but it provided a
significant morale boost to the U.S. Navy after its heavy losses at the
earlier Battle of Savo Island.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Esperance>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1142:
The Treaty of Shaoxing, ending the Jurchen campaigns against
the Song Dynasty, was formally ratified when a Jin envoy visited the
Southern Song court.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin%E2%80%93Song_Wars>
1634:
A storm tide on the coast of North Frisia caused a massive
flood that killed at least 8,000 people and split the island of Strand
into three smaller islands.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burchardi_flood>
1797:
French Revolutionary Wars: The Royal Navy captured eleven Dutch
Navy ships without any losses in the Battle of Camperdown.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Camperdown>
1941:
Armed insurgents from the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia
attacked Axis-occupied zones in the city of Prilep, beginning the
National Liberation War of Macedonia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_in_Yugoslav_Macedonia>
1962:
Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, the first
Roman Catholic ecumenical council in 92 years.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
microcosm:
1. A smaller system which is representative of or analogous to a larger
one.
2. A small natural ecosystem; an artificial ecosystem set up as an
experimental model.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/microcosm>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in
which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to
yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing
that comes along." ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
--Eleanor Roosevelt
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt>
Arthur Gould (1864–1919) was a Welsh international rugby union centre
and fullback who was most associated as a club player with Newport Rugby
Football Club. He won 27 caps for Wales and critics consider him the
first superstar of Welsh rugby. A talented all-round player and champion
sprinter, Gould could side-step and kick with either foot. He never
ceased practising in order to develop his fitness and skills, and was
considered the outstanding player of his time. In 1893 Gould led Wales
to their first Home Nations Championship and Triple Crown titles; the
match against England that year established him as a great player and
captain. During his international career he played twice at fullback,
and 25 times at centre. He was Wales’ most capped centre until the
record was surpassed by Steve Fenwick in 1980. He ended his
international career with an 11–0 win over England on 9 January 1897
in front of 17,000 supporters at Rodney Parade. It was Gould’s 18th
match as Welsh captain – a record that stood until 1994. Towards the
end of his career Gould was at the centre of a controversy over a fund
collected in his honour which saw Wales temporarily withdraw from
international rugby.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Gould_(rugby_union)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1780:
One of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record struck the
Caribbean Sea, killing at least 22,000 people over the next several
days.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hurricane_of_1780>
1846:
English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton
(pictured), the largest moon of the planet Neptune.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(moon)>
1897:
German chemist Felix Hoffman discovered an improved way of
synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin>
1911:
The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising, marking
the beginning of the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment
of the Republic of China.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuchang_Uprising>
1964:
The opening ceremony of the 1964 Summer Olympics took place in
Tokyo, the first to be telecast live internationally via satellite.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Summer_Olympics>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
beefcake:
1. (informal) Imagery of one or more muscular, well-built men.
2. (informal) A muscular, well-built, desirable man.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beefcake>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world.
If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever-
increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires
effort. This is one of the things that discipline — training — is
about.
--James Clavell
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Clavell>
The Ostend Manifesto was a document written in 1854 describing the
rationale for the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain, and
declaring that the U.S. would be "justified in wresting" the island from
Spanish hands if Spain refused to sell. Cuba's annexation had long been
a goal of Southern slaveholding expansionists, although U.S. national
leaders had been satisfied to have it remain in Spanish hands rather
than those of Britain or France. At the suggestion of Secretary of State
William L. Marcy, three American ministers in Europe (Pierre Soulé
(pictured), James Buchanan and John Y. Mason) met in Ostend, Belgium, to
discuss strategy related to acquisition of Cuba. To Marcy's chagrin, the
flamboyant Soulé had made no secret of the meetings, causing unwanted
publicity in the U.S. and Europe. The administration of President
Franklin Pierce was finally forced to publish the contents of the
dispatch, which caused it irreparable damage. The manifesto was
immediately denounced in the Northern states and Europe, and it became a
rallying cry for Northerners seeking to control the vote on slavery. The
question of Cuba's annexation was effectively set aside until the late
19th century.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostend_Manifesto>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1514:
Mary Tudor (pictured), sister of Henry VIII of England, became
queen consort of France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Tudor,_Queen_of_France>
1874:
The Universal Postal Union, then known as the General Postal
Union, was established with the signing of the Treaty of Bern to unify
disparate postal services and regulations so that international mail
could be exchanged freely.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union>
1919:
In Major League Baseball, the Cincinnati Reds won the World
Series, five games to three, over the Chicago White Sox, whose players
were later found to have lost intentionally.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal>
1970:
The Khmer Republic, headed by General Lon Nol and Prince
Sisowath Sirik Matak, was proclaimed in Cambodia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Republic>
2006:
North Korea conducted a nuclear test, reportedly near Kilchu,
with an explosive force of less than one kiloton, that was condemned and
denounced by many countries and the United Nations Security Council.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_Korean_nuclear_test>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
understudy:
1. To study or know a role, so as to be able to replace its normal
performer if required.
2. To act as an understudy (to, for someone).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/understudy>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We all been playing those mind games forever Some kinda druid
dudes lifting the veil. Doing the mind guerrilla, Some call it magic —
the search for the grail. Love is the answer and you know that for sure.
Love is a flower, you got to let it — you got to let it grow.
--John Lennon
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Lennon>
John Hay (1838–1905) was an American statesman and official whose
career in government stretched over almost half a century. After
graduation from Brown University in 1858, Hay read law in his uncle's
office in Springfield, Illinois, adjacent to that of Abraham Lincoln.
Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign, and became
his assistant private secretary at the White House. Through the years of
the American Civil War, Hay was close to Lincoln, and stood by his
deathbed after the President was shot at Ford's Theatre. In 1897,
President William McKinley, for whom he had been a major backer, made
him Ambassador to the United Kingdom. The following year, Hay became
United States Secretary of State. He served almost seven years, under
McKinley, and after his assassination, under Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was
responsible for the Open Door Policy in China, and negotiated the
Hay–Pauncefote Treaty (1901) with the UK, as well as the Hay–Herrán
Treaty (1903) with Colombia, and the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903)
that cleared the way for the building of the Panama Canal. Hay was also
an author and biographer, and wrote poetry and other literature through
much of his life.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hay>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
451:
The Council of Chalcedon, a Christian ecumenical council in
Christianity that repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism,
and set forth the Chalcedonian Creed, opened.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chalcedon>
1862:
American Civil War: The Battle of Perryville, one of the
bloodiest battles of the war, was fought in the Chaplin Hills west of
Perryville, Kentucky.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Perryville>
1904:
The Canadian cities of Edmonton, Alberta (Downtown Edmonton
pictured), and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, were both incorporated.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Albert,_Saskatchewan>
1969:
Demonstrations organized by the Weather Underground known as
the Days of Rage began in Chicago.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Rage>
1998:
Gardermoen Airport, the main domestic hub and international
airport for Norway, began operating as Oslo Airport, Fornebu, closed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Airport,_Fornebu>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
choreography:
1. The art of creating, arranging and recording the dance movements of a
ballet, etc.
2. The representation of these movements by a series of symbols.
3. The notation used to construct this record.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/choreography>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Not the wretchedest man or woman but has a deep secretive
mythology with which to wrestle with the material world and to overcome
it and pass beyond it. Not the wretchedest human being but has his share
in the creative energy that builds the world. We are all creators. We
all create a mythological world of our own out of certain shapeless
materials.
--John Cowper Powys
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Cowper_Powys>
Marquee Moon is the 1977 debut album by American rock band Television.
By 1974, the band had become a prominent act on the New York music scene
and generated interest from a number of record labels. They rehearsed
extensively in preparation for the album and, upon signing to Elektra
Records, recorded most of the songs in single takes. Television's
frontman Tom Verlaine and fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd eschewed
contemporary punk rock's power chords in favor of rock and jazz-inspired
interplay, melodic lines, and counter-melodies. Verlaine's lyrics for
the album combined urban and pastoral imagery, references to lower
Manhattan, themes of adolescence, and influences from French poetry.
Marquee Moon was critically acclaimed upon its release and achieved
unexpected commercial success in the UK, but sold poorly in the United
States. It has since been viewed by critics as one of the greatest
albums of the American punk rock movement and a cornerstone of
alternative rock. The band's innovative post-punk instrumentation on the
album strongly influenced the indie rock and new wave movements of the
1980s, as well as rock guitarists such as John Frusciante, Will
Sergeant, and The Edge.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquee_Moon>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1571:
A Western Christian coalition inflicted a significant defeat
upon the Ottoman Navy near the Gulf of Corinth in the Battle of Lepanto,
the first major Ottoman loss to European powers.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto>
1800:
The French privateer Robert Surcouf led a 150-man crew to
capture the 40-gun, 437-man East Indiaman Kent.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Surcouf>
1868:
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was inaugurated, with
an initial enrollment of 412 students the next day.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University>
1944:
The Holocaust: When members of the Sonderkommando—Jewish work
units in Auschwitz—learned that they were due to be murdered, they
staged a revolt, managing to kill more than 70 SS men before being
massacred themselves.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando>
1958:
Attempting to control the political instability in Pakistan,
President Iskander Mirza suspended the 1956 constitution, imposed
martial law, and cancelled the elections scheduled for January 1959.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iskander_Mirza>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
croggy:
A ride on the handlebars or crossbar of a bicycle.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/croggy>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is
foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in
quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more
closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of
science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with
information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings.
Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective
truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I
myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective
side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have
spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no
other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does
not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality
into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.
--Niels Bohr
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr>
The Mascarene martin is a passerine bird in the swallow family that
breeds in Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands. The nominate subspecies
occurs on Mauritius and Réunion and has never been found away from the
Mascarene Islands, but a smaller Madagascan subspecies is migratory and
has been recorded wintering in East Africa or wandering to other Indian
Ocean islands. The Mascarene martin is small with grey-brown underparts
becoming white on the throat and lower abdomen, dark grey-brown
upperparts and a slightly forked tail. The underparts are heavily
streaked with black. It nests in small colonies anywhere with suitably
sheltered sites for constructing a nest. It has a heavy flight with slow
wingbeats interspersed with glides, and frequently perches on wires. It
feeds on insects in flight, often hunting low over the ground or
vegetation. A number of internal and external parasites have been
detected in this species. Tropical cyclones can adversely affect
populations on the smaller islands, but the Mascarene martin is a
locally common bird with an apparently stable population and is classed
as a species of Least Concern by the International Union for
Conservation of Nature.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascarene_martin>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
404:
Aelia Eudoxia, empress consort of Byzantine emperor Arcadius,
died from complications of childbirth.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelia_Eudoxia>
1777:
American Revolutionary War: British forces under the command of
General Sir Henry Clinton captured Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery, and
then dismantled the Hudson River Chain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Forts_Clinton_and_Montgomery>
1908:
Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, causing a crisis that permanently damaged their relations
with Russia and the Kingdom of Serbia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_crisis>
1927:
The first successful feature sound film The Jazz Singer,
starring Al Jolson, was released.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jazz_Singer>
1976:
A violent crackdown by Thai military and police units on
students and protestors on the grounds of Thammasat University and at
Sanam Luang in Bangkok led to 46 deaths, and a military coup against the
government of Prime Minister Seni Pramoj.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thammasat_University_massacre>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
wizened:
Withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wizened>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should
explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that,
head-on.
--David Brin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Brin>
Mom & Me & Mom is the seventh book in author Maya Angelou's series of
autobiographies. The book was published in 2013, shortly before Mother's
Day and Angelou's 85th birthday. It focuses on her relationship with her
mother, Vivian Baxter. The book explains Baxter's behavior, especially
her abandonment of Angelou and Angelou's older brother when they were
young children. It also chronicles Angelou's reunion and reconciliation
with Baxter. Mom & Me & Mom is an overview of Angelou's life and
revisits many of the anecdotes related in her previous books. Angelou
was one of the first African American female writers to openly discuss
her life through autobiography, upholding the long traditions of African
American autobiography but challenging the usual structure of the
autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Like
Angelou's previous autobiographies, Mom & Me & Mom received mostly
positive reviews. Most reviewers state that Baxter is presented well in
the book. Pictures of Angelou, Baxter, and members of their family
appear through the book. An audio version, read by Angelou, was released
in CD form and as a digital download.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mom_%26_Me_%26_Mom>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
610:
Heraclius was crowned Byzantine Emperor, after having personally
beheaded the previous emperor Phocas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclius>
1789:
French Revolution: Upset about the high price and scarcity of
bread, thousands of Parisian women and their various allies marched on
the royal palace at Versailles.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_March_on_Versailles>
1903:
Samuel Griffith became the first Chief Justice of Australia,
while Edmund Barton and Richard O'Connor became the first Puisne
Justices of the High Court of Australia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Connor_(politician)>
1970:
The environmental organization Greenpeace was incorporated as
the Don't Make a Wave Committee in British Columbia, Canada.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpeace>
2001:
American baseball player Barry Bonds surpassed Mark McGwire's
single-season home run total with his milestone 71st and 72nd home runs.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Bonds>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
amber:
1. Translucent fossilized tree resin, generally yellow or orange but
sometimes blue, often used as jewelry.
2. (in British English) The middle light in a set of three traffic lights,
between the red and the green lights.
3. (in biology, biochemistry and genetics) The RNA codon UAG, which stops
the third stage of protein production, translation.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amber>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has
invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny
assigned to him.
--Václav Havel
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel>
A metalloid is a chemical element that has properties in between those
of metals and nonmetals. There is no standard definition of a metalloid,
nor is there agreement as to which elements are appropriately classified
as such. Despite this uncertainty, the term remains in use in chemistry
literature. The six commonly recognised metalloids are boron, silicon,
germanium (pictured), arsenic, antimony and tellurium. Elements less
commonly recognised as metalloids include carbon, aluminium, selenium,
polonium and astatine. Typical metalloids have a metallic appearance but
are brittle and only fair conductors of electricity. Chemically, they
mostly behave as weak nonmetals. They can form alloys with metals. Most
of their other properties are intermediate in nature. Metalloids and
their compounds are used in alloys, biological agents, flame retardants,
glasses, optical storage and optoelectronics, pyrotechnics,
semiconductors and electronics. The term metalloid originally referred
to nonmetals. Its more recent meaning, as a category of elements with
intermediate properties, became widespread in 1940–1960. Metalloids
are sometimes called semimetals, a practice that has been discouraged.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalloid>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1779:
American Revolution: James Wilson and his colleagues were
forced to defend themselves after a mob, angered by his successful legal
defense of 23 people from exile, converged on his house, resulting in
six deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wilson>
1895:
The first U.S. Open golf tournament was held on a nine-hole
course at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Open_(golf)>
1958:
The new constitution establishing the French Fifth Republic,
France's current political regime, was introduced.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Fifth_Republic>
1976:
British Rail's InterCity 125 service (pictured), the world's
fastest diesel-powered train, began operations on the Western Region.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterCity_125>
2010:
The dam holding a waste reservoir in western Hungary collapsed,
freeing 1 million cubic metres (1,300,000 cu yd) of red mud, which
flooded nearby communities and killed at least nine people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajka_alumina_plant_accident>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
catloaf:
The loaflike form of a domestic cat sitting with paws tucked underneath
the body.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/catloaf>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Buster survives tornados, waterfalls, avalanches of boulders,
and falls from great heights, and never pauses to take a bow: He has his
eye on his goal. And his movies, seen as a group, are like a sustained
act of optimism in the face of adversity; surprising, how without
asking, he earns our admiration and tenderness. Because he was funny,
because he wore a porkpie hat, Keaton's physical skills are often
undervalued … no silent star did more dangerous stunts than Buster
Keaton. Instead of using doubles, he himself doubled for his actors,
doing their stunts as well as his own.
--Roger Ebert
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Ebert>
Meerkat Manor is a British television programme produced by Oxford
Scientific Films for Animal Planet International that ran for four
series between September 2005 and August 2008. Blending more traditional
animal documentary style footage with dramatic narration, the series
told the story of the Whiskers, one of more than a dozen families of
meerkats in the Kalahari Desert being studied as part of the Kalahari
Meerkat Project, a long-term field study into the ecological causes and
evolutionary consequences of the cooperative nature of meerkats. With
the success of the programme in the UK, Animal Planet started
broadcasting it on its national channels in Australia, Canada, and the
US. It has since been rebroadcast in more than 160 other countries.
Although the show faced criticism from viewers for not intervening when
a meerkat was injured and faced death, as a whole Meerkat Manor enjoyed
considerable success, and its experimental format broke new ground in
animal documentary filming techniques. It was nominated for two
Primetime Emmy Awards in 2007, and was a winner at the 2006 Omni Awards
and at the 2006 and 2007 New York Festivals Award Galas.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meerkat_Manor>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1918:
World War I: Following his armed forces' defeat to the Allied
Powers, Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand I abdicated in favor of his son
Boris III (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_III_of_Bulgaria>
1935:
Italian forces under General Emilio De Bono invaded Abyssinia
during the opening stages of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bono%27s_invasion_of_Abyssinia>
1951:
In Major League Baseball, the New York Giants' Bobby Thomson
hit the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", a game-winning home run in the
bottom of the ninth inning to win the National League pennant after
being down 14 games.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_Heard_%27Round_the_World_(baseball)>
1963:
Oswaldo López Arellano replaced Honduran President Ramón
Villeda Morales in a violent coup and initiated two decades of military
rule.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat>
2013:
A boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the
Italian island of Lampedusa, with a second boat sinking eight days
later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Lampedusa_migrant_shipwreck>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
unitive:
Causing or characterized by unity or union.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unitive>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
TV in America created the most coherent reality distortion
field that I’ve ever seen. Therein is the problem: People who vote
watch TV, and they are hallucinating like a sonofabitch. Basically, what
we have in this country is government by hallucinating mob.
--John Perry Barlow
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow>
Madeline Montalban (1910–1982) was an English astrologer and
ceremonial magician who co-founded the esoteric organisation known as
the Order of the Morning Star (OMS), through which she propagated her
own form of Luciferianism. After moving to London in the early 1930s and
immersing herself in its esoteric subculture, she taught herself
ceremonial magic and associated with significant occultists, including
Aleister Crowley and Kenneth Grant, and Wiccans like Gerald Gardner and
Alex Sanders. From 1933 until her death she wrote magazine articles on
astrology and other esoteric topics. In 1952 she met Nicholas Heron,
with whom she entered into a relationship, and they founded the OMS as a
correspondence course in 1956, teaching subscribers their own magical
rites. Viewing Lucifer as a benevolent angelic deity, she believed
Luciferianism had its origins in ancient Babylon, and encouraged her
followers to contact angelic beings associated with the planetary bodies
to aid their spiritual development. Having refused to publish her ideas
in books, Montalban became largely forgotten following her death,
although the OMS continued under new leadership.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeline_Montalban>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
829:
Theophilos ascended to the throne of the Byzantine Empire, the
last emperor to support iconoclasm.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilos_(emperor)>
1535:
French explorer Jacques Cartier sailed along the St. Lawrence
River and reached the Iroquois fortified village Hochelaga on the island
now known as Montreal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Cartier>
1950:
Peanuts, the syndicated comic strip by Charles M. Schulz,
featuring Charlie Brown and his pet Snoopy, was first published in major
newspapers.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanuts>
1967:
Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African-American
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall>
2007:
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun walked across the Military
Demarcation Line on his way to the second Inter-Korean Summit with North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Korean_Summit>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
splurge:
1. To gush, to flow or move in a rush.
2. To spend (usually money) lavishly or extravagantly.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/splurge>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I know that I have still before me a difficult path to
traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his
own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no
salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.
--Mahatma Gandhi
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi>