The royal baccarat scandal was a British gambling scandal of the late
19th century involving the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). In
September 1890 he was invited to a house party at Tranby Croft,
Yorkshire, the home of Arthur Wilson and his family. During Edward's
stay, lieutenant colonel Sir William Gordon-Cumming (pictured) was
accused of cheating at baccarat and pressured into signing a document
that stated he would never play cards again, in exchange for the silence
of the guests. The secret was not kept for long, and Gordon-Cumming
demanded a retraction from the Wilson family, who he considered to blame
for divulging the news. They refused and he sued for slander. The
atmosphere at trial in June 1891 was described as being like a theatre.
Edward was called as a witness, the first time the heir to the throne
had been compelled to appear in court since 1411. Despite discrepancies
in the evidence and a strong closing speech by Gordon-Cumming's
barrister, the jury found against him after a summing-up from the judge
that was described by some as biased. Gordon-Cumming was dismissed from
the army and ostracised from society for life, though public opinion was
on his side.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_baccarat_scandal>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1201:
John Komnenos the Fat briefly seized the throne of the
Byzantine Empire from Alexios III Angelos, but he was soon caught and
executed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Komnenos_the_Fat>
1423:
Hundred Years' War: The English and their Burgundian allies
were victorious over the French at the Battle of Cravant near Auxerre,
France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cravant>
1948:
New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport was
dedicated as New York International Airport.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_International_Airport>
1954:
A team of Italian climbers led by Ardito Desio became the first
to reach the summit of K2 (pictured), the world's second-highest
mountain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2>
2006:
Following intestinal surgery, Fidel Castro provisionally
transferred the duties of the Cuban presidency to his brother Raúl.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006%E2%80%9308_Cuban_transfer_of_presidentia…>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
coppice:
A grove of small growth; a thicket of brushwood; a wood cut at certain
times for fuel or other purposes, typically managed to promote growth
and ensure a reliable supply of timber.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coppice>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless
you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all —
in which case, you fail by default.
--J. K. Rowling
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling>
The human history of Chincoteague, an island on the Eastern Shore of
Virginia, begins with Native Americans gathering shellfish there. By one
popular tale, chincoteague meant "Beautiful land across the water" in
their tongue. European settlers began to use the island in the 17th
century. It had few residents, and was used primarily for grazing
livestock – probably the origin of the feral Chincoteague ponies,
which used to roam in the wild. The local fishing and seafood resources
began to be systematically exploited in the early 19th century, and
oysters became a major industry after the Civil War. Chincoteague's
relative isolation ended in 1876 when the railroad arrived at Franklin
City, across Chincoteague Bay, and a steamboat service was introduced; a
causeway completed in 1922 allowed automobiles to reach the island. The
Chincoteague Fire Department was established in 1925 and took over the
traditional pony penning to raise funds. The annual carnival, pony swim
(pictured), and subsequent auction now attract tens of thousands of
visitors. The island, which was publicized by the 1947 book Misty of
Chincoteague that became a 1961 film, is a major tourist destination in
the area.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chincoteague,_Virginia>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
634:
Arab–Byzantine wars: Byzantine forces under Theodore were
defeated by the Rashidun Caliphate near Beit Shemesh in modern Israel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ajnadayn>
1676:
Virginia colonist Nathaniel Bacon and his makeshift army issued
a Declaration of the People of Virginia, instigating a rebellion against
the rule of Governor William Berkeley.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Bacon_(colonist)>
1811:
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (pictured), an early leader of the
Mexican War of Independence, was executed by Spanish authorities.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Hidalgo_y_Costilla>
1930:
Uruguay defeated Argentina, 4–2, in front of their home crowd
at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo to win the first Football World Cup.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_FIFA_World_Cup>
2012:
The largest power outage in history occurred across 22 Indian
states, affecting over 620 million people, or about 9% of the world's
population.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_India_blackouts>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
chiropterologist:
Someone who studies bats (the flying mammal).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chiropterologist>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We're all alone on the stage tonight. We've been told; we're
not afraid of you. We know all our lines so well, ah-ha, We've said them
so many times: Time and time again, Line and line again.
--Kate Bush
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kate_Bush>
William Calcraft (1800–1879) was the most famous English hangman of
the 19th century. One of the most prolific British executioners of all
time, it is estimated that he carried out 450 executions during his
45-year career. A cobbler by trade, Calcraft was initially recruited to
flog juvenile offenders after meeting the City of London's hangman, John
Foxton, while selling meat pies near Newgate Prison. He succeeded
Foxton, but his controversial use of the short-drop method of hanging,
in which the victims were strangled rather than had their vertebrae
broken by the fall when the trapdoor on the gallows was released, caused
some to consider him incompetent. Many took several minutes to die, and
to hasten their deaths Calcraft sometimes pulled on their legs, or even
climbed on their shoulders in an attempt to break their necks.
Calcraft's antics may have been intended to entertain the crowds of more
than 30,000 that sometimes attended his executions before a change in
the law in 1868 meant that executions could only take place in prisons.
Among his victims were Marie and Frederick Manning, the first husband
and wife to be hanged together since 1700.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calcraft>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1014:
Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: Forces of the Byzantine Empire
defeated troops of the Bulgarian Empire at the Battle of Kleidion in the
Belasica Mountains near present-day Klyuch, Bulgaria.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kleidion>
1836:
The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, commemorating those who fought
and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars,
was formally inaugurated.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe>
1862:
American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd was arrested by
Union troops after her lover turned her in.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Boyd>
1967:
Vietnam War: During preparation for another strike in the Gulf
of Tonkin, the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal was hit by a series of
chain-reaction explosions caused by an unusual electrical anomaly on its
flight deck, killing 134 sailors and injuring 161 others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire>
2010:
An overloaded passenger ferry capsized on the Kasai River in
Bandundu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, resulting in at
least 80 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasai_River_disaster>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
shipwrecky:
1. Characteristic of a shipwreck.
2. (figuratively) Weak, feeble; shaky.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shipwrecky>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Now, the redemption which we as yet await (continued
Imlac), will be that of Kalki, who will come as a Silver Stallion: all
evils and every sort of folly will perish at the coming of this Kalki:
true righteousness will be restored, and the minds of men will be made
as clear as crystal.
--James Branch Cabell
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell>
SMS Goeben was the second of two Moltke-class battlecruisers of the
Imperial German Navy, launched in 1911 and named after the German
Franco-Prussian War veteran General August Karl von Goeben. Compared to
their British rivals in the Indefatigable class, Goeben and her sister
ship were significantly larger and better armored. After her
commissioning, Goeben, with the light cruiser Breslau, patrolled the
Mediterranean during the Balkan Wars. After the outbreak of World War I
on 28 July 1914, Goeben and Breslau evaded British naval forces and
reached Constantinople. The two ships were transferred to the Ottoman
Empire on 16 August 1914, and Goeben became the flagship of the Ottoman
Navy as Yavuz Sultan Selim. By bombarding Russian facilities in the
Black Sea, she brought Turkey into World War I on the German side. In
later service, she carried the remains of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from
Istanbul to İzmit in 1938. She was decommissioned in 1950 and scrapped
in 1973, after the West German government declined to buy her back. She
was the last surviving ship built by the Imperial German Navy, and the
longest-serving battlecruiser or dreadnought-type ship in any navy.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Goeben>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1821:
Peruvian War of Independence: Argentine general José de San
Martín declared the independence of Peru from Spain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_de_San_Mart%C3%ADn>
1866:
At the age of 18, Vinnie Ream became the first and youngest
female artist to receive a commission from the United States government
for a statue—that of Abraham Lincoln in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnie_Ream>
1914:
Austria-Hungary declared war after rejecting Serbia's
conditional acceptance of only part of the July Ultimatum following the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, starting World
War I.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I>
1976:
An earthquake measuring at least 8.2 on the Richter scale, one
of the deadliest in history, flattened Tangshan, China, killing at least
240,000 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tangshan_earthquake>
1996:
The remains of the prehistoric Kennewick Man were discovered on
a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, US.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
doula:
A support person, usually female, who may not have medical or midwifery
training, who provides emotional assistance to a mother or pregnant
couple before, during or after childbirth.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doula>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
 A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important
to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from
others — not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly
allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the
ideas of others. The emphasis here is on the idea of criticism or, to be
more precise, critical discussion. The genuine rationalist does not
think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he
think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he
does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can
help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance
or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks
that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea
from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.
--Karl Popper
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Popper>
Manta rays are large eagle rays belonging to the genus Manta. The larger
species, M. birostris, reaches 7 m (23 ft) in width while the smaller,
M. alfredi (pictured), reaches 5.5 m (18 ft). Both have triangular
pectoral fins, horn-shaped cephalic fins and large, forward-facing
mouths. Mantas can be found in temperate, subtropical and tropical
waters. M. birostris migrates across open oceans, singly or in groups,
while M. alfredi tends to be resident and coastal. They are filter
feeders and eat large quantities of zooplankton, which they swallow with
their open mouths as they swim. Gestation lasts over a year, producing
live pups. Mantas may visit cleaning stations for the removal of
parasites. Like whales, they breach, for unknown reasons. Both species
are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of
Nature. Threats include pollution, entanglement in fishing nets, and
direct harvesting for their gill rakers for use in Chinese medicine, and
their slow reproductive rate exacerbates these threats. Only a few
aquariums are large enough to house them. In general, these large fish
are seldom seen and difficult to study.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manta_ray>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1302:
Byzantine–Ottoman Wars: The Ottoman sultanate scored its
first major victory against the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of
Bapheus in Bithynia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bapheus>
1789:
The U.S. State Department, then known as the Department of
Foreign Affairs, became the first federal agency created under the U.S.
Constitution.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_State>
1794:
The National Convention ordered the arrest and execution of
Reign of Terror leader Maximilien Robespierre after he encouraged the
execution of more than 17,000 "enemies of the French Revolution".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermidorian_Reaction>
1914:
Felix Manalo established the modern-day Iglesia ni Cristo
religion, an independent, nontrinitarian Christian church, in the
Philippines (Iglesia ni Cristo Central Temple pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iglesia_ni_Cristo>
1940:
Bugs Bunny debuted in the animated cartoon A Wild Hare.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_Bunny>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
portend:
1. (transitive) To serve as a warning or omen.
2. (transitive) To signify; to denote.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/portend>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
 Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky When storms prepare
to part, I ask not proud Philosophy To teach me what thou art. — Still
seem, as to my childhood's sight, A midway station given, For happy
spirits to alight, Betwixt the earth and heaven.
--Thomas Campbell
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Campbell_(poet)>
The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the
television series The Simpsons. Directed by David Silverman, it stars
the regular cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright,
Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress MacNeille, and Pamela
Hayden. It features Albert Brooks as Russ Cargill, the evil head of the
Environmental Protection Agency who intends to destroy Springfield after
Homer pollutes the lake. As the townspeople exile him and eventually his
family abandons him, Homer works to redeem his folly by stopping
Cargill's scheme. Previous attempts to create a film version of The
Simpsons failed due to the lack of a script of appropriate length and
production crew members. Eventually, producers and writers banded
together and conceived numerous narrative concepts, one of which was
selected for development. The script was re-written over a hundred
times, and this creativity continued after animation had begun in 2006.
The film premiered in Springfield, Vermont (theater sign pictured),
which had won the right to hold it in a competition. It was a box office
success, grossing over $527 million, and received critical acclaim.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons_Movie>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1509:
Krishnadevaraya, who would become the most powerful of all the
Hindu rulers of India, ascended to the throne of the Vijayanagara
Empire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishnadevaraya>
1882:
Boer mercenaries declared their independence from the Transvaal
Republic and established the Republic of Stellaland.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellaland>
1936:
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial (pictured), a memorial site
near Vimy, Pas-de-Calais, France, dedicated to the memory of Canadian
Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War, was
unveiled.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_Vimy_Memorial>
1990:
U.S. President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Americans
with Disabilities Act, a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits,
under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990>
2009:
The militant Islamist sect Boko Haram launched an attack on a
Nigeria Police Force station, sparking violence across several states in
northeastern Nigeria, leaving over 1,000 people dead.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Boko_Haram_Uprising>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
lethargy:
A condition of extreme drowsiness or apathy.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lethargy>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
There's something in the human personality which resents
things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to
puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.
--Stanley Kubrick
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick>
St James' Church is an Anglican parish church in Sydney, Australia.
Named in honour of St James the Great, it is the oldest extant church
building in the city's inner region and has been in continuous service
since it was consecrated in February 1824. Its original ministry was to
the early convict population of Sydney as well as to the administrative
élite. In succeeding centuries, the church has maintained a special
role in the city's religious, civic and musical life as well as close
associations with the legal and medical professions. The church building
was designed in the style of a Georgian town church by the transported
convict architect Francis Greenway. Worship is in a style commonly found
in the High Church and moderate Anglo-Catholic traditions of
Anglicanism, in contrast to the majority of churches in its diocese
where services are generally in the style associated with Low Church.
The teaching at St James' has a more liberal perspective than most
churches in the diocese on issues of gender and the ordination of women.
Part of a historical precinct, it is listed on the Register of the
National Estate and has been described as one of the world's 80 greatest
man-made treasures.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_James%27_Church,_Sydney>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1261:
Alexios Strategopoulos led the Nicaean forces of Michael VIII
Palaiologos to recapture Constantinople, re-establish the Byzantine
Empire, and end the Latin Empire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexios_Strategopoulos>
1814:
War of 1812: In present-day Niagara Falls, Ontario, the United
States and Great Britain engaged in Battle of Lundy's Lane, one of the
deadliest ever fought on Canadian soil.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lundy%27s_Lane>
1909:
French aviator Louis Blériot crossed the English Channel in a
heavier-than-air flying machine, flying from near Calais, France, to
Dover, England.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bl%C3%A9riot>
1978:
Louise Brown, the world's first baby conceived through in vitro
fertilisation, was born in Oldham, England.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_fertilisation>
2010:
WikiLeaks published 75,000 classified documents about the War
in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
eviscerate:
1. (transitive) To disembowel, to remove the viscera.
2. (transitive) To destroy or make ineffectual or meaningless.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eviscerate>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
 What counts most is holding on. The growth of a train of
thought is not a direct forward flow. There is a succession of spurts
separated by intervals of stagnation, frustration, and discouragement.
If you hold on, there is bound to come a certain clarification. The
unessential components drop off and a coherent, lucid whole begins to
take shape.
--Eric Hoffer
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer>
Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (1689–1700), was the son of
Princess Anne (later Queen of Great Britain) and her husband, Prince
George, Duke of Cumberland. William was their only child to survive
infancy. Styled Duke of Gloucester, he was viewed as a Protestant
champion because his birth seemed to cement the Protestant succession
established in the "Glorious Revolution" that had deposed his Catholic
grandfather James II the previous year. Anne was estranged from her
brother-in-law, William III, and her sister, Mary II, but supported the
links that developed between them and her son. Prince William befriended
his Welsh body-servant at his nursery in Campden House, Kensington; his
memoir of the Duke is an important source for historians. William's
precarious health was a constant source of worry to his mother. His
death at the age of eleven precipitated a succession crisis as his
mother was the only individual remaining in the Protestant line of
succession established by the Bill of Rights 1689. To avoid the throne
passing to a Catholic, the Act of Settlement 1701 settled the throne on
Electress Sophia of Hanover, a cousin of King James, and her Protestant
heirs.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_William,_Duke_of_Gloucester>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1701:
French explorer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac established Fort
Pontchartrain du Détroit, which later grew into the city of Detroit
(pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit>
1783:
The Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and the Russian Empire signed the
Treaty of Georgievsk, establishing Georgia as a protectorate of Russia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Georgievsk>
1923:
The Treaty of Lausanne was signed to settle the Anatolian part
of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, establishing the boundaries
of modern Turkey.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lausanne>
1967:
During a speech in Montreal, French President Charles de Gaulle
declared "Long live free Quebec!", a statement that was interpreted as
support for Quebec independence from Canada.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vive_le_Qu%C3%A9bec_libre>
2002:
Having been convicted of accepting bribes, income tax evasion,
and racketeering, James Traficant was expelled from the United States
House of Representatives.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Traficant>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
sagacity:
The quality of being sage, wise, or able to make good decisions; wisdom.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sagacity>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When
you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then,
be careful, or with sudden clutch You'll hurt the delicate thing you
prize so much.
--Robert Graves
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Graves>
The Alaska-class cruisers were a class of six cruisers ordered prior to
World War II for the U.S. Navy. They were officially classed as large
cruisers (CB), but others have regarded them as battlecruisers. Their
intermediate status is reflected in the naming of the ships after US
territories and insular areas, rather than states (battleships) or
cities (cruisers). The idea for a large cruiser class originated in the
early 1930s when the Navy sought to counter German Deutschland-class
"pocket battleships". Planning of what became the Alaska class began in
the later 1930s after the deployment of Germany's Scharnhorst-class
battleships and rumors that Japan was constructing a new battlecruiser
class. To serve as "cruiser-killers" capable of seeking out and
destroying such ships, the Alaska class was given large guns, limited
armor protection against 12-inch shells, and machinery capable of speeds
of about 31–33 knots (36–38 mph, 58–61 km/h). Of the six
planned, two were completed and a third was cancelled during
construction. Alaska and Guam (pictured) served for the last year of
World War II as bombardment ships and fast carrier escorts, and were
decommissioned in 1947.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska-class_cruiser>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1829:
William Austin Burt was awarded a patent for the typographer
(replica pictured), the first practical typewriting machine.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographer_(typewriter)>
1914:
Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with an ultimatum to allow
them to investigate the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, that
Serbia would ultimately reject, leading to World War I.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Crisis>
1927:
Wilfred Rhodes of England and Yorkshire became the only person
to play in 1,000 first-class cricket matches.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Rhodes>
1942:
The Holocaust: The gas chambers at Treblinka extermination camp
began operation, killing 6,500 Jews who had been transported from the
Warsaw Ghetto the day before.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_extermination_camp>
1984:
Vanessa Williams, the first African-American Miss America,
resigned in scandal after Penthouse magazine published nude photos of
her that were taken two years prior.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_L._Williams>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
levity:
1. Lightness of manner or speech, frivolity.
2. The state or quality of being light, buoyancy.
3. (countable) A lighthearted or frivolous act.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/levity>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
 Leadership does not mean domination. The world is always well
supplied with people who wish to rule and dominate others. The true
leader is a different sort; he seeks effective activity which has a
truly beneficient purpose. He inspires others to follow in his wake, and
holding aloft the torch of wisdom, leads the way for society to realize
its genuinely great aspirations.
--Haile Selassie
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie>
Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up 30 per cent of the
City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. North of the River
Irwell, 5 miles (8 km) to the west of Manchester, it occupies an area
of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km2). Peat development seems to have
begun there at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, and
the depth of peat ranges from 24 to 30 feet (7 to 9 m). A great deal of
reclamation work has been carried out, but a large network of drainage
channels is required to keep it from reverting to bog. In 1958 peat
extractors discovered the severed head of what is believed to be a
Romano-British Celt, possibly a sacrificial victim. Much of Chat Moss is
now prime agricultural land, although farming in the area is in decline.
A 228-acre (92 ha) area of Chat Moss, notified as Astley and Bedford
Mosses, has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Chat
Moss threatened the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway,
until George Stephenson succeeded in constructing a railway line through
it in 1829; his solution was to "float" the line on a bed of bound
heather and branches topped with tar and covered with rubble stone.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_Moss>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
838:
Arab–Byzantine wars: The forces of the Abbasid Caliphate
defeated Byzantine Empire troops, led by Emperor Theophilos himself, at
the Battle of Anzen near present-day Dazman, Turkey.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzen>
1864:
American Civil War: Confederate forces unsuccessfully attacked
Union troops at the Battle of Atlanta.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Atlanta>
1933:
Wiley Post became the first pilot to fly solo around the world,
landing after a seven-day, nineteen-hour flight at Floyd Bennett Field
in Brooklyn, New York City.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiley_Post>
1992:
Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxurious
private prison and spent the next 17 months on the run.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Escobar>
2011:
Two sequential terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utøya claimed the
lives of 77 people, in the deadliest attack in Norway since World
War II.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
roundelay:
(music) A poem or song having a line or phrase repeated at regular
intervals.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/roundelay>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
 I've lived most of my entire adult life outside the law, and
never have I compromised with authority. But neither have I gone out and
picked fights with authority. That's stupid. They're waiting for that;
they invite it; it helps keep them powerful. Authority is to be
ridiculed, outwitted and avoided. And it's fairly easy to do all three.
If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting
lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way,
that's perfectly valid — but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs
to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in,
and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change
yourself.
--Tom Robbins
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Robbins>