The pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) is an endangered species of
ray-finned fish, endemic to the waters of the Missouri and lower
Mississippi River basins of the United States. Named for its pale
coloration, it is related to the much smaller shovelnose sturgeon (S.
platorhynchus). When mature at 15 years, individuals average 85 pounds
(39 kg) and 30 to 60 inches long (76 to 152 cm). The fish spawns
infrequently over its lifespan of up to a century. This sturgeon species
has remained virtually unchanged since it coexisted with the Cretaceous
dinosaurs 70 million years ago. In 1990, the pallid sturgeon became the
first Missouri River basin fish on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
endangered species list, after sightings had greatly diminished. Loss of
habitat is thought to be responsible for its decline; much of the
Missouri River drainage system has been channeled and dammed, reducing
the gravel deposits and slow-moving side channels that are its favored
spawning areas. In an effort to save the species from extinction, pallid
sturgeon are being raised in a dozen hatcheries and released back into
the wild.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallid_sturgeon>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
220:
Emperor Xian abdicated the throne and the Han Dynasty broke
apart, beginning the Three Kingdoms period in China.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms>
1886:
The London-based football club Arsenal, then known as Dial
Square, played their first match on the Isle of Dogs.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Arsenal_F.C._(1886%E2%80%931966)>
1920:
Irish War of Independence: Following an Irish Republican Army
ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in Cork, British forces burned and
looted numerous buildings in the city.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Cork>
1972:
Apollo 17 (Lunar Roving Vehicle pictured), the last Apollo moon
mission, landed on the Moon.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_17>
2005:
A demonstration by Australians in Cronulla, New South Wales,
against recent violence towards locals turned into a race riot.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Cronulla_riots>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
spearcaster:
1. A sling-like device used to impart greater impetus to a thrown spear.
2. A soldier or guard armed with a spear used as a ranged weapon.
3. A track-and-field athlete who throws a spear or spears; a javelinist, a
javelin thrower.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spearcaster>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
All men are by nature equally free and independent, and have
certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of
society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity;
namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring
and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and
safety.
--George Mason
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Mason>
Nicky Barr (1915–2006) was a member of the Australian national rugby
union team who became a fighter ace in the Royal Australian Air Force
(RAAF) during World War II. Selected to play for Australia against the
United Kingdom in 1939, he had just arrived in England when war broke
out and the tour was cancelled. He joined the RAAF in 1940 and was
posted to North Africa with No. 3 Squadron in September 1941. Barr's
achievements as a combat pilot earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross
and Bar. Shortly after taking command of No. 3 Squadron in May 1942, he
was shot down and captured by Axis forces, and incarcerated in Italy. He
escaped and assisted other Allied fugitives to safety, receiving for his
efforts the Military Cross, a rare honour for an RAAF pilot. Repatriated
to England in 1944, he saw action during the invasion of Normandy before
returning to Australia as chief instructor with No. 2 Operational
Training Unit. He rejoined the RAAF as an active reserve officer from
1951 to 1953. After his subsequent success for many years in the oilseed
industry, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire
in 1983.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Barr>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1508:
The Papal States, France, Aragon and the Holy Roman Empire
formed the League of Cambrai, an alliance against the Republic of
Venice.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_League_of_Cambrai>
1884:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American author Mark Twain
was first published in the United Kingdom and Canada.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn>
1907:
During the Brown Dog affair, about 1,000 protesters marched
through London and then clashed with 400 police officers in Trafalgar
Square over the existence of a memorial for animals which had been
vivisected.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affair>
1979:
The Kuomintang (KMT) dictatorship of Taiwan arrested a large
number of opposition leaders who had organized pro-democracy
demonstrations, an incident credited with ending the KMT's rule in 2000.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaohsiung_Incident>
1983:
Raúl Alfonsín became the first democratically elected
President of Argentina to take office after the fall of the military
dictatorship.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Alfons%C3%ADn>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
chronique scandaleuse:
A journalistic account of a love affair, crime, or other sensational
event.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chronique_scandaleuse>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Who has not found the heaven below Will fail of it above. God’s
residence is next to mine, His furniture is love.
--Emily Dickinson
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson>
Infinity Blade is a fighting game developed by Chair Entertainment and
Epic Games and released through the App Store on December 9, 2010. It is
the first iOS video game to run on the Unreal Engine. In the game, the
unnamed player character fights a series of one-on-one battles in a
derelict castle to face the immortal God King. When in battle, players
swipe the screen to attack and parry, and tap the screen to dodge and
block enemy attacks. Upon victory or defeat, the player restarts the
game as the character's descendant with the same items and experience
level. Developed by a team of twelve people, the game was intended to
demonstrate the new iOS version of the Unreal Engine. Four free
expansions added new equipment, endings, and game modes. The game made
US$1.6 million in the first four days after its release, more than any
other app in the history of iOS, and over $23 million by the end of
2011. Reviews heavily praised the graphics and compared the mobile game
favorably to console games. Critics also praised the swipe-based combat
system, but split opinions on the cyclical gameplay as either addictive
or repetitive.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Blade>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1775:
American Revolutionary War: After their loss in the Battle of
Great Bridge, British authorities were forced to evacuate from the
Colony of Virginia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Great_Bridge>
1931:
The approval of the Spanish Constitution by the Constituent
Cortes paved the way to the establishment of the Second Spanish
Republic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Constitution_of_1931>
1940:
Second World War: British and Commonwealth forces opened
Operation Compass, the first major Allied military operation of the
Western Desert Campaign (Cruiser Mk I tank pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Compass>
1965:
A Charlie Brown Christmas, the first television adaptation of
Charles Schulz's comic strip Peanuts, was broadcast for the first time.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Charlie_Brown_Christmas>
1979:
A World Health Organization commission of scientists certified
the global eradication of smallpox, making it the only human infectious
disease to date to have been completely eradicated from nature.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
ajar:
Slightly turned or opened.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ajar>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
All is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of
work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by
all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being. No more of such
vague formulas as "The Right to work," or "To each the whole result of
his labour." What we proclaim is The Right to Well-Being: Well-Being for
All!
--Peter Kropotkin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin>
The Eighth Symphony was Jean Sibelius's final major compositional
project, occupying him intermittently from the mid-1920s until around
1938. How much of the symphony was completed is unknown; Sibelius
repeatedly refused to release it for performance, though he promised the
premiere to several leading conductors. Following the success of his
Seventh Symphony of 1924, it was expected that his symphonic flow would
continue, but after the tone poem Tapiola of 1926, his published output
was confined to minor pieces and revisions to earlier works. The Eighth
Symphony's destruction was made known after Sibelius's death in 1957,
but in the 1990s, while cataloguing the composer's many notebooks and
sketches, scholars speculated that fragments of music from the lost
symphony may have survived. Several short manuscript sketches have been
tentatively identified with the Eighth, three of which (comprising less
than three minutes of music) were recorded by the Helsinki Philharmonic
Orchestra in 2011. The prospect of further reconstruction has generally
been discounted; the propriety of publicly performing music that
Sibelius himself had rejected has also been questioned.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Sibelius)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1660:
A woman appeared on stage as a professional actress in England
for the first time, most often credited to Margaret Hughes.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hughes>
1813:
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 (audio featured) premiered in Vienna
with the composer himself conducting.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._7_(Beethoven)>
1963:
After being hit by a lightning strike while in a holding
pattern, Pan Am Flight 214 crashed near Elkton, Maryland, US, killing
all 81 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_214>
1987:
A man shot and killed eight people at the Australia Post
building in Melbourne, before jumping to his death.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Street_massacre>
2013:
After a fatal car accident in the Little India region of
Singapore, angry mobs of passersby attacked the bus involved and
emergency vehicles, the first riot in the country in over 40 years.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Little_India_riot>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
cheeky:
1. (informal) Impudent; impertinent; impertinently bold, often in a way
that is regarded as endearing or amusing.
2. (informal, Britain, of food and drink) Eaten or drunk as an indulgence.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cheeky>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Whence, if ever, shall come the actuality Of a voice speaking the
mind's knowing, The sunlight bright on the green windowshade, And the
self articulate, affectionate, and flowing, Ease, warmth, light, the
utter showing, When in the white bed all things are made.
--Delmore Schwartz
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Delmore_Schwartz>
George Macaulay (1897–1940) played first-class cricket professionally
for Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 1920 and 1935. He played in
eight Test matches for England from 1923 to 1933, achieving the rare
feat of taking a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket. One of the
five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1924, he took 1,838 first-class
wickets at an average of 17.64, including four hat-tricks. He was a
leading member of his successful Yorkshire team and a volatile character
who played aggressively. He left a job at a bank to become a
professional cricketer, making his first-class debut aged 23 as a fast
bowler, but he had more success after altering his style to include off
spin. He played fewer Test matches after an unsuccessful match in the
1926 Ashes series. His form slumped following injuries in the late
1920s, but a recovery in the early 1930s led to a recall by England. His
first-class career ended in 1935, although he continued playing club
cricket until the Second World War. A pilot officer in the Royal Air
Force, he died of illness on active service.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Macaulay>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1815:
Michel Ney, Marshal of France, was executed by a firing squad
near Paris' Jardin du Luxembourg for supporting Napoleon.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Ney>
1869:
American outlaw Jesse James committed his first confirmed bank
robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_James>
1941:
World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy made a surprise attack
on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, intending to neutralize the United States
Pacific Fleet from influencing the war Japan was planning to wage in
Southeast Asia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor>
1975:
The Indonesian military invaded East Timor under the pretext of
anti-colonialism and began a 25-year occupation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_occupation_of_East_Timor>
2005:
Spanish authorities captured Croatian Army general Ante
Gotovina, who was wanted for war crimes committed during the Croatian
War of Independence; he was eventually cleared of all charges.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante_Gotovina>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
abreast:
1. Side by side and facing forward.
2. (figuratively) Alongside; parallel to.
3. Informed, well-informed, familiar, acquainted.
4. Followed by of or with: up to a certain level or line; equally advanced.
5. (nautical) Side by side; also, opposite; over against; on a line with
the vessel's beam.
6. (obsolete) At the same time; simultaneously.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abreast>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We live in an age that makes truth pass for treason, and as I dare
not say anything against it, so the ears of those that are about me will
probably be found too tender to hear it. This my trial and condemnation
do sufficiently evidence.
--Algernon Sydney
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Algernon_Sydney>
A Contract with God is a 1978 graphic novel by American cartoonist Will
Eisner (pictured). It is a short story cycle focusing on poor Jewish
characters who live in a tenement in New York City. In the lead story, a
religious man gives up his faith after the death of his young adopted
daughter. The four stories in the novel are thematically linked with
motifs of frustration, disillusionment, violence, and ethnic identity.
Eisner uses large, monochromatic images in dramatic perspective, and
emphasizes caricatured facial expressions. Few panels or captions have
traditional borders. The small press Baronet Books released A Contract
with God in 1978 and marketed it as a "graphic novel", which then became
the common term for book-length comics. It sold slowly at first, but
gained respect from Eisner's peers, and has since been reprinted by
larger publishers. Eisner produced two sequels set in the same tenement:
A Life Force in 1988, and Dropsie Avenue in 1995. A Contract with God
cemented Eisner's reputation as an elder statesman of comics, and he
continued to produce graphic novels and theoretical works on comics
until his death in 2005.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Contract_with_God>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1060:
Béla I the Champion was crowned king of Hungary.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_I_of_Hungary>
1865:
Slavery in the United States was officially abolished when the
Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Con…>
1917:
A ship in Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada, carrying TNT
and picric acid caught fire after a collision with another ship and
caused the second-largest man-made accidental explosion in history
(pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion>
1975:
Four members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army took two
people hostage in a house on Balcombe Street in Marylebone, London,
surrendering six days later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcombe_Street_siege>
2005:
Members of the People's Armed Police shot and killed several
people in Dongzhou, Guangdong, China, who were protesting government
plans to build a new power plant.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongzhou_protests>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
trollop:
1. A woman held by others as retaining a vulgar and discourteous
disposition.
2. (derogatory) A strumpet, a whore.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trollop>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
At the foot of the Cross on Calvary Three soldiers sat and diced,
And one of them was the Devil And he won the Robe of Christ.
--Joyce Kilmer
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joyce_Kilmer>
The Battle of Sio, fought between December 1943 and March 1944, was the
break-out and pursuit phase of General Douglas MacArthur's Huon
Peninsula campaign, part of the New Guinea campaign of World War II.
Following the defeat of the Japanese in the Battle of Sattelberg,
Australian Army forces broke through positions around Finschhafen.
Constant pressure from US Navy PT boats, Australian land forces and
Allied aircraft brought the Japanese logistical system to the brink of
collapse, resulting in disease, malnutrition and privation for the
Japanese soldiers. Australian and Papuan troops advanced along the
coast, employing infantry, tanks, and air strikes against the Japanese
positions, which were generally sited at creek crossings in the jungle.
The Australian and Papuan troops inflicted heavy and disproportionate
casualties on the Japanese as they advanced, ultimately linking up with
the American forces at Saidor. Australian troops were also able to
capture important Japanese cryptographic materials. Hundreds of Japanese
soldiers were killed; thousands more died from disease, malnutrition,
exhaustion and suicide.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sio>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1484:
Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes
affectibus, giving Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit
authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summis_desiderantes_affectibus>
1775:
American Revolutionary War: Continental Army Colonel Henry Knox
arrived at Fort Ticonderoga in New York to arrange the transport of 60
tons of artillery that would be used to strengthen the Siege of Boston.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_train_of_artillery>
1945:
Flight 19, a squadron of five U.S. naval TBF Avenger torpedo
bombers, disappeared in the area now known as the Bermuda Triangle.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19>
1965:
The "Glasnost Meeting" became the first demonstration in the
Soviet Union after the Second World War and marked the beginning of a
civil rights movement in the country.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost_Meeting>
1995:
Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 56 crashed shortly after takeoff
from Nakhchivan Airport, killing 52 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Airlines_Flight_56>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
fussbudget:
One who complains or fusses a great deal, especially about unimportant
matters; a fusspot.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fussbudget>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I don't believe in playing down to children, either in life or in
motion pictures. I didn't treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers,
and I think no parent should. Children are people, and they should have
to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults
have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed
of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and
saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are
good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too,
and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from
reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always
triumph over evil, and that is what our pictures attempt to do.
--Walt Disney
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Disney>
Mary Celeste was an American merchant brigantine. On December 4, 1872,
en route to Genoa from New York, the ship was discovered abandoned and
deserted off the Azores Islands in a disheveled but seaworthy condition,
with no obvious signs of sudden catastrophe. The final entry in the log,
dated ten days previously, was a routine statement of the ship's
position. There were ample provisions on board, and the cargo was
intact. None of those who had been on board were seen or heard from
again. At the subsequent salvage hearings in Gibraltar the court's
officers found no evidence of conspiracy or foul play. Over time the
story has been distorted by false detail and fanciful explanations,
including attacks by giant squid and paranormal intervention. The
mystery has been recounted and dramatized in documentaries, novels,
plays and films, and the name of the ship has become synonymous with
unexplained desertion. After the Gibraltar hearings, Mary Celeste
continued in service under new owners until, in 1885, the ship was
wrecked off the coast of Haiti in an attempted insurance fraud.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1639:
English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks made the first observation
of a transit of Venus (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus>
1829:
Sati, the Hindu funeral custom of widows immolating themselves,
was prohibited in part of British India after years of campaigning by
Ram Mohan Roy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)>
1909:
The first Grey Cup game, the championship game of the Canadian
Football League, was held.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Cup>
1979:
Bruce George Peter Lee set fire to a family home in Hull,
England; after his arrest he revealed that he had started nine other
fatal fires in the area.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_George_Peter_Lee>
1992:
US President George H. W. Bush ordered American troops into
Somalia to help provide humanitarian aid and restore order during the
ongoing Somali Civil War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Task_Force>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
phalanx:
1. (historical, plural phalanxes) An ancient Greek and Macedonian military
unit that consisted of several ranks and files (lines) of soldiers in
close array with joined shields and long spears.
2. (historical sociology) A Fourierite utopian community; a phalanstery.
3. (plural phalanxes) A large group of people, animals or things, compact
or closely massed, or tightly knit and united in common purpose.
4. (anatomy, plural phalanges) One of the bones of the finger or toe.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phalanx>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is the manner of gods and prophets to begin: "Thou shalt have
none other God or Prophet but me." If I were to start as a God or a
prophet I think I should take the line: "Thou shalt not believe in me.
Thou shalt not have me for a God. Thou shalt worship any d_____d thing
thou likest except me." This should be my first and great commandment,
and my second should be like unto it.
--Samuel Butler
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Butler>
The Lafayette dollar was an American silver coin issued to raise money
for a statue of Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution.
The statue was dedicated at the Paris World's Fair of 1900. President
William McKinley chose Chicago businessman Ferdinand Peck as
commissioner-general for the American exhibit at the Paris exposition,
and Peck approved the monument for the exhibit. The coin was designed by
the Mint's Chief Engraver, Charles E. Barber, and features conjoined
busts of George Washington and Lafayette on the obverse. The images are
based on a sculpture of Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon and a medal of
Lafayette by François-Augustin Caunois. The reverse depicts an early
sketch of the planned monument. All the coins were struck at the
Philadelphia Mint on December 14, 1899, the centennial of Washington's
death. They did not sell out, and 14,000 were later melted by the
Treasury. The coins are valued from several hundred dollars to tens of
thousands, depending on condition. The Lafayette dollar was the only
U.S. silver dollar commemorative prior to 1983, and the first U.S. coin
to depict an American citizen.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_dollar>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1800:
War of the Second Coalition: French forces under General Jean
Moreau defeated the Austrians and Bavarians under Archduke John in
Hohenlinden, near Munich, forcing the Austrians to sign an armistice.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hohenlinden>
1834:
The German Customs Union instituted the first regular census in
Germany.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Germany>
1927:
Putting Pants on Philip, the first official film featuring the
comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, was released.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_and_Hardy>
1979:
Per the results of a two-day referendum, the current
Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was adopted.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran>
2009:
A suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, claimed the lives of
25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal
Government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Hotel_Shamo_bombing>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
vacillation:
1. Indecision in speech or action.
2. Changing location by moving back and forth.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vacillation>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The last word is not said, — probably shall never be said. Are
not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our
stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given up
expecting those last words, whose ring, if they could only be
pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is never time to
say our last word — the last word of our love, of our desire, faith,
remorse, submissions, revolt. The heaven and the earth must not be
shaken, I suppose — at least, not by us who know so many truths about
either. My last words about Jim shall be few. I affirm he had achieved
greatness; but the thing would be dwarfed in the telling, or rather in
the hearing. Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust but your minds.
I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your
imaginations to feed your bodies. I do not mean to be offensive; it is
respectable to have no illusions — and safe — and profitable — and
dull. Yet you, too, in your time must have known the intensity of life,
that light of glamour created in the shock of trifles, as amazing as the
glow of sparks struck from a cold stone — and as short-lived, alas!
--Lord Jim
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_Jim>
Boroughitis was a political phenomenon in the American state of New
Jersey in the 1890s, particularly in Bergen County. Attempts by the New
Jersey Legislature to reform local government and the school systems led
to the formation of dozens of low-population boroughs. In the late 19th
century, much of New Jersey was divided into large townships, in which
there might be several small communities, each with a local school that
formed its own district. Political disputes arose between the growing
number of commuters, who wanted more government services, and farmers,
who feared higher taxes. In 1894, the legislature passed an act allowing
boroughs that were formed from parts of two or more townships to elect a
representative to the county Board of Chosen Freeholders. This law, in
combination with a second one the same year that consolidated the school
districts into one per township, made it easy and attractive for
dissatisfied communities to break away and become boroughs. Forty new
boroughs were formed in 1894 and 1895, with the bulk in Bergen County,
where townships were broken up or greatly reduced in size; few townships
remain in the county today.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughitis>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1805:
War of the Third Coalition: French forces led by Napoleon
decisively defeated a Russo-Austrian army commanded by Tsar Alexander I
in the Battle of Austerlitz (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Austerlitz>
1823:
US President James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, a
proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine>
1852:
On the one-year anniversary of his dissolution of the Second
French Republic, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte declared himself Emperor of
the French and took the name Napoleon III.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III>
1942:
The Manhattan Project: Scientists led by Enrico Fermi initiated
the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the experimental
nuclear reactor Chicago Pile-1.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1>
1980:
American missionaries Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and
Dorothy Kazel were murdered by a military death squad in El Salvador.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Kazel>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
discernible:
Possible to discern; detectable or derivable by use of the senses or the
intellect.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/discernible>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
That we shall probably never know the whole "truth" about the
universe does not really matter very much; the fun comes in trying to
find out. The natural pattern of current astronomy … is provided by
the cryptic unity of nature itself (belief in which is the chief act of
faith of the scientist)… the human brain is itself a part of nature,
fanned into existence by billions of years of sunshine acting on the
molecules of the Earth. It is not perfectible in the immediate future,
even if biologists should wish to alter the brain — which is a
questionable ambition. What men make of the universe at large is a
product of what they can see of it and of their own human nature.
--Nigel Calder
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nigel_Calder>