Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West
End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. On the north side are
shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials; the south side holds the
Royal Opera House (also called Covent Garden), the Drury Lane theatre,
the London Transport Museum, and other cultural and entertainment
venues. Its central square (pictured) is a popular shopping and tourist
site. The area was originally the "garden of the Abbey and Convent",
with orchards for Westminster Abbey, around 1200. In 1630 the 4th Earl
of Bedford commissioned Inigo Jones to design the Italianate arcaded
square, which served as a prototype for other estates as London grew. A
small open-air market and its neighbourhood fell into disrepute as
taverns, theatres and brothels opened up; the gentry moved away, and
rakes, wits and playwrights moved in. Charles Fowler's neo-classical
building was erected in 1830 to cover and organise the market. Further
buildings were added: the Floral Hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the
Jubilee Market. The central building reopened as a shopping centre in
1980 with cafes, pubs, small shops and a craft market.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covent_Garden>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1559:
During a jousting match, Gabriel Montgomery of the Garde
Écossaise mortally wounded King Henry II of France, piercing him in the
eye with his lance.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II_of_France>
1860:
Seven months after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the
Origin of Species, several prominent British scientists and philosophers
participated in an evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum in
Oxford, England.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Oxford_evolution_debate>
1908:
A massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska
River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, knocking over 80 million
trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event>
1966:
The National Organization for Women, one of the United States'
leading feminist organizations, was founded in Washington, D.C.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Organization_for_Women>
2009:
Schoolgirl Bahia Bakari was the sole survivor when Yemenia
Flight 626 crashed into the Indian Ocean killing 152 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemenia_Flight_626>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
coop:
1. A basket, pen or enclosure for birds.
2. A wickerwork basket (kipe) or other enclosure for catching fish.
3. (figuratively, slang) A narrow place of confinement, a cage; a jail, a
prison. […]
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coop>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
There was a time when only wise books were read helping us to bear
our pain and misery. This, after all, is not quite the same as leafing
through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics. And yet the
world is different from what it seems to be and we are other than how we
see ourselves in our ravings.
--Czesław Miłosz
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz>
Robert of Jumièges (died 1052–1055?) was the first Norman Archbishop
of Canterbury. He had served as prior of the Abbey of St Ouen at Rouen
in Normandy, before becoming abbot of Jumièges Abbey (pictured), near
Rouen, in 1037. He was a friend and advisor to the king of England,
Edward the Confessor, who appointed him Bishop of London in 1044, and
then archbishop in 1051. Robert's time as archbishop lasted only about
eighteen months. He had already come into conflict with the powerful
Earl Godwin of Wessex, and had made attempts to recover lands lost to
Godwin and his family. He also refused to consecrate Spearhafoc,
Edward's choice to succeed Robert as Bishop of London. The rift between
Robert and Godwin culminated in Robert's deposition and exile in 1052,
and he died at Jumièges shortly after. Robert commissioned significant
building work at Jumièges and was probably involved in the first
Romanesque building in England, the church built in Westminster for
Edward the Confessor, now known as Westminster Abbey. Robert's treatment
by the English was used as one of the justifications of William the
Conqueror for his invasion of England.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_of_Jumi%C3%A8ges>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1659:
Russo-Polish War: The hetman of Ukraine Ivan Vyhovsky and his
allies defeated the armies of Russian Tsardom led by Aleksey Trubetskoy
at the Battle of Konotop in the present-day Sumy Oblast of Ukraine.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Konotop>
1864:
Canada's worst railway accident took place when a passenger
train fell through an open swing bridge into the Richelieu River near
present-day Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St-Hilaire_train_disaster>
1974:
Isabel Perón was sworn in as the first female President of
Argentina, replacing her ill husband Juan Perón, who died two days
later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Mart%C3%ADnez_de_Per%C3%B3n>
2006:
The US Supreme Court delivered its decision in Hamdan v.
Rumsfeld, ruling that military commissions set up by the Bush
administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both US and
international law.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdan_v._Rumsfeld>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
bentwood:
1. (woodworking, countable and uncountable) Also attributive. Lengths of
wood that have been made pliable by heating with steam and then bent
into the appropriate shape (to make furniture, ships' hulls, etc.).
2. (countable) An object, especially a piece of furniture, made from
bentwood.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bentwood>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The machine does not isolate us from the great problems of nature
but plunges us more deeply into them.
--Antoine de Saint Exupéry
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint_Exup%C3%A9ry>
After he slapped two soldiers, US Lieutenant General George S. Patton
was sidelined from combat command by General Dwight Eisenhower and Army
Chief of Staff George C. Marshall. On 3 August 1943, during the Sicily
Campaign of World War II, Patton struck, kicked and berated a soldier he
found at an evacuation hospital with no apparent injuries, for being
"gutless"; in fact, the soldier had malaria with a temperature of
102.2 °F (39.0 °C). Patton struck another soldier complaining of
"nerves" at another hospital seven days later and threatened him with a
pistol for being a "whimpering coward"; in fact, the soldier had been
begging to rejoin his unit. Both soldiers suffered from what is now
known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Patton's actions were
suppressed in the news until journalist Drew Pearson publicized them.
Congress and the general public expressed both support and disdain.
Patton was removed from combat command for almost a year, but did take a
decoy command in Operation Fortitude to mislead German agents as to the
location of the planned invasion of Europe. His later successes
commanding the US Third Army largely rehabilitated his reputation.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton_slapping_incidents>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1776:
American Revolutionary War: South Carolina militia repelled a
British attack on Charleston.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sullivan%27s_Island>
1846:
Belgian clarinetist Adolphe Sax received a patent for the
saxophone (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone>
1914:
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie,
Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo
Princip during a motorcade in Sarajevo, sparking the outbreak of World
War I.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_…>
1956:
Workers demanding better conditions held massive protests in
Poznań, Poland, but were violently repressed by the following day by
400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers of the Polish People's Army and the
Internal Security Corps.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozna%C5%84_1956_protests>
1981:
Seventy-three leading officials of Iran's Islamic Republican
Party were killed when a bomb exploded at the party's headquarters in
Tehran.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafte_Tir_bombing>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
night-biter:
An animal, especially an insect such as a mosquito, that bites during
the night.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/night-biter>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I deny that villany is ever necessary. It is impossible that it
should ever be necessary for any reasonable creature to violate all the
laws of justice, mercy, and truth. No circumstances can make it
necessary for a man to burst in sunder all the ties of humanity. It can
never be necessary for a rational being to sink himself below a brute.
--John Wesley
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Wesley>
The 2010 Sylvania 300 was an American stock car racing competition held
at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon on September 19. The 300-lap
race was the twenty-seventh in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, as
well as the first in the ten-race Chase for the Sprint Cup, which ended
the season. Clint Bowyer (pictured) of the Richard Childress Racing team
won the race; Denny Hamlin finished second and Jamie McMurray came in
third. Brad Keselowski started at the pole position, but was quickly
passed by Tony Stewart. Many participants in the Chase for the Sprint
Cup, including Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, and Hamlin, were in the top
ten for most of the race, although some encountered problems in the
closing laps. Stewart was leading the race with two laps remaining but
ran out of fuel, giving the lead, and the win, to Bowyer. There were
twenty-one lead changes and eight cautions during the race. It was
Bowyer's first win in the 2010 season, and the third of his career.
Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship, ahead
of Toyota and Ford. Attendance was 95,000, and the television audience
was 3.68 million.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Sylvania_300>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1571:
Elizabeth I of England issued a royal charter establishing
Jesus College, the first Protestant college at the University of Oxford.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_College,_Oxford>
1743:
War of the Austrian Succession: In the last time that a British
monarch personally led his troops into battle, George II and his forces
defeated the French in Dettingen, Bavaria.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dettingen>
1927:
Prime Minister of Japan Tanaka Giichi led a conference to
discuss Japan's plans for China, out of which came the Tanaka Memorial,
a strategic document detailing these plans (now believed to be a
forgery).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanaka_Memorial>
1986:
In Nicaragua v. United States, the International Court of
Justice ruled that the United States had violated international law by
supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan
government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States>
2008:
President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe was overwhelmingly re-
elected after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew a week earlier,
citing violence against his party's supporters.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_general_election,_2008>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
from pillar to post:
(idiomatic) From one place (or person, or task) to another; hither and
thither.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/from_pillar_to_post>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while
every pessimist would keep the world at a standstill. The consequence of
pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the
individual. Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle
against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of
joy in the world.
--Helen Keller
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Keller>
Seacology is a nonprofit charity headquartered in Berkeley, California,
that focuses on preserving island ecosystems and cultures. It originated
with the work of ethnobotanist Paul Alan Cox in the village of Falealupo
in Samoa. When the villagers were being pressured to sell logging rights
to their rainforest in 1988 to build a new school, Cox and his wife
offered to help secure funds in return for an agreement with the
villagers to protect their forest. Cox and the village chief, Fuiono
Senio (both pictured), later received the Goldman Environmental Prize
for their efforts. As demand increased for similar projects on other
islands, Cox, along with Bill Marré and Ken Murdock, founded Seacology
in 1991. By 2016, the nonprofit had initiated 200 projects globally,
helping to preserve 1,116 square miles (2,890 km2) of marine habitat
and 946.7 square miles (2,452 km2) of terrestrial habitat. The
organization fosters ecotourism, and has helped raise emergency funds
following destructive tsunamis. It was featured in the music video "What
About Now" by the American rock band Daughtry.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seacology>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
363:
Roman emperor Julian was killed during the retreat from his
campaign against the Sassanid Empire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)>
1243:
Mongol invasions of Anatolia: Mongols achieved a decisive
victory over the Seljuq Turks, leading to the decline and disintegration
of the Seljuk state.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_K%C3%B6se_Da%C4%9F>
1740:
War of Jenkins' Ear: A Spanish column of 300 regular troops,
free black militia and Indian auxiliaries stormed Britain's
strategically crucial position of Fort Mose in Spanish Florida.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Mose>
1906:
The 1906 French Grand Prix, the first Grand Prix motor racing
competition, was held outside Le Mans.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_French_Grand_Prix>
2006:
Mari Alkatiri, the first Prime Minister of East Timor, resigned
after weeks of political unrest.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari_Alkatiri>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
shark bait:
1. (humorous) One who has been or is likely to be attacked by a shark.
2. (humorous, by extension) One who is in a precarious or vulnerable
position; a dead duck.
3. (Australia, colloquial) A lone swimmer or surfer far from shore, a shark
baiter. […]
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shark_bait>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to
be amused rather than shocked.
--Pearl S. Buck
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pearl_S._Buck>
The forged diaries of Adolf Hitler are a series of sixty volumes of
journals created by Konrad Kujau (pictured) between 1981 and 1983. They
were purchased in 1983 for 9.3 million Deutsche Marks (US$3.7 million)
by the West German news magazine Stern through one of their journalists,
Gerd Heidemann. Stern sold serialisation rights to several news
organisations, including The Sunday Times. In April 1983, at a press
conference to announce the forthcoming publication, several
historians—including two who had previously authenticated the
diaries—raised questions over their validity, and subsequent forensic
examination quickly confirmed they were forgeries. As Stern's scoop
began to unravel, it became clear that Heidemann, who had an obsession
with the Nazis, had stolen a significant proportion of the money
provided. Kujau and Heidemann both spent time in prison for their parts
in the fraud, and several newspaper editors lost their jobs. The scandal
has been adapted for the screen twice: as Selling Hitler (1991) for the
British ITV channel, and the following year as Schtonk!, a German film.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1658:
Anglo-Spanish War: English colonial forces repelled a Spanish
attack in the largest battle ever fought on Jamaica.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rio_Nuevo>
1910:
The United States Congress passed the Mann Act, which
prohibited interstate transport of females for "immoral purposes".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act>
1940:
Second World War: The evacuation of nearly 200,000 Allied
soldiers from French ports was completed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ariel>
1967:
More than 400 million people viewed Our World, the first live,
international satellite television production.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_World_(TV_special)>
2006:
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in a cross-border
raid from the Gaza Strip on the crossing Kerem Shalom, and was held
hostage by Hamas until 2011.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Shalit>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Brexit:
(Britain, politics) The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the
European Union.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Brexit>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of
lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.
--George Orwell
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell>
Horse-flies are large flies of the family Tabanidae that feed mainly on
nectar. The males have weak mouthparts; only the females bite animals,
including humans, to obtain enough protein from the blood to produce
eggs. For this they use a stout stabbing organ and two pairs of sharp
cutting blades to bite, and a spongelike part to lap up the blood that
flows from the wound. They can transfer blood-borne diseases from one
animal to another. They can also reduce growth rates in cattle and lower
the milk output of cows if suitable shelters are not provided; some
animals have lost up to 300 millilitres of blood in a single day to the
insects. Horseflies prefer to fly in sunlight, avoiding dark and shady
areas, and are inactive at night. They are found all over the world
except for some islands and the polar regions. The larvae are predaceous
and grow in semiaquatic habitats. Horse-flies have appeared in
literature since Aeschylus in Ancient Greece wrote about them driving
people to madness. Gadflies (horse-flies and botflies) are mentioned in
Shakespeare's plays King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse-fly>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1374:
An outbreak of dancing mania, wherein crowds of people danced
themselves to exhaustion, took place in Aachen (present-day Germany),
before spreading to other cities and countries.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania>
1571:
Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi established a
council to govern the city of Manila (Manila Cathedral pictured), now
the capital of the Philippines.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila>
1812:
Napoleonic Wars: The French Grande Armée under Napoleon
crossed the Neman River, marking the start of their invasion of Russia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia>
1937:
The United States' first two "fast battleships", the North
Carolina class, were ordered from the New York and Philadelphia Naval
Shipyards.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina-class_battleship>
1982:
British Airways Flight 9 flew into a cloud of volcanic ash
thrown up by the eruption of Indonesia's Mount Galunggung, resulting in
the failure of all four of its engines.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
arborescent:
1. Like a tree; having a structure or appearance similar to that of a tree;
branching.
2. (philosophy) Marked by insistence on totalizing principles, binarism and
dualism (as opposed to the rhizome theory).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/arborescent>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Humor is … nearer right than any emotion we have. Humor is the
atmosphere in which grace most flourishes.
--Henry Ward Beecher
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Ward_Beecher>
Len Hutton (23 June 1916 – 6 September 1990) was a Test cricketer who
played for Yorkshire and England as an opening batsman. Marked out as a
potential star from his teenage years, Hutton made his debut for
Yorkshire in 1934 and by 1937 was playing for England. He set a record
in 1938 for the highest individual innings in a Test match, scoring 364
runs against Australia, a milestone that stood for nearly 20 years.
During the Second World War, he received a serious arm injury that never
fully recovered. In 1946, he assumed a role as the mainstay of England's
batting; the team depended greatly on his success for the remainder of
his career. In 1952, he became the first professional cricketer of the
20th century to captain England in Tests; under his captaincy in 1953,
England won the Ashes for the first time in 19 years. As a batsman,
Hutton was cautious and built his style on a sound defence. He remains
statistically among the best batsmen to have played Test cricket, and
was knighted for his contributions to the game in 1956. He went on to be
a Test selector, a journalist and broadcaster, an engineering firm
director and, in 1990, Yorkshire's president.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Hutton>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1780:
American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army victory in the
Battle of Springfield effectively put an end to British ambitions in New
Jersey.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Springfield_(1780)>
1858:
Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish boy, was seized by papal
authorities and taken to be raised as a Roman Catholic, sparking an
international controversy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortara_case>
1946:
Canada's largest onshore earthquake, measuring 7.3 Mw, struck
Vancouver Island, but only caused two casualties since there were no
heavily populated areas near its epicenter.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Vancouver_Island_earthquake>
1956:
Gamal Abdel Nasser became President of Egypt, a post he held
until his death in 1970.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamal_Abdel_Nasser>
1991:
The first installment of the Sonic the Hedgehog video game
series was first released, transforming Sega into a leading game
company.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(1991_video_game)>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
sexuality:
1. That which is characterized or distinguished by sex. […]
2. Sexual orientation.
3. Sexual identity, gender.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sexuality>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Very occasionally, if you really pay attention, life doesn’t
suck.
--Joss Whedon
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joss_Whedon>
Sons of Soul is the third studio album by American R&B; group Tony!
Toni! Toné!, released on June 22, 1993, by Wing Records and Mercury
Records. The group recorded at several studios in California before
moving their sessions to the Caribbean Sound Basin studio in Trinidad,
where they wrote, recorded, and produced most of the album. They used
session musicians and vintage and contemporary recording equipment.
Incorporating live instrumentation and elements from funk and hip hop,
including samples and scratches, they also paid homage to their musical
influences, classic soul artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Lead singer and
bassist Raphael Wiggins wrote the music and quirky, flirtatious lyrics
for most of the songs. A commercial success, Sons of Soul charted for 43
weeks on the Billboard 200 and was certified double platinum in the US.
It was acclaimed by music critics and named the best album of 1993 by
The New York Times and Time magazine. With its success, Tony! Toni!
Toné! became one of the most popular R&B; acts during the genre's
commercial resurgence in the early 1990s.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Soul>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1633:
Galileo Galilei was forced to recant his heliocentric view of
the Solar System by the Roman Inquisition, after which, as legend has
it, he muttered under his breath, "And yet it moves."
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair>
1807:
The British warship HMS Leopard pursued and attacked the
American frigate USS Chesapeake in the belief that the latter had
deserters from the Royal Navy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake%E2%80%93Leopard_Affair>
1941:
World War II: As over 4.5 million Axis troops began their
invasion of the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian Activist Front started an
uprising to liberate Lithuania from Soviet occupation and establish a
new government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Uprising_in_Lithuania>
1978:
Working at the US Naval Observatory, American astronomer James
W. Christy discovered Charon, then considered the sole moon of Pluto.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(moon)>
1986:
Argentine footballer Diego Maradona scored both the "Hand of
God goal" and the "Goal of the Century" against England during the
quarter-final match of the FIFA World Cup in Mexico City.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina_v_England_(1986_FIFA_World_Cup)>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
hoon:
(Australia, New Zealand, slang) A hooligan, a lout; specifically, a
person who drives excessively quickly, loudly or irresponsibly; a street
drag racer often driving heavily customized cars. […]
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hoon>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The true end of Man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal
and immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and
transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his
powers to a complete and consistent whole.
--Wilhelm von Humboldt
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Humboldt>
The Mortara case was a controversy precipitated by the Papal States'
seizure of Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish child, from his family
in Bologna, Italy, in 1858. The city's inquisitor, Father Pier Feletti,
heard from a servant that she had administered emergency baptism to the
boy when he fell sick as an infant, and the Supreme Sacred Congregation
of the Roman and Universal Inquisition held that this made the child
irrevocably a Catholic. Because the Papal States had forbidden the
raising of Christians by members of other faiths, it was ordered that he
be taken from his family and brought up by the Church. After visits from
the child's father, international protests mounted, but Pope Pius IX
would not be moved. The boy grew up as a Catholic with the Pope as a
substitute father, trained for the priesthood in Rome until 1870, and
was ordained in France three years later. In 1870 the Kingdom of Italy
captured Rome during the unification of Italy, ending the pontifical
state; opposition across Italy, Europe and the United States over
Mortara's treatment may have contributed to its downfall.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortara_case>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1529:
War of the League of Cognac: The French army under Francis de
Bourbon was destroyed in Lombardy, present-day Italy, by the Spanish
army.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Landriano>
1848:
In the Wallachian Revolution, Ion Heliade Rădulescu and
Christian Tell proclaimed a new republican government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallachian_Revolution_of_1848>
1919:
During the Winnipeg general strike in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada, members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police charged into the
crowd of strikers on horseback, beating them with clubs and firing
weapons.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_general_strike>
1963:
Italian cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini was elected as Pope
Paul VI.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_VI>
2004:
SpaceShipOne completed the first privately funded human
spaceflight.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
contumacy:
(chiefly Christianity and law) Disobedience, resistance to authority.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contumacy>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Human existence is obviously distinguished from animal life by its
qualified participation in creation. Within limits it breaks the forms
of nature and creates new configurations of vitality. Its transcendence
over natural process offers it the opportunity of interfering with the
established forms and unities of vitality as nature knows them.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr>