Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid (882–946) was an Abbasid commander who
became the ruler of Egypt and parts of Syria from 935 until his death.
His Ikhshidid dynasty ruled until the Fatimid conquest of 969. In his
turbulent early career, he was imprisoned along with his father Tughj
ibn Juff by the Abbasids in 905, participated in the murder of the
vizier al-Abbas ibn al-Hasan al-Jarjara'i in 908, and fled Iraq to enter
the service of the governor of Egypt, Takin al-Khazari. He became
governor himself, and quickly defeated a Fatimid invasion. His reign
marks a rare period of peace and good government for early Islamic
Egypt. He vied with other regional strongmen for control over Syria,
without which Egypt was vulnerable to invasion from the east, but unlike
many other Egyptian leaders, he was prepared to bide his time and
compromise with his rivals. In 944 he received recognition of his
hereditary rule over Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz for thirty years from
Caliph al-Muttaqi of Baghdad. Ibn Tughj's son Unujur succeeded him,
under the guardianship of the powerful Ethiopian eunuch Abu al-Misk
Kafur.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Tughj_al-Ikhshid>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
763:
The Abbasid Caliphate crushed the Alid Revolt when one of the
rebellion leaders was mortally wounded in battle near Basra in what is
now Iraq.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alid_Revolt_(762%E2%80%93763)>
1789:
The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, widely considered
to be the first American novel, was published.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Sympathy>
1941:
Sparked by the murder of a German officer the previous day in
Bucharest, Romania, members of the Iron Guard engaged in a rebellion and
pogrom, killing 125 Jews.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires%27_rebellion_and_Bucharest_pogrom>
1972:
Tripura, part of the former independent Twipra Kingdom, became
a full-fledged state in India.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripura>
1997:
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 395–28 to reprimand
Newt Gingrich for ethics violations, making him the first Speaker of the
House to be so disciplined.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
mundialization:
An ideology based on the solidarity and diversity of global citizens and
the creation of supranational laws, intended as a response to
dehumanizing aspects of globalization.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mundialization>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the
world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But
that can’t be an excuse for inaction.
--Barack Obama
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barack_Obama>
The impala (Aepyceros melampus) is a medium-sized antelope in eastern
and southern Africa. First described by German zoologist Hinrich
Lichtenstein in 1812, it reaches 70–92 centimetres (28–36 inches) at
the shoulder, weighs 40–76 kilograms (88–168 pounds), and has a
glossy, reddish brown coat. The male's slender, lyre-shaped horns can
reach 45–92 centimetres (18–36 in), measured along the curve.
Active mainly during the day, the impala may be gregarious or
territorial. Three distinct social groups can be observed – the
territorial males, bachelor herds and female herds. Browsers as well as
grazers, impala feed on monocots, dicots, forbs, fruits and acacia pods.
An annual, three-week-long rut takes place toward the end of the wet
season, typically in May, and gestation lasts six to seven months.
Calves are suckled for four to six months. The impala is found close to
water, in woodlands and sometimes at the interface between woodlands and
savannahs. The common impala is widespread across its range and has been
reintroduced in Gabon and southern Africa, but the black-faced
subspecies has been classified as a vulnerable species.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impala>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
250:
Pope Fabian was martyred during a widespread persecution of
Christians for refusing to demonstrate loyalty to the Roman Empire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Fabian>
1877:
The Constantinople Conference concluded with the Great Powers
declaring the need for political reforms that the Ottoman Empire refused
to undertake, which later led to the Russo-Turkish War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople_Conference>
1942:
The Holocaust: SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and
other senior Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Conference in the Berlin
suburb of Wannsee to discuss implementation of the "Final Solution to
the Jewish Question".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference>
1969:
Bengali student activist Amanullah Asaduzzaman was shot and
killed by East Pakistani police, one of the catalysts that led to the
Bangladesh Liberation War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanullah_Asaduzzaman>
2007:
A three-man team, using only skis and kites, completed a
1,093-mile (1,759 km) trek to reach the southern pole of
inaccessibility for the first time since 1958, and for the first time
ever without mechanical assistance.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_of_inaccessibility>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
aul:
A village encampment in the Caucasus, Central Asia or the Southern
Urals.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aul>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president,
I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before,
and we will make America great again.
--Donald Trump
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Donald_Trump>
Hope is an 1886 Symbolist oil painting by the English artist George
Frederic Watts. Radically different from previous treatments of the
subject, it shows a lone blindfolded female figure sitting on a globe,
playing a lyre which has only a single string remaining. Watts
intentionally used symbolism not traditionally associated with hope to
make the painting's meaning ambiguous. As reproductions began to
circulate in large quantities worldwide, it became a widely popular
image. Theodore Roosevelt displayed a copy at his Sagamore Hill home in
New York, and a 1922 film was based on the painting. Although Watts was
rapidly falling out of fashion by this time and Hope was increasingly
seen as outdated and sentimental, it remained influential. Martin Luther
King Jr. based a 1959 sermon on the theme of the painting, as did
Jeremiah Wright in 1990. Among the congregation for the latter was the
young Barack Obama, who took "The Audacity of Hope" as the theme of his
2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, and as the title of
his 2006 book; he based his successful 2008 presidential campaign around
the theme of "Hope".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_(painting)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1607:
San Agustin Church in Manila, the oldest extant church in the
Philippines, was completed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Agustin_Church_(Manila)>
1862:
American Civil War: In their first significant victory, Union
forces defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Mill Springs near
modern Nancy, Kentucky.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mill_Springs>
1945:
World War II: Soviet forces liberated the Łódź Ghetto; only
877 Jews of the initial population of 164,000 remained at that time.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%81%C3%B3d%C5%BA_Ghetto>
1972:
The French newspaper l'Aurore revealed that the Nazi SS officer
Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon", had been found to be living in
Peru.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Barbie>
2007:
Turkish-Armenian journalist and human rights activist Hrant
Dink was assassinated by a Turkish nationalist.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Hrant_Dink>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
unpaid:
1. Not paid (for).
2. Of work: done without agreed payment, usually voluntarily.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unpaid>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
If justice be a natural principle, then it is necessarily an
immutable one; and can no more be changed — by any power inferior to
that which established it — than can the law of gravitation, the laws
of light, the principles of mathematics, or any other natural law or
principle whatever; and all attempts or assumptions, on the part of any
man or body of men — whether calling themselves governments, or by any
other name — to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or
discretion, in the place of justice, as a rule of conduct for any human
being, are as much an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny, as would
be their attempts to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or
discretion in the place of any and all the physical, mental, and moral
laws of the universe. If there be any such principle as justice, it is,
of necessity, a natural principle; and, as such, it is a matter of
science, to be learned and applied like any other science. And to talk
of either adding to, or taking from, it, by legislation, is just as
false, absurd, and ridiculous as it would be to talk of adding to, or
taking from, mathematics, chemistry, or any other science, by
legislation.
--Lysander Spooner
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner>
Sesame Street international co-productions are educational children's
television series based on the American Sesame Street but tailored to
the countries in which they are produced. Shortly after the debut of
Sesame Street in the US in 1969, television producers, teachers, and
officials of several countries approached the show's producers and the
executives of Children's Television Workshop (CTW) about the possibility
of airing international versions of the show. Creator Joan Ganz Cooney
hired former CBS executive Mike Dann to field offers to produce versions
of the show in other countries, with original sets, characters, and
curriculum goals. CTW's new shows included both dubbed versions of the
American show and versions created, developed, and produced to reflect
each country's needs, educational priorities, and culture. For example,
the first HIV-positive Muppet, Kami, from the South African co-
production Takalani Sesame, was created in 2003 to address the epidemic
of AIDS. In 2001, there were more than 120 million viewers of all
international versions of Sesame Street, and by the US show's
40th anniversary in 2009, they were being seen in more than
140 countries.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street_international_co-productions>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1535:
Conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes,
present-day Lima, Peru, as the capital of the lands he conquered for the
Spanish Crown.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lima>
1871:
A number of independent German states unified into the German
Empire, with Prussian King Wilhelm I being proclaimed as its first
Emperor.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Germany>
1919:
World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opened, to set the
peace terms for the Central Powers.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Conference,_1919>
1958:
African Canadian Willie O'Ree of the Boston Bruins played his
first game in the National Hockey League, breaking the colour barrier in
professional ice hockey.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_O%27Ree>
1977:
The mysterious Legionnaires' disease was found to be caused by
a previously unknown bacterium now known as Legionella (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires%27_disease>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
pooh-pooh:
(transitive) To dismiss idly with contempt or derision.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pooh-pooh>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Most animals, including most domesticated primates (humans) show a
truly staggering ability to "ignore" certain kinds of information —
that which does not "fit" their imprinted/conditioned reality-tunnel. We
generally call this "conservatism" or "stupidity", but it appears in all
parts of the political spectrum, and in learned societies as well as in
the Ku Klux Klan.
--Robert Anton Wilson
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson>
The Dorset Ooser is a wooden head that featured in the nineteenth-
century folk culture of Melbury Osmond, a village in the southwestern
English county of Dorset. The head was hollow, thus perhaps serving as a
mask, and included a humanoid face with horns, a beard, and a hinged
jaw. Although sometimes used to scare people during practical jokes, its
main recorded purpose was as part of a local variant of the custom known
as "rough music", in which it was used to humiliate those who were
deemed to have behaved in an immoral manner. It was first brought to
public attention in 1891, when it was owned by the Cave family of
Melbury Osmond's Holt Farm, but it went missing around 1897. In 1975 a
replica of the original Ooser was produced by John Byfleet, which has
since been on display at Dorset County Museum in Dorchester. This mask
retains a place in Dorset folk culture, and is used in local Morris
dancing processions held by the Wessex Morris Men on Saint George's Day
and May Day. The design of the Ooser has inspired copies used as
representations of the Horned God in the modern Pagan religion of Wicca
in both the United Kingdom and United States.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_Ooser>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1773:
On James Cook's second voyage, his ship HMS Resolution became
the first to cross the Antarctic Circle.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_voyage_of_James_Cook>
1912:
Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition reached
the South Pole, only to find that Roald Amundsen's team had beaten them
by 33 days.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_Expedition>
1946:
The United Nations Security Council, the organ of the United
Nations charged with the maintenance of international peace and
security, held its first meeting at Church House in London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council>
1961:
Three days before leaving office, U.S. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower delivered a farewell speech to the nation, in which he warned
about the dangers of the military–industrial complex.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address>
2010:
The first spate of violence between Muslims and Christians
began in Jos, Nigeria, and would end in more than 200 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Jos_riots>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
knuckle sandwich:
(slang) A punch to the face, especially to the mouth.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/knuckle_sandwich>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed
us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear
that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of this country. Our
hope that if we work hard enough and believe in ourselves, then we can
be whatever we dream, regardless of the limitations that others may
place on us. The hope that when people see us for who we truly are,
maybe, just maybe they, too, will be inspired to rise to their best
possible selves.
--Michelle Obama
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michelle_Obama>
Night of January 16th is a play by Russian-American author Ayn Rand,
inspired by the death of Ivar Kreuger, an industrialist and accused
swindler known as the Match King. The play is set in a courtroom during
a murder trial, and members of the audience are chosen to play the jury.
The court hears the case of Karen Andre, a former secretary and lover of
businessman Bjorn Faulkner, of whose murder she is accused. The jury
must rely on character testimony to decide whether Andre is guilty; the
play's ending depends on their verdict. Rand wanted to dramatize a
conflict between individualism and conformity. The play was first
produced in 1934 in Los Angeles under the title Woman on Trial. Producer
Al Woods took it to Broadway for the 1935–36 season and re-titled it
Night of January 16th. It became a hit and ran for seven months. The
play has been adapted as a movie, as well as for television and radio.
Rand had many disputes with Woods over the play, and in 1968 re-edited
it for publication as her "definitive" version.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_January_16th>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1362:
The Danish settlement of Rungholt was reportedly sunk into the
North Sea by a massive windstorm.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungholt>
1780:
Anglo-Spanish War: The British Royal Navy gained their first
major naval victory over their European enemies in the war when they
defeated a Spanish squadron in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent
(pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_St._Vincent_(1780)>
1920:
The League of Nations, the first intergovernmental organisation
whose principal mission was to maintain world peace, held its first
council meeting in Paris.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations>
1942:
TWA Flight 3 crashed into Potosi Mountain in Nevada, killing
actress Carole Lombard and all of the other 21 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_3>
1964:
The musical Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre on
Broadway, and went on to win ten Tony Awards, a record that stood for 37
years.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello,_Dolly!_(musical)>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
cereology:
The investigation, or practice, of creating crop circles.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cereology>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work
of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of
art. Interpretation makes art manageable, comformable.
--Susan Sontag
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag>
The Pale Emperor is the ninth studio album by American rock band Marilyn
Manson, released on January 15, 2015. In place of their usual industrial
rock style, the album features a sparser, blues-rock-influenced sound.
It was the band's first album to be co-produced by score composer Tyler
Bates, who had met frontman Marilyn Manson (pictured) through their
mutual involvement in the television series Californication. It was
released through the singer's Hell, etc. label to generally positive
reviews, with several publications referring to it as the band's best
album in over a decade. It went on to appear on multiple best-album
lists for 2015. It was also a commercial success, debuting at number
eight on the Billboard 200 with the band's highest opening week sales
since 2007. The album was dedicated to Manson's mother, who died of
Alzheimer's disease during its production. To promote the record, the
band embarked on The Hell Not Hallelujah Tour, which ran for almost two
years along with two co-headlining tours: The End Times with The
Smashing Pumpkins, and a summer 2016 tour with Slipknot.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pale_Emperor>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1759:
The British Museum in London, today containing one of the
largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, opened to the
public in Montagu House, Bloomsbury.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museum>
1865:
American Civil War: The Union Army captured Fort Fisher, the
last seaport of the Confederacy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fort_Fisher>
1937:
Spanish Civil War: Nationalists and Republican forces both
withdrew after suffering heavy losses, ending the Second Battle of the
Corunna Road.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_the_Corunna_Road>
1967:
The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the
American football championship game now known as Super Bowl I.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_I>
1991:
Elizabeth II, as Queen of Australia, signed letters patent
allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth realm to institute
its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Cross_for_Australia>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
cut-out:
1. A hole or space produced when something is removed by cutting. Also
attributive.
2. A piece cut out of something
3. A free-standing, rigid print (usually life-sized), often displayed for
promotional purposes; a standee.
4. A trusted middleman or intermediary, especially in espionage. […]
5. (electronics) Any of several devices that halts the flow of a current,
especially an electric current; a trip-switch or trip.
6. (telegraphy) A switch that changes the current from one circuit to
another, or for shortening a circuit. […]
7. (US, agriculture) The separation of a group of cattle from a herd; the
place where they are collected.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cut-out>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by
which we live have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So
we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. The problem is with man
himself and man's soul. We haven't learned how to be just and honest and
kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real
problem is that through our scientific genius we've made of the world a
neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we've failed to
make of it a brotherhood. And the great danger facing us today is not so
much the atomic bomb that was created by physical science. Not so much
that atomic bomb that you can put in an aeroplane and drop on the heads
of hundreds and thousands of people — as dangerous as that is. But the
real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which
lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding into the
vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness — that's the
atomic bomb that we've got to fear today.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.>
Interstate 275 (I-275) in the US state of Michigan is a western bypass
around the Detroit metropolitan area, completed on January 14, 1977. The
freeway is maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation as
part of the larger state trunkline highway system. It runs through the
western suburbs near Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport,
terminating in an interchange with I-75 near Newport, northeast of
Monroe. Early planning maps for the Interstate Highway System in the
1950s included a highway roughly parallel to the modern I-275. As plans
developed through the 1960s and into the early 1970s, the freeway was to
run from I-75 near Newport north to Novi and connect back to I-75 near
Davisburg, but the state canceled the northern section after local
opposition. Additional plans to extend the highway through Oakland
County were kept on the drawing boards through the 1980s, but failed to
materialize. Highway M-5, the Haggerty Connector, opened along part of
the former I-275/M-275 right-of-way between 1994 and 2000.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_275_(Michigan)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1301:
The Árpád dynasty, which had ruled Hungary since the late 9th
century, ended with the death of King Andrew III.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81rp%C3%A1d_dynasty>
1814:
Sweden and Denmark–Norway signed the Treaty of Kiel, whereby
Frederick VI of Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden in return for the Swedish
holdings in Pomerania.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Kiel>
1907:
A 6.5 Mw earthquake struck Kingston, Jamaica (damage pictured),
resulting in at least 800 deaths, which was at the time considered one
of the deadliest recorded earthquakes.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1907_Kingston_earthquake>
1957:
Kripalu Maharaj became the fifth Jagadguru ("world teacher"), a
Hindu spiritual leader.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kripalu_Maharaj>
1967:
The counterculture Human Be-In was held in San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park, launching the Summer of Love.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Be-In>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
illapse:
1. (rare) A gliding in; an immission or entrance of one thing into another.
2. (rare) A sudden descent or attack.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/illapse>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
May the men who hold the destiny of peoples in their hands,
studiously avoid anything that might cause the present situation to
deteriorate and become even more dangerous. May they take to heart the
words of the Apostle Paul: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you,
live peaceably with all men." These words are valid not only for
individuals, but for nations as well. May these nations, in their
efforts to maintain peace, do their utmost to give the spirit time to
grow and to act.
--Albert Schweitzer
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer>
The Jersey Act was a 1913 regulation by the British Jockey Club and the
owners of the General Stud Book that prevented most American-bred
Thoroughbred horses from registering with them. It was intended to halt
the increasing importation of racehorses of possibly impure bloodlines
after a series of bans on gambling by US states, including gambling on
horse races. The loss of breeding records during the American Civil War
and the late beginning of the registration of American Thoroughbreds led
many in the British racing establishment to doubt that the American-bred
horses were purebred. The Act prohibited the registration of horses
unless all of their Thoroughbred ancestors had been registered. Despite
protests from American breeders the regulation was in force until 1949.
By then, ineligible horses were increasingly successful in races in
Europe, British and Irish breeders had lost access to French
Thoroughbreds during and after the Second World War, and any impure
ancestors of the American bloodlines had receded far back in most
horses' ancestry.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Act>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1797:
French Revolutionary Wars: A naval battle off the coast of
Brittany between two British frigates and a French ship of the line
ended with over 900 deaths when the latter ran aground.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_13_January_1797>
1910:
The first public radio broadcast, a live performance of
Cavalleria rusticana from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City,
was sent over the airwaves.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_of_public_radio_broadcasting>
1915:
About 30,000 people in Avezzano, Italy—96% of its
population—were killed when an earthquake struck the region.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_Avezzano_earthquake>
1968:
American singer Johnny Cash recorded his landmark album At
Folsom Prison live at the Folsom State Prison in California.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Folsom_Prison>
2000:
Steve Ballmer replaced Bill Gates as Chief Executive Officer of
Microsoft.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Hilary term:
1. The second term of the legal year, running from January to March or
April, during which the upper courts of England and Wales, and Ireland,
sit to hear cases.
2. The second academic term of the universities of Oxford and Dublin,
running from January to March. The term was modelled after the legal
term, but does not begin and end on the same dates.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hilary_term>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
RELIGION IS DOING; a man does not merely think his religion or
feel it, he lives his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is
not religion but fantasy or philosophy. Whether he likes it or not he
shows his attitude towards religion by his actions and he can show his
attitude only by his actions.
--G. I. Gurdjieff
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/G._I._Gurdjieff>
The Monster is an 1898 novella by American author Stephen Crane
(1871–1900), a study of prejudice, fear and isolation in a small town.
In the fictional Whilomville, New York, an African-American coachman
named Henry Johnson, who is employed by the town's physician, Dr.
Trescott, becomes horribly disfigured after he saves Trescott's son from
a fire. When Henry is branded a "monster" by the town's residents,
Trescott vows to shelter and care for him, resulting in his family's
exclusion from the community. Whilomville, which is used in 14 other
Crane stories, was based on Port Jervis, New York, where he spent part
of his youth. He probably took inspiration from several local men who
were similarly disfigured. Modern critics have connected themes of
racial division in the story to the 1892 lynching in Port Jervis of an
African-American man named Robert Lewis. The novella was included in The
Monster and Other Stories—the last collection of Crane's work to be
published during his lifetime. Both the novella and the collection
received mixed reviews from critics, but The Monster is now considered
one of Crane's best works.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_(novella)>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1554:
Bayinnaung, who later assembled the largest empire in the
history of Southeast Asia, was crowned king of the Burmese Taungoo
Dynasty.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayinnaung>
1777:
Mission Santa Clara de Asís, a Spanish mission that formed the
basis of both the city of Santa Clara, California and Santa Clara
University, was established.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Santa_Clara_de_As%C3%ADs>
1911:
The University of the Philippines College of Law was founded;
many leading Filipino political figures have since graduated from it.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_the_Philippines_College_of_Law>
1967:
Seventy-three-year-old psychology professor James Bedford
became the first person to be cryonically frozen with intent of future
resuscitation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics>
2007:
Comet McNaught reached perihelion and became the brightest
comet in over 40 years with an apparent magnitude of −5.5.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2006_P1>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
filibuster:
1. A mercenary soldier; a freebooter; specifically, a mercenary who
travelled illegally in an organized group from the United States to a
country in Central America or the Spanish West Indies in the mid-19th
century seeking economic and political benefits through armed force.
2. (politics, US) A tactic (such as giving long, often irrelevant speeches)
employed to delay the proceedings of, or the making of a decision by, a
legislative body, particularly the United States Senate.
3. (politics, US) A member of a legislative body causing such an
obstruction; a filibusterer.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/filibuster>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
--Edmund Burke
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke>