Fallout 4: Far Harbor is an expansion pack for the 2015 video game
Fallout 4, developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda
Softworks. It was released in May 2016 for Microsoft Windows,
PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In the aftermath of a cataclysmic nuclear
war, the player character is recruited by a detective agency to
investigate the disappearance of a young girl. The game's quests and
puzzles can be played in first-person or third-person perspective. The
puzzles feature a variety of game mechanics, including lasers and
building blocks. The expansion was influenced by player feedback, which
faulted the base game's dialogue system and showed interest in
additional explorable territory. Reviews from critics were generally
favorable; the addition of new quests was praised, but there were mixed
opinions on the game's atmosphere and its use of fog. The main
criticisms were directed at the puzzles, which reviewers thought were a
waste of time, unnecessary, or overly frustrating.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_4:_Far_Harbor>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1853:
Crimean War: Russian warships led by Pavel Nakhimov destroyed
an Ottoman fleet of frigates at the Battle of Sinop, providing France
and the UK cause to join the war.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sinop>
1872:
The first international football match took place at Hamilton
Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1872_Scotland_vs_England_football_match>
1942:
World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy warships defeated United
States Navy forces during a nighttime naval battle near the Tassafaronga
area on Guadalcanal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tassafaronga>
1999:
Protests by anti-globalization activists against the World
Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington, U.S.,
forced the cancellation of its opening ceremonies.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests>
2007:
Swami Rambhadracharya, a Hindu religious leader, released the
first Braille version of the Bhagavad Gita scripture.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
gillie:
1. (Scotland, originally) A male attendant of a Scottish Highland chief.
2. (Britain, Ireland, Scotland) A fishing and hunting guide; a man or boy
who attends to a person who is fishing or hunting, especially in
Scotland.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gillie>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
--Jonathan Swift
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift>
Josephine Butler (1828–1906) was an English feminist and social
reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage and
better education for women. She was instrumental in the 1886 repeal of
the Contagious Diseases Acts, which had subjected prostitutes to
invasive medical examinations, and she founded an organisation to combat
similar practices across Europe. After she became aware that English
women and children were being sold into prostitution on the continent,
her allegations led to the sacking of a Belgian police commissionaire
and the imprisonment of his deputy and 12 brothel owners. Josephine
fought child prostitution with help from the campaigning editor of The
Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead, leading to the Criminal Law
Amendment Act 1885, which raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 years
of age. Her final campaign came in the late 1890s, against medical
mistreatment of prostitutes in the British Raj. She wrote more than 90
books and pamphlets, including three biographies. Her Christian feminism
is celebrated by the Church of England with a Lesser Festival, and
Durham University named one of their colleges after her.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Butler>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1777:
El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, the first civil settlement
in the Spanish colony of Alta California, was founded as a farming
community.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California>
1807:
Maria I of Portugal, the Braganza royal family and its court of
nearly 15,000 people departed Lisbon for the colony of Brazil just days
before Napoleonic forces invaded.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_the_Portuguese_Court_to_Brazil>
1947:
The United Nations General Assembly voted to approve the
Partition Plan for Palestine, a plan to resolve the Arab–Israeli
conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine by separating the territory
into Jewish and Arab states.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine>
1987:
Korean Air Flight 858 exploded over the Andaman Sea after two
North Korean agents left a time bomb in an overhead compartment, killing
all 115 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_858>
2007:
Philippine soldiers led by Senator Antonio Trillanes, on trial
for the 2003 Oakwood mutiny, staged a mutiny and temporarily seized a
conference room in The Peninsula Manila hotel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_Peninsula_siege>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
anecdata:
(usually humorous or pejorative) Anecdotal evidence.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdata>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very
same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large
for some of us to see.
--C. S. Lewis
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis>
"X-Cops" is the twelfth episode of the seventh season of the American
science fiction television series The X-Files. Directed by Michael
Watkins and written by Vince Gilligan, the installment originally aired
on the Fox network in February 2000. In this episode, Fox Mulder (David
Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), special agents for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, are interviewed for the Fox network
reality television program Cops during an X-Files investigation. Mulder,
hunting what he believes to be a werewolf, discovers that the monster
terrorizing people craves the fear it provokes. While Mulder embraces
the publicity of Cops, Scully is uncomfortable about appearing on
national television. "X-Cops" is one of only two X-Files episodes that
was shot in real time. The episode has been thematically analyzed for
its use of postmodernism and its presentation as reality television. It
has been named among the best episodes of The X-Files by several
reviewers, for its humor and format.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Cops_(The_X-Files)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1470:
Emperor Lê Thánh Tông of Annam (Vietnam) launched a military
expedition against Champa, beginning the Cham–Annamese War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cham%E2%80%93Annamese_War_(1471)>
1660:
At London's Gresham College, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins,
Christopher Wren and other leading scientists founded a learned society
now known as the Royal Society (coat of arms pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society>
1895:
The first automobile race in the United States, the Chicago
Times-Herald race, was held in Chicago.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Times-Herald_race>
1971:
Prime Minister of Jordan Wasfi al-Tal was assassinated by the
Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Cairo.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasfi_al-Tal>
1987:
South African Airways Flight 295 suffered a catastrophic in-
flight fire and crashed into the Indian Ocean east of Mauritius, killing
all 159 on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_295>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
trypophobia:
An irrational or obsessive fear of irregular patterns or clusters of
small holes, such as those found in honeycombs.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trypophobia>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same
that it shall be when we know more.
--William Blake
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Blake>
The Battle of Winterthur (27 May 1799) was fought between French forces
under André Masséna and elements of the Austrian army under Friedrich
Freiherr von Hotze during the War of the Second Coalition, part of the
French Revolutionary Wars. The town of Winterthur lies 18 kilometers
(11 mi) northeast of Zürich, in Switzerland. Any army holding the
town, at the junction of seven crossroads, controlled access to most of
Switzerland and entry points into southern Germany. By mid-May 1799, the
Austrians had wrested control of parts of Switzerland from the French.
After defeating Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's 25,000-man Army of the Danube at
the battles of Ostrach and Stockach, the Austrian army prepared to unite
its three main forces on the plains surrounding Zürich. The French Army
of Switzerland and the Army of the Danube, now both under the command of
Masséna, sought to prevent this merger. The Austrians pushed the French
out of the Winterthur highlands and consolidated their forces on the
plateau north of Zürich, leading to the French defeat in the First
Battle of Zürich a few days later.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Winterthur>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1703:
The Great Storm of 1703, one of the most severe storms to
strike southern Great Britain, destroyed the first Eddystone Lighthouse
off Plymouth.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1703>
1856:
King-Grand Duke William III unilaterally revised the
constitution of Luxembourg, greatly expanding his powers.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg_Coup_of_1856>
1919:
The first fraternity exclusively for collegiate band members,
Kappa Kappa Psi, was founded on the campus of Oklahoma State University
in Stillwater.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_Kappa_Psi>
1944:
Between 3,500 and 4,000 tonnes of ordnance exploded at the RAF
Fauld underground munitions storage depot in the largest non-nuclear
explosion in the United Kingdom.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Fauld_explosion>
2009:
A bomb exploded under a high-speed train travelling between
Moscow and Saint Petersburg derailing it, killing 28 passengers and
injuring more than 90 others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Nevsky_Express_bombing>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
saleable:
Suitable for sale; marketable; worth enough to try to sell.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/saleable>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is in silence, denial, evasion and suppression that danger
really lies, not in open and free analysis and discussion … everywhere
there seems to be a fear of reliance upon that ancient device so
gloriously celebrated by John Milton three hundred years ago — the
device of unlimited inquiry. Let us put aside resolutely that great
fright, tenderly and without malice, daring to be wrong in something
important rather than right in some meticulous banality, fearing no evil
while the mind is free to search, imagine, and conclude, inviting our
countrymen to try other instruments than coercion and suppression in the
effort to meet destiny with triumph, genially suspecting that no creed
yet calendared in the annals of politics mirrors the doomful
possibilities of infinity.
--Charles A. Beard
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_A._Beard>
The 38th (Welsh) Infantry Division of the British Army was active during
the First and the Second World War. The division arrived in France in
1915. In July 1916 at the Battle of the Somme, it captured the strongly
held Mametz Wood with the loss of nearly 4,000 men, allowing XV Corps to
advance to the next phase of the Somme offensive, the Battle of Bazentin
Ridge. A year later it made a successful attack in the Battle of Pilckem
Ridge, the opening of the Third Battle of Ypres. In 1918, during the
German Spring Offensive and the Allies' subsequent Hundred Days
Offensive, the division attacked several fortified German positions. It
crossed the Ancre River, broke through the Hindenburg Line and German
positions on the River Selle, and ended the war on the Belgian frontier;
by then, it was considered one of the Army's elite units. The division
was demobilised after the war. It was recreated in September 1939, but
never deployed overseas as a division, restricted to home defence duties
around the United Kingdom. It was constituted from September 1944 until
the end of the war as the 38th Infantry (Reserve) Division, a training
formation.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38th_(Welsh)_Infantry_Division>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1805:
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the longest aqueduct in Great
Britain and the highest in the world, opened.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontcysyllte_Aqueduct>
1842:
The University of Notre Dame (main building pictured) was
founded by Rev. Edward Sorin, of the Congregation of Holy Cross, as an
all-male institution in South Bend, Indiana, US.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Notre_Dame>
1917:
Unable to resolve disputes with Eddie Livingstone, owner of the
Toronto Blueshirts, the other ice hockey clubs of Canada's National
Hockey Association officially agreed to break away and form the National
Hockey League.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Hockey_League>
1942:
Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman,
premiered at the Hollywood Theatre in New York City to coincide with the
Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)>
1977:
A speaker claiming to represent the "Intergalactic Association"
interrupted the Southern Television broadcast in South East England,
warning viewers that "All your weapons of evil must be destroyed."
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Television_broadcast_interruption>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
creatify:
(transitive, neologism) To render more creative; to creativize.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creatify>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
People always try to find base motives behind every good action.
We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil.
--Eugène Ionesco
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Ionesco>
New Worlds is a British science fiction magazine that began in 1936 as a
fanzine called Novae Terrae. It was first published professionally in
1946, edited by John Carnell. It was the leading British science fiction
publication during the period to 1960 described by historian Mike Ashley
as the magazine's "Golden Age". Early issues featured John Wyndham's
"The Living Lies", under his John Beynon alias, and "Inheritance", an
early story by Arthur C. Clarke. "Escapement" by J. G. Ballard appeared
in the December 1956 issue; this was Ballard's first professionally
published work, and he went on to become a significant figure in science
fiction in the 1960s. After 1964, when Michael Moorcock became editor,
the magazine featured experimental and avant-garde material, and it
became the focus of the modernist New Wave of science fiction. Reaction
among the science fiction community was mixed, with partisans and
opponents of the New Wave debating the merits of New Worlds in the
columns of fanzines, such as Speculation. Several of the regular
contributors during this period, including Brian Aldiss and Thomas M.
Disch, became major names in science fiction.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Worlds_(magazine)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
885:
A fleet of Viking ships sailed up the Seine to lay siege to
Paris.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Paris_(885%E2%80%9386)>
1759:
The second of two strong earthquakes struck the Levant and
destroyed all the villages in the Beqaa Valley.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_East_earthquakes_of_1759>
1917:
World War I: German troops invaded Portuguese East Africa
(fighting pictured) in an attempt to escape superior British forces to
the north and resupply from captured Portuguese materiel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ngomano>
1947:
McCarthyism: Executives from movie studios agreed to blacklist
ten screenwriters and directors who were jailed for refusing to give
testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist>
1960:
The Mirabal sisters, who opposed the dictatorship of military
strongman Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, were beaten and
strangled to death.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirabal_sisters>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
biennium:
A period of two years.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/biennium>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Maybe altruism is our most primitive attribute out of reach,
beyond our control. Or perhaps it is immediately at hand, waiting to be
released, disguised now, in our kind of civilization as affection or
friendship or attachment. I can’t see why it should be unreasonable
for all human beings to have strands of DNA coiled up in chromosomes,
coding out instincts for usefulness and helpfulness. Usefulness may turn
out to be the hardest test of fitness for survival, more important than
aggression, more effective, in the long run, than grabbiness.
--Lewis Thomas
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lewis_Thomas>
The black vulture (Coragyps atratus) is a bird in the New World vulture
family commonly found from the southeastern United States to Central
Chile and Uruguay in South America. Despite the similar name and
appearance, this species is unrelated to the Eurasian black vulture, an
Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae (which includes eagles,
hawks, kites and harriers). The American species is the only extant
member of the New World vulture genus Coragyps in the family
Cathartidae. It inhabits relatively open areas near scattered forests or
shrublands. With a wingspan of 1.5 m (4.9 ft), it is a large bird
though relatively small for a vulture. It has black plumage, a
featherless, grayish-black head and neck, and a short, hooked beak. The
black vulture is a scavenger and feeds on carrion, but will also eat
eggs or kill newborn animals. In areas populated by humans, it also
feeds at garbage dumps. It finds its meals with its keen eyesight and
sense of smell. Lacking a syrinx—the vocal organ of birds—its only
vocalizations are grunts or low hisses.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_vulture>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1542:
Anglo-Scottish Wars: England captured about 1,200 Scottish
prisoners with its victory in the Battle of Solway Moss.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Solway_Moss>
1642:
A Dutch expedition led by Abel Tasman reached what is now
Tasmania, Australia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Tasman>
1922:
Irish Civil War: Author and Irish nationalist Erskine Childers
was executed by the Irish Free State for illegally carrying a semi-
automatic pistol.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Erskine_Childers>
1963:
Businessman Jack Ruby shot and fatally wounded Lee Harvey
Oswald (shooting pictured), the assassin of U.S. President John F.
Kennedy, during a live television broadcast, fueling conspiracy theories
on the matter.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald>
2015:
A Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M,
claiming the latter had strayed into Turkish airspace and ignored
warnings to change course.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Cambrian explosion:
1. (evolutionary biology) The relatively rapid appearance, during the
Cambrian Period around 541 million years ago, of most major animal
phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record.
2. (by extension) The rapid appearance of anything.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The more a government strives to curtail freedom of speech, the
more obstinately is it resisted; not indeed by the avaricious … but by
those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more
free. Men in general are so constituted that there is nothing they will
endure with so little patience as that views which they believe to be
true should be counted crimes against the laws. … Under such
circumstances they do not think it disgraceful, but most honorable, to
hold the laws in abhorrence, and to refrain from no action against the
government.
--Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tractatus_Theologico-Politicus>
The 1966 New York City smog (November 23–26) was an air-pollution
event, with damaging levels of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, smoke,
and haze. Coming during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it was the
third major smog in New York City, after a similar event in 1953
(pictured) and another in 1963. Leaders of local and state governments
announced an alert and asked residents and industry to take voluntary
steps to minimize emissions. Health officials advised people with
respiratory or heart conditions to stay indoors. The alert ended after a
cold front dispersed the smog. It was an environmental disaster with
severe public health effects, including 168 deaths, according to a
statistical analysis. The smog catalyzed greater national awareness of
air pollution as a serious health problem, and became a political issue.
With support from presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, a
series of bills and amendments aimed at regulating air pollution
culminated in the 1967 Air Quality Act and the 1970 Clean Air Act.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_New_York_City_smog>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1867:
The Manchester Martyrs were hanged in Manchester, England, for
killing a police officer while helping two Irish nationalists escape
from police custody.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Martyrs>
1876:
William "Boss" Tweed, a New York City politician who had been
arrested for embezzlement, was handed to U.S. authorities after having
escaped from prison to Spain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Tweed>
1924:
Edwin Hubble published evidence in a newspaper that the
Andromeda Nebula, previously believed to be part of the Milky Way, is
actually another galaxy, one of many in the universe.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble>
1992:
IBM introduced the Simon, a handheld, touchscreen mobile phone
and PDA that is considered the first smartphone.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon>
2007:
MS Explorer became the first cruise ship to sink in the
Antarctic Ocean.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Explorer_(1969)>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
ratfink:
1. An informer or spy; a traitor.
2. (also attributive) A dislikable or contemptible person.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ratfink>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of
life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are;
nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of
that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as
vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown
up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other
hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good
book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he
who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God,
as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a
good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can
restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions
of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of
which whole nations fare the worse.
--Areopagitica
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Areopagitica>
The sea mink (Neovison macrodon) was a mammal from the eastern coast of
North America, in the family of weasels and otters in the order
Carnivora. The largest of the minks, it was hunted to extinction by fur
traders before 1903, when it was first given a species description. Some
biologists classify it as a subspecies of the American mink. Estimates
of its size are speculative, based largely on skull fragments recovered
from Native American shell middens, and on tooth remains. Some
information on its appearance and habits was provided by fur traders and
Native Americans. It may have been similar in behavior to the American
mink: it probably maintained home ranges, was polygynandrous, and had a
similar diet, supplemented by saltwater prey. Sea minks were commonly
trapped along the coast of the Bay of Fundy in the Gulf of Maine.
Remains have been found along the New England coast, and there were
regular reports of unusually large mink furs, probably sea mink, being
collected from Nova Scotia.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_mink>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1718:
The pirate Blackbeard was killed in battle by a boarding party
of British sailors off the coast of North Carolina, ending his reign of
terror in the Caribbean.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard>
1812:
War of 1812: During a punitive expedition against Native
American villages, a contingent of Indiana Rangers were ambushed by
Kickapoo, Winnebago, and Shawnee warriors.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wild_Cat_Creek>
1910:
The crews of the Brazilian warships Minas Geraes, São Paulo,
Bahia—all commissioned only months before—and several smaller
vessels mutinied against what they called the "slavery" being practiced
in the Brazilian Navy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_of_the_Lash>
1935:
The China Clipper flying boat took off from Alameda,
California, U.S., to become the first service to deliver airmail cargo
across the Pacific Ocean.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Clipper>
1967:
The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted
Resolution 242 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War between Israel and
Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_242>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
clavicytherium:
(music) A harpsichord in which the soundboard and strings are mounted
vertically facing the player.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clavicytherium>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the
strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to
any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the
sympathy of my fellow-men. But we have all a chance of meeting with some
pity, some tenderness, some charity, when we are dead: it is the living
only who cannot be forgiven — the living only from whom men's
indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east
wind. While the heart beats, bruise it — it is your only opportunity;
while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty,
freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate
messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the
tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering
compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative
brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for
brotherly recognition — make haste — oppress it with your ill-
considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless
misrepresentations. The heart will by and by be still … the eye will
cease to entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from
all wants as well as from all work. Then your charitable speeches may
find vent; then you may remember and pity the toil and the struggle and
the failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you
may find extenuation for errors, and may consent to bury them.
--George Eliot
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Eliot>
Interstate 96 (I-96) is an Interstate Highway running 192 miles
(309 km) roughly east–west entirely within the US state of Michigan,
from east of Lake Michigan at US Highway 31 near Muskegon to I-75 near
the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. From Grand Rapids through Lansing to
Detroit, the freeway parallels Grand River Avenue, never straying more
than a few miles from the decommissioned US 16. Within the city of
Detroit, the road was renamed the Rosa Parks Memorial Highway in 2005 in
honor of the late civil rights pioneer. There are four auxiliary
Interstate Highways as well as two current and four former business
routes associated with I-96. Grand River Avenue originated as an Indian
trail before Michigan statehood. It was later used as a wagon road
across the state. In 1919 the roadway was included in the State
Trunkline Highway System as M-16 and later the US Numbered Highway
System as US 16. Construction of the freeway was started in 1956 and
initially completed across the state to Detroit in 1962. I-96 was
completed in the Detroit area on November 21, 1977.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_96>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1386:
Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur captured and sacked the Georgian
capital of Tbilisi, forcing King Bagrat V to convert to Islam.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur%27s_invasions_of_Georgia>
1894:
First Sino-Japanese War: After capturing the city of
Lüshunkou, the Japanese Second Army killed more than 1,000 Chinese
servicemen and civilians.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(China)>
1916:
HMHS Britannic was destroyed by a naval mine off the Greek
island of Kea, making it the largest ship lost during the First World
War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMHS_Britannic>
1977:
"God Defend New Zealand" (audio featured) became New Zealand's
second national anthem, on equal standing with "God Save the Queen",
which had been the traditional one since 1840.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Defend_New_Zealand>
2009:
An explosion in a coal mine in Heilongjiang, China, killed 108
miners.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Heilongjiang_mine_explosion>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
elevator pitch:
A brief and simple sales pitch; a short summary of a business plan,
process, or product, and its selling point and value proposition.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elevator_pitch>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.
--Isaac Bashevis Singer
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Bashevis_Singer>