Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines during World War II
began on 11 March 1942, after U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
ordered him to withdraw. MacArthur left Corregidor Island and traveled
in PT boats with his forces through stormy seas patrolled by Japanese
warships, reaching Mindanao two days later. Arriving in Australia, he
declared, "I came through and I shall return". MacArthur, a well-known
general who had a distinguished record in World War I, had retired from
the army in 1937 to become a defense advisor to the Philippine
government. He was recalled to active duty in July 1941, a few months
before the outbreak of the Pacific War with the Empire of Japan, to
become commander of the U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, which included
Philippine forces. By March 1942, the Japanese invasion of the
Philippines had compelled him to withdraw his forces on Luzon to Bataan.
The doomed defense of Bataan captured the imagination of the American
public, and MacArthur became a living symbol of Allied resistance to the
Japanese, at a time when the news from all fronts was uniformly bad.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur%27s_escape_from_the_Philipp…>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
222:
Disgusted with Roman emperor Elagabalus's disregard for Roman
religious traditions and sexual taboos, the Praetorian Guard
assassinated him and his mother and threw their mutilated bodies in the
Tiber.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus>
1843:
During a period of activity known as the Great Eruption, Eta
Carinae briefly became the second brightest star in the night sky.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae>
1966:
Indonesian President Sukarno signed the Presidential Order
Supersemar, giving General of the Army Suharto the authority to restore
order during the recent mass killings.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersemar>
1978:
After hijacking a bus north of Tel Aviv, members of Palestine
Liberation Organization faction Fatah engaged in a shootout with the
Israel Police, resulting in the deaths of 38 civilians and most of the
perpetrators.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastal_Road_massacre>
1993:
Janet Reno was confirmed by the Senate as the first female
United States Attorney General.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Reno>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
dot matrix:
1. (computing) A two-dimensional array or pattern of dots used (for
example, by a display device or a printer) to represent alphanumeric
characters and pictures.
2. (computing) Clipping of dot matrix printer.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dot_matrix>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Advances in science when put to practical use mean more jobs,
higher wages, shorter hours, more abundant crops, more leisure for
recreation, for study, for learning how to live without the deadening
drudgery which has been the burden of the common man for ages past.
Advances in science will also bring higher standards of living, will
lead to the prevention or cure of diseases, will promote conservation of
our limited national resources, and will assure means of defense against
aggression. But to achieve these objectives — to secure a high level
of employment, to maintain a position of world leadership — the flow
of new scientific knowledge must be both continuous and substantial.
--Vannevar Bush
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush>
Amazing Stories Quarterly was a U.S. science fiction pulp magazine
published from 1928 to 1934. Launched by Hugo Gernsback as a companion
to his Amazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine, it premiered
with a reprint of H.G. Wells' When the Sleeper Wakes in the Winter 1928
issue. Over the next five issues only one more reprint appeared:
Gernsback's own novel Ralph 124C 41+, in the Winter 1929 issue. He went
bankrupt in early 1929, and lost control of both publications; his
assistant, T. O'Conor Sloane, took over as editor. The magazine began
having financial difficulties in 1932, and the schedule became
irregular; the last issue was dated Fall 1934. Authors whose work
appeared in Amazing Stories Quarterly include Stanton A. Coblentz, Miles
J. Breuer, A. Hyatt Verrill, and Jack Williamson. Critical opinions
differ; Everett Bleiler considers few of the stories to be of acceptable
quality, but Milton Wolf and Mike Ashley regard the work Sloane
published in the early 1930s to be some of the best in the new genre.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Stories_Quarterly>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1916:
The last in a series of letters was written wherein Britain
would support Arab independence from the Ottoman Empire in return for
launching a revolt.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon%E2%80%93Hussein_Correspondence>
1952:
Facing likely electoral defeat, former Cuban President
Fulgencio Batista staged a coup d'état to resume control.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista>
1968:
Vietnam War/Laotian Civil War: North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao
forces overwhelmed the American, Laotian, Thai, and Hmong defenders of
Lima Site 85.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lima_Site_85>
2000:
The Nasdaq Composite stock market index peaked at 5048.62, the
high point of the dot-com boom.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble>
2008:
The New York Times revealed that Governor of New York Eliot
Spitzer had used a prostitution service.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scandal>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
stronghold:
1. A place built to withstand attack; a fortress.
2. (figuratively) A place of domination by, or refuge or survival of, a
particular group or idea.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stronghold>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
People who are eccentric enough to be quite seriously virtuous
understand each other everywhere, discover each other easily, and form a
silent opposition to the ruling immorality that happens to pass for
morality.
--Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Schlegel>
Armillaria gallica is a species of honey mushroom in the family
Physalacriaceae. It is a common and ecologically important wood-decay
fungus that can feed on dead organic material in soil, or live as an
opportunistic parasite in weakened tree hosts to cause root or butt rot.
It is found in temperate regions of Asia, North America, and Europe. The
yellow-brown mushrooms, covered with small scales, can grow to around
10 cm (4 in) in diameter. On the underside of the caps are gills that
are white to creamy or pale orange. The fungus has been the subject of
considerable scientific research into its role as a plant pathogen, its
ability to bioluminesce, its unusual life cycle, and its ability to form
large and long-lived colonies. A 1,500-year-old colony was discovered in
the early 1990s in a Michigan forest, reported to cover an area of 15
hectares (37 acres) and weigh at least 9,500 kilograms (21,000 lb); as
a tourist attraction called the "humungous fungus", it inspires an
annual mushroom-themed festival in Crystal Falls.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillaria_gallica>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1009:
The first known record of the name of Lithuania appeared in an
entry in the annals of the Quedlinburg Abbey in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Lithuania>
1842:
Francisco Lopez woke from a nap under a tree at Rancho San
Francisco and made the first documented discovery of gold in California.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_San_Francisco>
1910:
A massive seventeen-month-long strike action, which at its peak
involved 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers
across 65 mines, began in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmoreland_County_coal_strike_of_1910%E2%80…>
1925:
The Royal Air Force began a bombardment and strafing campaign
against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South
Waziristan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink%27s_War>
1956:
In Tbilisi, Georgia, Soviet military troops suppressed mass
demonstrations against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's de-
Stalinization policy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Georgian_demonstrations>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
retrench:
1. (transitive) To cut down or reduce.
2. (transitive, specifically) To terminate the employment of a worker to
reduce the size of a workforce; to make redundant.
3. (transitive, military) To furnish with a retrenchment (a defensive work
within a fortification).
4. (intransitive) To abridge; to curtail.
5. (intransitive) To take up a new defensive position.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retrench>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I could feel the hackles on the back of my neck stiffening and I
knew he felt the same way. Dog was meeting dog. Nobody knew it but the
dogs and they weren't telling. He was bigger than I thought. The
suggestion of power I had seen in his photographs was for real. When he
moved it was with the ponderous grace of some jungle animal, dangerously
deceptive, because he could move a lot faster if he had to. When we were
ten feet away he pretended to see us for the first time and a wave of
charm washed the cautious expression from his face and he stepped out to
greet Dulcie with outstretched hand. But it wasn't her he was seeing. It
was me he was watching. I was one of his own kind. I couldn't be faked
out and wasn't leashed by the proprieties of society. I could lash out
and kill as fast as he could and of all the people in the room, I was
the potential threat. I knew what he felt because I felt the same way
myself.
--Mickey Spillane
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mickey_Spillane>
Louise Bryant (1885–1936) was an American feminist, political
activist, and journalist. After growing up in rural Nevada and
graduating with a degree in history from the University of Oregon, she
wrote for two newspapers, the Spectator and The Oregonian. After leaving
her first husband in 1915, she married John Reed and moved to Greenwich
Village, where she formed friendships with leading feminists of the day.
Like Reed, she took lovers, including the playwright Eugene O'Neill and
painter Andrew Dasburg. Her news stories were distributed by Hearst
during and after her trips to Petrograd and Moscow, and appeared in
newspapers across the United States and Canada. Generally in sympathy
with the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution, her articles featured
Catherine Breshkovsky, Maria Spiridonova, Alexander Kerensky, Vladimir
Lenin, and Leon Trotsky. A collection of articles from her first trip
was published as a book in 1918, Six Red Months in Russia. After Reed's
death in 1920, Bryant wrote for Hearst about Turkey, Hungary, Greece,
Italy, Russia, and other countries. The Bryant–Reed story is told in
the 1981 film Reds. Her neglected grave in Versailles was restored in
1998.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bryant>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1618:
German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler discovered
the third law of planetary motion.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Kepler>
1658:
After a devastating defeat in the Second Northern War, King
Frederick III of Denmark–Norway was forced to give up nearly half his
Danish territory to Sweden to save the rest.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Roskilde>
1910:
French aviator Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to
receive a pilot's licence.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymonde_de_Laroche>
1924:
Three violent explosions at a coal mine near Castle Gate, Utah,
U.S., killed all 171 miners working there.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Gate_Mine_disaster>
1978:
BBC Radio 4 began transmitting Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy, a science fiction radio series that was later
adapted into novels, a television series, and other media formats.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(radio…>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
distaff:
1. A device to which a bundle of natural fibres (often wool, flax, or
cotton) are attached for temporary storage, before being drawn off
gradually to spin thread. A traditional distaff is a staff with flax
fibres tied loosely to it (as indicated by the etymology of the word),
but modern distaffs are often made of cords weighted with beads, and
attached to the wrist.
2. The part of a spinning wheel from which fibre is drawn to be spun.
3. Anything traditionally done by or considered of importance to women
only.
4. A woman, or women considered as a group.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/distaff>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We are a bunch of hooligans and anarchists but we do clean up
nice. … Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories
to tell and projects we need financed. Don't talk to us about it at the
parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can
come to ours, whatever suits you best, and we'll tell you all about
them. I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen:
"inclusion rider".
--Frances McDormand
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frances_McDormand>
Henry Wrigley (1892–1987) was an air vice marshal in the Royal
Australian Air Force (RAAF). A pioneering flyer and aviation scholar, he
piloted the first trans-Australia flight from Melbourne to Darwin in
1919, and afterwards laid the groundwork for the RAAF's air power
doctrine. During World War I, he joined the Australian Flying Corps and
saw combat with No. 3 Squadron on the Western Front, earning the
Distinguished Flying Cross; he later commanded the unit and published a
history of its wartime exploits. He was awarded the Air Force Cross for
his 1919 cross-country flight. He was a founding member of the RAAF in
1921. In 1936, he was promoted to group captain and took command of RAAF
Station Laverton. Raised to air commodore soon after the outbreak of
World War II, he became Air Member for Personnel in November 1940. He
was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire the next
year. He served as Air Officer Commanding RAAF Overseas Headquarters,
London, from 1942 until his retirement from the military in 1946. His
writings on air power were collected and published posthumously as The
Decisive Factor in 1990.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wrigley>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
321:
Emperor Constantine I decreed that Sunday, the day honoring the
sun god Sol Invictus (disc pictured), would be the Roman day of rest.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus>
1277:
Étienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, promulgated a condemnation
of 219 philosophical and theological propositions that were being
discussed at the University of Paris.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condemnations_of_1210%E2%80%931277>
1850:
In support of the Compromise of 1850, United States Senator
Daniel Webster gave his "Seventh of March" speech, which was so
unpopular among his constituency he was forced to resign.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster>
1900:
The German ocean liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse became the
first ship to send a wireless telegraph message to an onshore receiver.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Kaiser_Wilhelm_der_Grosse>
1968:
Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam began
Operation Truong Cong Dinh to sweep the area surrounding the Mekong
Delta town of Mỹ Tho to root out Viet Cong forces in the area.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Truong_Cong_Dinh>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
at one blast:
At once, at the same moment in time.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/at_one_blast>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
What is history … without politics? A guide who walks on and on
with no one following to learn the road, so that his every step is
wasted; just as politics without history is like a man who walks along
without a guide.
--Alessandro Manzoni
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alessandro_Manzoni>
3 of Hearts is the self-titled debut studio album by the American group
3 of Hearts, released on March 6, 2001, through the record label RCA
Nashville. It is a teen pop and country music album, though according to
some music critics, it leans more towards pop music. The album was
managed by American producer Byron Gallimore; its marketing focused on
the group's crossover appeal to teenagers and young adults. 3 of Hearts
performed on a national tour sponsored by Seventeen magazine and another
sponsored by Walmart, and the singers were featured in several marketing
campaigns. Reviews of the album were mixed; some critics praised the
group's vocals and public image, but others criticized the songs as
generic and lacking an authentic country sound. The album peaked at
number 45 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart. "Love Is Enough" and
"Arizona Rain" were released as singles and made appearances on the
Country Airplay Billboard chart. The album's low sales and lack of
appeal to country radio audiences led RCA to drop the group.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_of_Hearts_(album)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
961:
With the completion of the Siege of Chandax, the Muslim Emirate
of Crete was conquered by the Byzantine Empire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Crete>
1836:
Texas Revolution: Mexican forces captured the Alamo in San
Antonio from the Texians after a 13-day siege.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alamo>
1953:
Upon the death of Joseph Stalin, Georgy Malenkov became Premier
of the Soviet Union.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Malenkov>
1964:
In a radio broadcast, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad
announced that American boxer Cassius Clay would change his name to
Muhammad Ali.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali>
1988:
In Operation Flavius, the Special Air Service killed three
Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers conspiring to bomb a parade
of British military bands in Gibraltar.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Flavius>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
bleeding edge:
(technology, idiomatic) Something too new and untested to be reliable or
to have any assurance of safety; the figurative place where such things
exist.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bleeding_edge>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
In a war of ideas it is people who get killed.
--Stanisław Jerzy Lec
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Jerzy_Lec>
Thorium is a chemical element with symbol Th and atomic number 90. A
reactive actinide metal, its chemistry is dominated by the +4 oxidation
state; it is silvery and tarnishes black in air, forming the dioxide. It
is malleable and moderately hard, with a high melting point. Its most
stable isotope, 232Th, is weakly radioactive with a half-life of
14.05 billion years, roughly the age of the universe: it decays very
slowly to stable lead. Thorium and uranium are the only two
significantly radioactive primordial elements. Thorium is chiefly
refined from monazite sands as a byproduct of extracting rare earth
metals. It was discovered in 1829 by the Norwegian mineralogist Morten
Thrane Esmark and identified by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob
Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
Applications were found for the element in the 19th century, but after
its radioactivity was discovered in the early 20th century, its use
significantly declined. Thorium has been suggested as a replacement for
uranium in nuclear reactors.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
363:
Roman emperor Julian and his army set out from Antioch to attack
the Sassanian Empire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian%27s_Persian_War>
1824:
The First Anglo-Burmese War, the longest and most expensive war
in British Indian history, began.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Burmese_War>
1943:
The Gloster Meteor, the first operational jet fighter for the
Allied Powers, made its maiden flight.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor>
1963:
Country music stars Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw
Hawkins were killed when their Piper PA-24 Comanche crashed shortly
after takeoff in Camden, Tennessee, U.S.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Camden_PA-24_crash>
1981:
The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, was launched by
Sinclair Research and went on to sell over 1.5 million units around the
world.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
lorn:
1. (obsolete) Doomed; lost.
2. (archaic) Abandoned, forlorn, lonely.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lorn>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
War unleashes — at the same time as the reactionary forces of
the capitalist world — the generating forces of social revolution
which ferment in its depths.
--Rosa Luxemburg
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg>
Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008) was a South African
singer, actor, and civil rights activist. She was a vocal opponent of
apartheid and white-minority government, in South Africa and elsewhere.
Associated with genres including afropop, jazz, and world music, she
began singing professionally in the 1950s. She had a brief role in the
anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa (1959), which led to performances
in Venice, London, and New York City. Makeba moved to the United States,
where her career flourished, and released several albums and songs,
including the hit "Pata Pata" (1967). She and Harry Belafonte received a
Grammy Award for their 1965 album An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba. Her
1968 marriage to Stokely Carmichael of the Black Panther Party was not
well received in the US, and she moved to Guinea, where she wrote and
performed music more explicitly critical of apartheid. Nicknamed Mama
Africa, she was one of the first African musicians to receive worldwide
recognition. Her music, in Nelson Mandela's words, "inspired a powerful
sense of hope in all of us".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Makeba>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
306:
Roman Herculian guard Adrian of Nicomedia, who had converted to
Christianity after being impressed with the faith of Christians that he
had been torturing, was martyred.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_and_Natalia_of_Nicomedia>
1804:
Irish convicts who were involved at the Battle of Vinegar Hill
during the 1798 Irish Rebellion began an uprising against British
colonial authorities in New South Wales, Australia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Hill_convict_rebellion>
1918:
The first known case of the so-called Spanish flu was first
observed at Fort Riley, Kansas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic>
1933:
All three presidents of the Austrian National Council resigned,
and Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss later used that pretext to create an
authoritarian government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-elimination_of_the_Austrian_Parliament>
2012:
A series of blasts occurred at an arms dump in Brazzaville,
Congo, killing at least 250 people, injuring 2,300 others, and leaving
more than 13,800 people homeless.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazzaville_arms_dump_blasts>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
scene-stealing:
That steals the scene (“dominates a performance through charisma,
humour, or powerful acting”).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scene-stealing>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is
already conscious.
--P. D. Ouspensky
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/P._D._Ouspensky>
HMS St Vincent was the lead ship of her class of three dreadnought
battleships, built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th
century. She was equipped with ten 12-inch (305 mm) guns in five gun
turrets. After commissioning in 1910, her entire career was spent with
the Home and Grand Fleets, often serving as a flagship. In the Battle of
Jutland in May 1916, the ship discharged 98 shells from her main guns,
firing first at the crippled German light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden.
Targeting the battlecruiser SMS Moltke, her first hit wrecked the
sickbay and slightly damaged the surrounding superstructure and hull,
causing minor flooding. The second hit penetrated the rear armour of the
superfiring turret at the rear of the ship. Apart from Jutland and the
inconclusive Action of 19 August several months later, her service
during World War I generally consisted of routine patrols and training
in the North Sea. Deemed obsolete after the war, the ship was reduced to
reserve and used as a training ship. St Vincent was sold for scrap in
1921 and broken up the following year.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_St_Vincent_(1908)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1284:
The Statute of Rhuddlan incorporated the Principality of Wales
into England.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Rhuddlan>
1875:
French composer Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (poster pictured),
based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, premiered
at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen>
1924:
The Free State of Fiume, a short-lived independent free state
located in the modern city of Rijeka, Croatia, was annexed by the
Kingdom of Italy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_of_Fiume>
1943:
Second World War: During a German aerial attack on London, 173
people were killed in a stampede while trying to enter Bethnal Green
tube station, which was being used as an air-raid shelter.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethnal_Green_tube_station>
1991:
Motorist Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles policemen,
causing public outrage that increased tensions between the African
American community and the police department over the issues of police
brutality and social inequalities in the area.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
trilemma:
1. A circumstance in which a choice must be made between three options that
seem equally undesirable or, put another way, in which a choice must be
made among three desirable options, only two of which are possible at
the same time.
2. (logic) An argument containing three alternatives, jointly exhaustive
either under any condition(s) or under all condition(s) consistent with
the universe of discourse of that argument, that each imply the same
conclusion.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trilemma>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The anomaly of war is that the best men get themselves killed
while crafty men find their chance to govern in a manner contrary to
justice.
--Émile Chartier
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Chartier>
The Indian Head cent is a penny ($0.01) that was produced by the U.S.
Bureau of the Mint from 1859 to 1909. It was preceded by the large cent
(1793–1857), a copper coin about the size of a half dollar, and the
Flying Eagle cent. The large cent was discontinued after a rise in the
price of copper in the wake of the California Gold Rush (1848–1855).
The 1857 Flying Eagle is identical in diameter to the modern U.S. cent,
but thicker, with a composition of 12% nickel and 88% copper. The Indian
head cent, designed by James Barton Longacre, the Chief Engraver at the
Philadelphia Mint, was initially the same size as the Flying Eagle.
Cents were hoarded during the economic chaos of the American Civil War,
when nickel was in short supply, and privately issued bronze tokens
began to circulate until Congress authorized a thinner cent of bronze
alloy. After the war the cent became popular, and even more so with the
advent of coin-operated machines in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. In 1909, the Indian Head cent was replaced by Victor D.
Brenner's Lincoln cent.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1444:
The League of Lezhë, an alliance of the regional chieftains,
was established in Venetian Albania with Skanderbeg as its commander.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Lezh%C3%AB>
1776:
American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia from Georgia and
South Carolina attempted to resist the British action to seize and
remove supply ships anchored at Savannah, Georgia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Rice_Boats>
1919:
Communist, revolutionary socialist, and syndicalist delegates
met in Moscow to establish the Communist International.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Congress_of_the_Comintern>
1943:
World War II: Australian and American air forces attacked and
destroyed a large convoy of the Japanese Navy in the Bismarck Sea north
of Papua New Guinea.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bismarck_Sea>
1978:
Aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 28, Czechoslovak military
pilot Vladimír Remek became the first person from outside the Soviet
Union or the United States to go into space.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_28>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
montage:
A composite work, particularly an artwork, created by assembling or
putting together other elements such as pieces of music, pictures,
texts, videos, etc.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/montage>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
It’s a troublesome world. All the people who're in it are
troubled with troubles almost every minute. You oughta be thankful, a
whole heaping lot, For the places and people you're lucky you're not!.
--Dr. Seuss
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss>