Sahure was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the second ruler of the Fifth
Dynasty, who reigned for about 12 years in the early 25th century BC
during the Old Kingdom Period. He was probably the son of his
predecessor Userkaf with Queen Neferhetepes II, and was in turn
succeeded by his son Neferirkare Kakai. Sahure's reign marked the
political and cultural high point of the Fifth Dynasty. He launched
naval expeditions to modern-day Lebanon to procure cedar trees, slaves
and exotic items. His expedition to the land of Punt brought back large
quantities of myrrh, malachite and electrum. A relief in his mortuary
temple shows him celebrating the success of this venture by tending a
myrrh tree. Sahure sent expeditions to the turquoise and copper mines in
Sinai and ordered military campaigns that captured livestock from Libyan
chieftains in the Western Desert. His pyramid in Abusir is smaller than
those of the preceding Fourth Dynasty, but his mortuary temple is more
elaborate.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahure>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1947:
Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King George VI, married
Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten (both pictured), who was given the title
Duke of Edinburgh.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philip,_Duke_of_Edinburgh>
1990:
Andrei Chikatilo, one of the Soviet Union's most prolific
serial killers, was arrested in Novocherkassk.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo>
2003:
Suicide bombers blew up the British consulate and the
headquarters of HSBC Bank in Istanbul, killing 59 people, including
consul general Roger Short and actor Kerem Yılmazer.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Istanbul_bombings>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Nuremberg defense:
1. (ethics, international law, idiomatic) An explanation offered as an
excuse for behaving in a criminal or wrongful manner, claiming that
acted in this way because one was ordered by others (particularly
superiors) to do so.
2. (US law, by extension) An explanation offered as a defense to
criminal or wrongful behavior, claiming that one is justified in not
obeying a governmental order or a domestic law because the order or law
is itself unlawful.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nuremberg_defense>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken. They
have delivered us a clear victory. A convincing victory. A victory for
"We the People." We have won with the most votes ever cast for a
presidential ticket in the history of this nation — 74 million. I am
humbled by the trust and confidence you have placed in me. I pledge to
be a President who seeks not to divide, but to unify. Who doesn't see
Red and Blue states, but a United States. And who will work with all my
heart to win the confidence of the whole people. For that is what
America is about: The people.
--Joe Biden
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joe_Biden>
The Boat Race 2019 took place on 7 April 2019. Held annually, The Boat
Race is a side-by-side rowing race between crews from the universities
of Oxford and Cambridge along a 4.2-mile (6.8 km) tidal stretch of the
River Thames in south-west London. For the fourth time in the history of
the event, the men's, the women's and both reserves' races were all held
on the Tideway on the same day. Cambridge won the women's and men's
races, increasing their lead in the overall record to 44–30 for the
women and 84–80 for the men. In the women's reserve race, Cambridge's
Blondie defeated Oxford's Osiris, their fourth consecutive victory. The
men's reserve race was won by Cambridge's Goldie, who defeated Oxford's
Isis. The races were watched by thousands of spectators lining the banks
of the Thames, and broadcast live in the United Kingdom on the BBC. They
were also live-streamed on YouTube, and by media organisations in
Germany, South Africa and China, and around the world.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_Race_2019>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1863:
American Civil War: U.S. president Abraham Lincoln delivered
the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National
Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address>
1942:
World War II: Soviet troops launched Operation Uranus at the
Battle of Stalingrad with the goal of encircling Axis forces, turning
the tide of the battle in their favour.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Uranus>
2010:
The first of four explosions occurred at the Pike River Mine in
the West Coast in New Zealand's worst mining disaster in nearly a
century.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_River_Mine_disaster>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
ordure:
1. Dung, excrement.
2. (by extension) Dirt, filth.
3. (by extension) Something regarded as contaminating or perverting the
morals; obscene material.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ordure>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially
profitable to dispense it. It becomes an ever-descending spiral.
--Dick Cavett
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dick_Cavett>
Thomas White (1888–1957) was an Australian politician and First World
War pilot. In 1915, he was among the first Australian Flying Corps
members to see action when he was deployed to the Middle East with the
Mesopotamian Half Flight. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross
and twice mentioned in despatches for his war service. He was elected to
the House of Representatives in 1929. He served as Minister for Trade
and Customs in Joseph Lyons's United Australia Party government from
1933 to 1938, but resigned when he was excluded from Lyons's inner
cabinet. After service in the Royal Australian Air Force during the
Second World War, he returned to parliament in 1945 as a member of the
newly formed Liberal Party. From 1949 to 1951, he was Minister for Air
and Minister for Civil Aviation in Robert Menzies's government. He was
Australia's high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1951 to 1956,
and was knighted in 1952.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_White_%28Australian_politician%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1872:
American suffragette Susan B. Anthony was arrested and fined
$100 for having voted in the presidential election two weeks earlier.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_B._Anthony>
1956:
At the Polish embassy in Moscow, Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev used the phrase "We will bury you" while addressing Western
envoys, prompting them to leave the room.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you>
1978:
Jim Jones led more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple to
mass murder/suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, hours after some of its
members assassinated U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Ryan>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Minecrafter:
(video games) A person who plays the game Minecraft.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Minecrafter>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Anarchy means "without leaders", not "without order". With
anarchy comes an age of ordnung, of true order, which is to say
voluntary order... this age of ordung will begin when the mad and
incoherent cycle of verwirrung that these bulletins reveal has run its
course... This is not anarchy, Eve. This is chaos.
--V for Vendetta
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta>
The sovereign is a legal-tender gold coin of the United Kingdom with a
nominal value of one pound sterling. Struck from 1817 until the present
time, it was originally a circulating coin accepted in Britain and
elsewhere in the world; it is now a bullion coin and is sometimes
mounted in jewellery. In most recent years, it has borne the well-known
design of Saint George and the Dragon on the reverse (pictured), created
by Benedetto Pistrucci. Issued as part of the Great Recoinage of 1816,
it not only became a popular circulating coin, but was used
internationally, trusted as a coin containing a known quantity of gold.
>From the 1850s until 1932, the sovereign was also struck at colonial
mints. With the start of the First World War in 1914, the sovereign
vanished from circulation in Britain, replaced by paper money, and it
did not return afterwards. In addition to its bullion use, it has been
struck since 1979 for collectors.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_%28British_coin%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1839:
Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, premiered at La Scala in
Milan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberto_%28opera%29>
1950:
The 14th Dalai Lama assumed full temporal power as ruler of
Tibet at the age of fifteen.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Dalai_Lama>
1997:
Sixty-two people were killed by Islamist terrorists outside
Deir el-Bahari in Luxor, one of Egypt's top tourist attractions.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre>
2013:
Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363 crashed during an aborted
landing at Kazan International Airport, Russia, killing all fifty people
on board and leading to the revocation of the airline's operating
certificate.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatarstan_Airlines_Flight_363>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
ulp:
1. The sound of a person gulping in fear. [...]
2. (computer science, mathematics) The value that the least significant
digit of a floating-point number represents, used as a measure of
accuracy in numeric calculations.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ulp>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I paint a gradual slipping out of the now, to that beautiful
then, where there are neither kings, presidents, landlords, national
bankers, stockbrokers, railroad magnates, patentright monopolists, or
tax and title collectors; where there are no over-stocked markets or
hungry children, idle counters and naked creatures, splendor and misery,
waste and need. I am told this is farfetched idealism, to paint this
happy, povertyless, crimeless, diseaseless world; I have been told I
"ought to be behind the bars" for it. Remarks of that kind rather
destroy the white streak of faith. I lose confidence in the slipping
process, and am forced to believe that the rulers of the earth are
sowing a fearful wind, to reap a most terrible whirlwind. When I look at
this poor, bleeding, wounded World, this world that has suffered so
long, struggled so much, been scourged so fiercely, thorn-pierced so
deeply, crucified so cruelly, I can only shake my head and remember:
The giant is blind, but he's thinking: and his locks are growing, fast.
--Voltairine de Cleyre
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltairine_de_Cleyre>
Jane Grigson (13 March 1928 – 12 March 1990) was an English
cookery writer. In the latter part of the 20th century she was the
author of the food column for The Observer and wrote numerous books
about European cuisines and traditional British dishes. In 1966 she was
awarded the John Florio Prize for Italian translation. Her 1967 book
Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery was well received and, after a
recommendation by the food writer Elizabeth David, Grigson gained her
position at The Observer. Her books English Food (1974), Jane Grigson's
Vegetable Book (1978) and Jane Grigson's Fruit Book (1982) won
Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards. She was a political lobbyist,
campaigning against battery farming and for animal welfare, food
provenance and smallholders. Her writing put food into its social and
historical context, drawing on poetry, novels and the cookery writers of
the Industrial Revolution era, including Hannah Glasse, Elizabeth
Raffald, Maria Rundell and Eliza Acton. Through her writing she changed
the eating habits of the British, making many forgotten dishes popular
once again.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Grigson>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1885:
After a five-day trial following the North-West Rebellion, the
Canadian Métis leader and "Father of Manitoba" Louis Riel was hanged
for high treason.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riel>
1920:
Qantas, Australia's national airline, was founded as Queensland
and Northern Territory Aerial Services (first office pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas>
1945:
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) was founded.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO>
2002:
The first case of SARS, a zoonotic respiratory disease caused
by a coronavirus, was recorded in Guangdong, China.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
circuitry:
1. (countable) A specific system of electrical circuits in a particular
device; (uncountable) the design of such a system.
2. (uncountable) Electrical (or, by extension, other) circuits
considered as a group.
3. (uncountable, figurative) The brain's neural network.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/circuitry>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Nobody performs her or his duties. Governments do not, because
they do not know, they are not able or they do not wish, or because they
are not permitted by those who effectively govern the world: The
multinational and pluricontinental companies whose power — absolutely
non-democratic — reduce to next to nothing what is left of the ideal
of democracy. We citizens are not fulfilling our duties either. Let us
think that no human rights will exist without symmetry of the duties
that correspond to them. It is not to be expected that governments in
the next 50 years will do it. Let us common citizens therefore speak up.
With the same vehemence as when we demanded our rights, let us demand
responsibility over our duties. Perhaps the world could turn a little
better.
--José Saramago
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Saramago>
The 2019 Tour Championship was a professional snooker ranking
tournament, held from 19 to 24 March 2019 in Llandudno, Wales.
Organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association,
it was the 18th ranking event of the 2018–19 season. The top eight
players based on the single-year ranking list took part in a single
elimination tournament. Each match was played over a minimum of two
sessions, the final as a best-of-25-frames match over two days. In a
repeat of the Players Championship final two weeks prior, Ronnie
O'Sullivan (pictured) met Neil Robertson in the final. O'Sullivan won
the match 13–11 to claim his 36th ranking title, equalling Stephen
Hendry's record of ranking event wins. This was O'Sullivan's third
ranking title win of the season. On winning the tournament, O'Sullivan
returned to the world number one position for the first time since
May 2010, and became the oldest world number one since Ray Reardon in
1983.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Tour_Championship>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1760:
The chapel of the newly constructed Castellania in Valletta,
Malta, was consecrated.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellania_%28Valletta%29>
1859:
Sponsored by Greek businessman Evangelos Zappas, the first
modern revival of the Olympic Games took place in Athens.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappas_Olympics>
1935:
The Commonwealth of the Philippines was officially established,
with Manuel L. Quezon inaugurated as its president (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_the_Philippines>
1988:
Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat
proclaimed the creation of the State of Palestine as "the state of
Palestinians wherever they may be".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
unwearied:
1. Not wearied, not tired.
2. Never tiring; tireless.
3. Not stopping; persistent, relentless.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unwearied>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage
to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of
others.
--Johann Kaspar Lavater
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Kaspar_Lavater>
Project Excalibur was an American Cold War–era research program to
develop nuclear-device-powered, space-based X-ray lasers as a ballistic
missile defense. X-ray lasers were conceived in the 1970s by George
Chapline Jr. (pictured with George Maenchen) and further developed by
Peter L. Hagelstein, both working at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory under Edward Teller. After a promising test, Teller discussed
the proposal in 1981 with US president Ronald Reagan, who in 1983
incorporated it in his Strategic Defense Initiative. Further underground
nuclear tests suggested progress was being made. Reagan refused to
abandon the technology at the 1986 Reykjavík Summit arms-control talks,
even after a critical test demonstrated it was not working as expected.
Researchers at Livermore and Los Alamos began to raise concerns about
test results, and the infighting became public. In 1988 the program
budget was cut dramatically, after additional problems were revealed.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1970:
Southern Airways Flight 932, chartered by the Marshall
University football team, crashed into a hill near Ceredo, West
Virginia, killing all 75 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_932>
1990:
Music producer Frank Farian admitted that the German R&B; duo
Milli Vanilli did not sing the vocals on their album Girl You Know It's
True.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli>
2010:
Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel won the Drivers'
Championship after winning the final race of the season, becoming the
youngest Formula One champion.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Vettel>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
pandect:
1. (Ancient Rome, law, historical) Usually in the plural form Pandects:
a compendium or digest of writings on Roman law divided in 50 books,
compiled in the 6th century C.E. by order of the Eastern Roman emperor
Justinian I (c. 482–565).
2. (by extension, rare) Also in the plural form pandects: a
comprehensive collection of laws; specifically, the whole body of law of
a country; a legal code.
3. (by extension, also figurative) A treatise or similar work that is
comprehensive as to a particular topic; specifically (Christianity) a
manuscript of the entire Bible.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pandect>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves
when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from
that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman,
or the Tao. What I now realize, from my study of the different
religious traditions, is that a disciplined attempt to go beyond the ego
brings about a state of ecstasy. Indeed, it is in itself ekstasis.
Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to
show that this type of kenosis, or self-emptying, is found in the life
of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but
because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most
creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary
experience when we leave ourselves behind.
--Karen Armstrong
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karen_Armstrong>
Edward Thomas Daniell was an English artist known for etchings and
Middle Eastern landscape paintings. Taught by John Crome and Joseph
Stannard, he is associated with the Norwich School of painters, who were
mainly inspired by the Norfolk countryside. After graduating in classics
at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1828, he was ordained as a curate in 1832
and appointed to a curacy in London in 1834. He became a patron of the
arts, and a friend of the artist John Linnell. In 1840, after resigning
his curacy and leaving for the Middle East, he encountered the
archaeological expedition of Charles Fellows in Lycia, and joined as
their illustrator. He contracted malaria and died from a second attack
of the disease. He normally used a small number of colours for his
watercolour paintings; his distinctive style was influenced in part by
Crome, J. M. W. Turner and John Sell Cotman. As an etcher he
anticipated the modern revival of etching that began in the 1850s.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thomas_Daniell>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1914:
Zaian War: Zaian Berber tribesmen routed French forces in
Morocco at the Battle of El Herri.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_El_Herri>
1940:
Walt Disney's Fantasia, the first commercial film shown in
stereophonic sound, premiered at the Broadway Theatre in New York City.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_%281940_film%29>
1966:
The Israeli military conducted a large cross-border assault on
the Jordanian-controlled West Bank village of Samu in response to a
Fatah land mine incident two days earlier.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samu_incident>
1985:
Nevado del Ruiz erupted, causing a volcanic mudslide that
buried the town of Armero, Colombia, and killed approximately 23,000
people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armero_tragedy>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
insatiate:
(archaic or literary) That is not satiated; insatiable.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/insatiate>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and
courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do
not remain the way they are.
--Augustine of Hippo
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo>
The St. Croix macaw (Ara autocthones) is an extinct species of macaw
whose remains have been found on the Caribbean islands of St. Croix and
Puerto Rico. It was a medium-sized macaw of unknown coloration, slightly
larger than the extinct Cuban macaw. It was described in 1937 based on a
tibiotarsus leg bone (pictured) unearthed from a kitchen midden at a
pre-Columbian site on St. Croix. A second specimen consisting of
various bones from a similar site on Puerto Rico was described in 2008,
and a coracoid from Montserrat may belong to this or another extinct
species of macaw. The St. Croix macaw is one of 13 extinct macaw
species that have been proposed to have lived on the Caribbean islands.
Macaws were frequently transported for long distances by humans in both
prehistoric and historic times, so it is impossible to know whether
species only known from bones or written accounts were native or
imported species.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Croix_macaw>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1945:
Sudirman was elected the first commander-in-chief of the
Indonesian Armed Forces.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudirman>
1970:
The deadliest tropical cyclone in history made landfall on the
coast of East Pakistan (Bangladesh), killing at least 250,000 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Bhola_cyclone>
2014:
The European Space Agency lander Philae (artist's impression
shown) touched down on 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, becoming the first
spacecraft to land on a comet.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
fichu:
(chiefly historical) A woman's lightweight triangular scarf worn over
the shoulders and tied in front, or tucked into a bodice to cover the
exposed part of the neck and chest.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fichu>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I am the Water of Life, Out of myself I grow. The more you
drink of me, The fuller I will flow.
--The Neverending Story
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Neverending_Story>
Sir Fabian Ware (1869–1949) was a British journalist and the founder
of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), now the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission. He travelled to the Transvaal Colony where he became
Director of Education in 1903. Two years later he became editor of The
Morning Post. He expanded the paper but was forced to retire in 1911.
When the First World War started, Ware was appointed commander of a
mobile ambulance unit and began marking and recording the graves of
those killed. In 1916 the Department of Graves Registration and
Enquiries was created with Ware at its head. On 21 May 1917 the IWGC
was founded; Ware served as its vice-chairman. He ended the war as a
major-general, having been mentioned in despatches twice. Post-war, Ware
was heavily involved in the IWGC's function. When the Second World War
broke out, he continued to serve as vice-chairman of the IWGC and was
re-appointed director-general of Graves Registration and Enquiries.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Ware>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1805:
War of the Third Coalition: French, Austrian and Russian units
all suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Dürenstein.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_D%C3%BCrenstein>
1920:
In London, the Cenotaph was unveiled and the Unknown Warrior
was buried in Westminster Abbey in remembrance of the First World War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Warrior>
1960:
A coup attempt by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam against
President Ngo Dinh Diem was crushed after Diem falsely promised reform,
allowing loyalists to rescue him.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_South_Vietnamese_coup_attempt>
1975:
During a constitutional crisis in Australia, Governor-General
John Kerr dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's government and
dissolved Parliament for a double-dissolution election.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
war-weary:
1. Weary or tired of war.
2. Tired from fighting in a war.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/war-weary>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we
throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us
who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
--John McCrae
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_McCrae>