The 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement is a bilateral treaty between
the United States and the United Kingdom on nuclear weapons co-
operation. It allows the two countries to exchange nuclear materials,
technology and information, and was signed on 3 July 1958, after the
British hydrogen bomb programme successfully tested a thermonuclear
device. While the US has nuclear co-operation agreements with other
countries, including France and other NATO countries, this agreement is
by far the most comprehensive. Exemplifying the Anglo-American Special
Relationship, it allowed American nuclear weapons to be supplied under
Project E. The treaty has proved mutually beneficial, and paved the way
for the Polaris Sales Agreement and the Trident nuclear programme
submarines, including HMS Victorious (pictured), all of which use
American missiles with British nuclear warheads. The most recent renewal
of the treaty extended it to 31 December 2024.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_US%E2%80%93UK_Mutual_Defence_Agreement>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1913:
Arnold Schoenberg conducted the Vienna Concert Society in a
concert of expressionist music that so shocked the audience that they
began to riot (depicted).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandalkonzert>
1930:
To avoid government censorship, Hollywood movie studios
instituted their own set of industry censorship guidelines, popularly
known as the Hays Code.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code>
1970:
Nine Japanese communists armed with samurai swords and pipe
bombs hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351 en route from Tokyo to Fukuoka.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_351>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
verklempt:
1. (US, colloquial) Overcome with emotion, choked up.
2. (US, colloquial) Flustered, nervous, overwhelmed.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verklempt>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We have suffered unnumbered ills and crimes in the name of the
Law of the Land. Our men, women, and children have suffered not only the
basic brutality of stoop labor, and the most obvious injustices of the
system; they have also suffered the desperation of knowing that the
system caters to the greed of callous men and not to our needs. Now we
will suffer for the purpose of ending the poverty, the misery, and the
injustice, with the hope that our children will not be exploited as we
have been. They have imposed hunger on us, and now we hunger for
justice. We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have
been forced to live. We shall endure.
--Cesar Chavez
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez>
Secretariat (March 30, 1970 – October 4, 1989) was an American
Thoroughbred racehorse who, in 1973, became the first Triple Crown
winner in 25 years. Secretariat set speed records in all three Triple
Crown races. His time of 1:592⁄5 in the Kentucky Derby still stands
as the Churchill Downs track record for 1 1⁄4 miles. His disputed
time in the Preakness Stakes was recognized as a stakes record in 2012.
He won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, setting an American record for
1 1⁄2 miles on dirt that still stands. He also set a world record
in the Marlboro Cup, and proved his versatility by winning two major
stakes races on turf. His 1972–1973 racing career resulted in five
Eclipse Awards, including American Horse of the Year honors both years.
Of The Blood-Horse's Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century,
Secretariat ranks second only to Man o' War. After siring several major
stakes winners, Secretariat died at age 19 of complications from
laminitis.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretariat_%28horse%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1867:
U.S. secretary of state William H. Seward negotiated the
purchase of Alaska from Russia for US$7.2 million.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase>
1950:
Usmar Ismail began shooting Darah dan Doa, widely recognised as
the first Indonesian film.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darah_dan_Doa>
1972:
Vietnam War: North Vietnamese forces began the Easter Offensive
in an attempt to gain as much territory and destroy as many South
Vietnamese units as possible.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Offensive>
1981:
Trying to impress actress Jodie Foster, obsessed fan John
Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded U.S. president Ronald Reagan and three
others outside the Washington Hilton hotel (immediate aftermath
pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ronald_Reagan>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
pseudopatient:
1. (dated) A person who pretends to be ill, especially to gain some
benefit.
2. (medicine) A person who poses as a patient so that research may be
conducted or staff trained.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pseudopatient>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Wealth often takes away chances from men as well as poverty.
There is none to tell the rich man to go on striving, for a rich man
makes the law that hallows and hollows his own life.
--Seán O'Casey
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_O%27Casey>
Francis Willughby (1635–1672) was an English ornithologist and
ichthyologist, and an early student of linguistics and games. At Trinity
College, Cambridge, he was tutored by the mathematician and naturalist
John Ray, who became a lifetime friend and colleague. Willughby, Ray,
and others including John Wilkins were advocates of a new way of
studying science, relying on observation and classification, rather than
the received authority of Aristotle and the Bible. Willughby and Ray
undertook journeys to gather information and specimens in England,
Wales, and continental Europe, visiting museums, libraries and private
collections as well as studying local animals and plants. After
Willughby's early death, Ray completed the works they had jointly
planned, publishing books on birds, fish and invertebrates that included
innovative ways of classifying animals. Carl Linnaeus relied on
Willughby and Ray's books in his Systema Naturae, the basis of binomial
nomenclature.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Willughby>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1911:
The M1911 pistol, developed by American firearms designer John
Browning, became the standard-issue sidearm in the United States Army.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1911_pistol>
1982:
Queen Elizabeth II granted royal assent to the Canada Act 1982,
which ended any remaining constitutional dependence of Canada on the
United Kingdom by a process known as "patriation".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Act_1982>
2010:
Islamist Chechen separatists detonated two bombs on the Moscow
Metro, killing 40 people and injuring 102 others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Moscow_Metro_bombings>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
chaotic:
1. Filled with chaos.
2. Extremely disorganized or in disarray.
3. (mathematics) Highly sensitive to starting conditions, so that a
small change to them may yield a very different outcome.
4. (role-playing games) Aligned against following or upholding laws and
principles.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chaotic>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but
rather ones who speak for it and support it.
--Eugene McCarthy
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eugene_McCarthy>
The First Battle of Dernancourt was fought on 28 March 1918 near
Dernancourt in northern France during World War I. Two Australian
divisions had been sent south from Belgium to help stem the tide of the
German Spring Offensive towards Amiens and, with the British
35th Division, they held a line west and north of the Ancre river and
the area between the Ancre and Somme. The German 2nd Army concentrated
its assault between Albert and Dernancourt, attacking off the line of
march after a short artillery preparation. The dawn attack was under the
cover of fog, but other than one small penetration in the early morning
that was quickly repelled, the Germans failed to break through the
Allied defences. An Australian sergeant, Stanley McDougall (pictured),
was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in defeating the German
penetration. A week later the Germans renewed their attempts to advance
in the sector, culminating in the Second Battle of Dernancourt when the
Germans were again defeated.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Dernancourt>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1862:
American Civil War: An invasion of the New Mexico Territory by
the Confederate States Army was halted by Union forces at the Battle of
Glorieta Pass.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Glorieta_Pass>
1910:
French aviator Henri Fabre's floatplane, the Fabre Hydravion,
became the first aircraft to take off from water under its own power at
the Étang de Berre near Martigues in southern France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabre_Hydravion>
1930:
The name of Turkey's largest city was changed from
Constantinople to Istanbul, with the government requesting other
countries to use Turkish names for its cities.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Istanbul>
2015:
A siege of a hotel in Mogadishu by Al-Shabaab militants, which
began the previous day and killed at least 20 people, ended with the
Somali Armed Forces recapturing the premises.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makka_al-Mukarama_hotel_attack>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
atompunk:
(science fiction) A subgenre of speculative fiction, based on the
society and technology of the Atomic Age (c. 1945–1965).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atompunk>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or
things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them
apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and
arbitrariness, and can relook at the world without blinkers.
--J. L. Austin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._L._Austin>
A virus is an infectious agent that reproduces inside the cells of
living hosts. Unlike most living things, viruses do not have cells that
divide; instead they force infected host cells to produce thousands of
identical copies of the original virus, at an extraordinary rate. A
virus consists of two or three parts: genes, made from either DNA or
RNA, long molecules that carry the genetic information; a protein coat
that protects the genes; and in some, an envelope of fat that surrounds
and protects them when they are not contained within a host cell (and
makes them vulnerable to soap). Viruses spread in different ways; some
through the air by people when they cough or sneeze, others by the
faecal–oral route, and some by direct contact or during sex. Over
4,800 species have been discovered, many of which cause disease in
plants and animals, including common human diseases such as the common
cold, chickenpox and cold sores, and serious epidemics and pandemics
such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, influenza, SARS and COVID-19.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_viruses>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1945:
World War II: The United States Army Air Forces began Operation
Starvation, laying naval mines in many of Japan's vital water routes and
ports to disrupt enemy shipping.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Starvation>
1958:
Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union, assumed the office of premier.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev>
1980:
Brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt failed in
their attempt to corner the world silver market, causing panic in
commodity and futures exchanges.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday>
2009:
A suicide bomber killed at least 48 people during Friday prayer
at a mosque in Jamrud, Pakistan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Jamrud_mosque_bombing>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
wagon:
1. A four-wheeled cart for hauling loads.
2. A four-wheeled child's riding toy, pulled or steered by a long handle
attached to the front.
3. An enclosed vehicle for carrying goods or people; (by extension) a
lorry, a truck.
4. An enclosed vehicle used as a movable dwelling; a caravan.
5. Short for dinner wagon (“set of light shelves mounted on castors so
that it can be pushed around a dining room and used for serving”).
6. (slang) Short for paddy wagon (“police van for transporting
prisoners”).
7. (rail transport) A freight car on a railway.
8. (chiefly Australia, US, slang) Short for station wagon (“type of car
in which the roof extends rearward to produce an enclosed area in the
position of and serving the function of the boot (trunk)”); (by
extension) a sport utility vehicle (SUV); any car.
9. (Ireland, slang, derogatory, dated) A woman of loose morals, a
promiscuous woman, a slapper; (by extension) a woman regarded as
obnoxious; a bitch, a cow.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wagon>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The king can drink the best of wine; So can I: And has enough
when he would dine — So have I; He cannot order rain or shine;
Nor can I. Then, where's the difference — let me see — Betwixt my
lord the king and me?
--Charles Mackay
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Mackay>
Ubinas is a stratovolcano in the Moquegua Region of southern Peru, 60
kilometres (37 mi) east of the city of Arequipa. Part of the Central
Volcanic Zone of the Andes, it rises 5,672 metres (18,609 ft) above sea
level. Its summit is cut by a caldera 1.4 kilometres (0.87 mi) wide and
150 metres (490 ft) deep, which itself contains a smaller crater. Below
the summit, Ubinas is a steep cone with a prominent notch on the
southern side. The most active volcano in Peru, it has a history of
small- to moderate-sized explosive eruptions and persistent degassing
and ash emissions. An eruption in 1667, its largest since prehistoric
times, produced scoria falls and pyroclastic flows. In 2006 and 2007
eruption columns led to ash fall in the region, resulting in health
issues and evacuations. During the most recent activity, from 2013 to
2019, a lava flow formed inside the crater, and as ash fell, surrounding
towns had to be evacuated.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubinas>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1873:
A Dutch military expedition was launched to bombard Banda Aceh,
the capital of the Aceh Sultanate in present-day Indonesia, beginning
the Aceh War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aceh_War>
1953:
Jonas Salk announced the successful test of his polio vaccine
on a small group of adults and children (vaccination pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine>
1979:
With the signing of a peace treaty in Washington, D.C., Egypt
became the first Arab country officially to recognize Israel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_Peace_Treaty>
2010:
An explosion, allegedly caused by a North Korean torpedo, sank
the South Korean warship ROKS Cheonan near Baengnyeongdo in the Yellow
Sea, killing 46 sailors.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
felicitous:
1. Characterized by felicity.
2. Appropriate, apt, fitting.
3. Auspicious, fortunate, lucky.
4. Causing happiness or pleasure.
5. (linguistics) Of a sentence or utterance: semantically and
pragmatically coherent; fitting in the context.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/felicitous>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most
people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.
The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will
in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia.
Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats,
scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible
people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual
people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our
ordinariness, that are here. … what I see as I write is that I am
lucky to be alive and so are you.
--Richard Dawkins
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins>
Megarachne was a predatory freshwater arthropod of the order of
eurypterids, often called sea scorpions. Two fossil specimens of the
genus have been discovered, in San Luis, Argentina, in deposits of Late
Carboniferous age from the Gzhelian stage. Megarachne ("great spider")
was initially misidentified as a spider. With a body length of 54 cm
(1.77 ft), it was a medium-sized eurypterid, similar to others within
the Mycteropoidea, a rare group known primarily from South Africa and
Scotland. The mycteropoids evolved a specialized method of feeding
referred to as sweep-feeding, raking through the substrate of riverbeds
to capture and eat smaller invertebrates. Due to their fragmentary
fossil record and similarities between the genera, Megarachne and two
other members of its family, Mycterops and Woodwardopterus, have been
hypothesized to represent different developmental stages of a single
genus.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megarachne>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1387:
Hundred Years' War: The English navy captured more than 80
ships and at least 8,000 tuns of wine from an allied French, Castilian
and Flemish fleet at the Battle of Margate in the English Channel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Margate>
1903:
The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (ship pictured)
anchored in the South Orkney Islands with the intention of establishing
the first meteorological station in Antarctic territory.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_National_Antarctic_Expedition>
1934:
Enrico Fermi published his discovery of neutron-induced
radioactivity, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics
in 1938.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi>
1971:
Vietnam War: South Vietnamese forces abandoned a campaign to
cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail, which supplied North Vietnamese troops,
in Laos.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Lam_Son_719>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
adytum:
1. (Ancient Greece, religion) The innermost sanctuary or shrine in an
ancient temple, from where oracles were given.
2. (by extension) A private chamber; a sanctum.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/adytum>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Dictatorship, the most extreme form of tyranny, can never lead to
social liberation. In Russia, the so-called dictatorship of the
proletariat has not led to Socialism, but to the domination of a new
bureaucracy over the proletariat and the whole people. … What the
Russian autocrats and their supporters fear most is that the success of
libertarian Socialism in Spain might prove to their blind followers that
the much vaunted "necessity of dictatorship" is nothing but one vast
fraud which in Russia has led to the despotism of Stalin and is to serve
today in Spain to help the counter-revolution to a victory over the
revolution of the workers and the peasants.
--Rudolf Rocker
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rudolf_Rocker>
The Hours of Mary of Burgundy is a book of hours, a form of devotional
book for lay people, completed in Flanders around 1477. It was probably
commissioned for Mary of Burgundy, then the wealthiest woman in Europe;
Mary was the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and wife
of Maximilian I, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. The book contains 187
folios (folio 14v pictured), each measuring 22.5 by 15 centimetres
(8.9 in × 5.9 in). It consists of the Roman Liturgy of the Hours, 24
calendar roundels, 20 full-page miniatures and 16 quarter-page format
illustrations. It includes meticulously detailed illustrations and
borders by the influential illuminator known by the notname of the
Master of Mary of Burgundy. Other miniatures, considered of an older
tradition, were contributed by Simon Marmion, Willem Vrelant and Lieven
van Lathem. The two best-known illustrations contain a revolutionary
trompe-l'œil technique of showing a second perspective through an open
window.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hours_of_Mary_of_Burgundy>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1869:
New Zealand Wars: Māori leader Tītokowaru's conflict ended
with the last of his forces surrendering to the New Zealand colonial
government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C4%ABtokowaru%27s_War>
1946:
Formulated at the initiative of British prime minister Clement
Attlee, the Cabinet Mission arrived in New Delhi to discuss the transfer
of power from the colonial government to Indian leadership.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Cabinet_Mission_to_India>
1980:
One day after making a plea to Salvadoran soldiers to stop
carrying out the government's repression, Archbishop Óscar Romero was
assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero>
2008:
Led by Jigme Thinley, the Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party won
45 of 47 National Assembly seats in the country's first general
election.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bhutanese_National_Assembly_election>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
get cold feet:
(intransitive, originally US, informal) To become nervous or anxious and
reconsider a decision about an upcoming event.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/get_cold_feet>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
First-rate pursuits involving, as they must, trying to understand
what life is about and trying to convey that understanding —
inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, a
Roosevelt can feel themselves to be successful, but never a Socrates, a
Pascal, a Blake. Understanding is for ever unattainable. Therein lies
the inevitability of failure in embarking upon its quest, which is none
the less the only one worthy of serious attention.
--Malcolm Muggeridge
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Malcolm_Muggeridge>
Naruto is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi
Kishimoto. It tells the story of a young ninja, Naruto Uzumaki, who
seeks to gain recognition from his peers and dreams of becoming the
leader of his village. The series is based on two one-shot manga by
Kishimoto: Karakuri (1995) and Naruto (1997). It was serialized in
Shueisha's magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1999 to 2014, and released
in book form in 72 volumes. An anime television series of 220 episodes
was produced by Pierrot and Aniplex; it ran in Japan from 2002 to 2007,
and its English adaptation aired on Cartoon Network from 2005 to 2009.
Naruto: Shippuden, a sequel to the original series, premiered in Japan
in 2007 and ended in 2017 after 500 episodes. The English adaptation was
broadcast on Disney XD from 2009 to 2011, and on Adult Swim's Toonami
programming block beginning in 2014. Pierrot has also developed eleven
movies and eleven original video animations. Naruto is the fourth best-
selling manga series ever.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1889:
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad founded the Ahmadiyya Islamic religious
movement in British India.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya>
1905:
About 1,500 Cretans, led by Eleftherios Venizelos, met at the
village of Theriso to call for the island's unification with Greece,
beginning the Theriso revolt.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theriso_revolt>
1977:
British journalist David Frost began a series of interviews
with former U.S. president Richard Nixon about the Watergate scandal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_interviews>
1991:
The Sierra Leone Civil War began with the invasion of the
Revolutionary United Front, with support from the special forces of
Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia, in an attempt to
overthrow President Joseph Saidu Momoh.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leone_Civil_War>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
bulldog clip:
1. A binder clip with rigid handles.
2. (surgery) A surgical instrument with serrated jaws and a spring-
loaded handle used to grip blood vessels or similar organs.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bulldog_clip>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die
without having lived is unbearable.
--Erich Fromm
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm>
God of War is an action-adventure game franchise. Sony's Santa Monica
Studio developed all the main entries, released on the PlayStation 2,
3, and 4 video game consoles by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The
story follows Kratos (cosplayer pictured), a Spartan warrior who was
tricked into killing his family by the Greek god of war Ares. God of War
(2005), God of War II (2007), and God of War III (2010) constitute the
original trilogy centered on vengeance; other games include Chains of
Olympus (2008) and Ghost of Sparta (2010) for the PlayStation Portable,
Betrayal (2007) for mobile phones, and Ascension (2013). A main title
based on Norse mythology, also called God of War (2018), centers on
redemption, with future games in this setting planned. The series has
received numerous awards, including Game of the Year recognitions for
the 2005 and 2018 installments. As of May 2019, the franchise has sold
over 32 million games worldwide. (This article is part of a featured
topic: God of War franchise.).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_topics/God_of_War_franchise>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1784:
The Emerald Buddha, considered the sacred palladium of
Thailand, was installed in its current location at Wat Phra Kaew on the
grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Buddha>
1871:
Governor of North Carolina William Woods Holden became the
first U.S. state governor to be removed from office through impeachment.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Woods_Holden>
1942:
Second World War: British and Italian naval forces fought the
Second Battle of Sirte in the Gulf of Sidra north of Libya.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Sirte>
1995:
Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returned from the space
station Mir aboard Soyuz TM-20 after 437 days in space, setting a record
for the longest spaceflight.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeri_Polyakov>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
dihydrogen monoxide:
(inorganic chemistry, humorous) H₂O, water.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dihydrogen_monoxide>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Nobody sings a love song quite like you do Oh, and nobody else
can make me sing along Nobody else can make me feel things are right
When I know they're wrong, Nobody sings a love song quite like you.
… Sing your song sweet music man, I believe in you.
--Kenny Rogers
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kenny_Rogers>