Userkaf was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Fifth
Dynasty. Before ascending the throne, he may have been a high priest of
Ra. He reigned for seven to eight years in the early 25th century BC,
during the Old Kingdom period. He built a sun temple, known as the
Nekhenre, that mainly functioned as a mortuary temple associated with
the setting sun. Rites performed in the temple were primarily concerned
with Ra's creator function and his role as father of the king. Userkaf
built a pyramid in Saqqara, close to that of Djoser, with a mortuary
temple that was much smaller than those built during the Fourth Dynasty.
Its mortuary complex was lavishly decorated with fine painted reliefs.
Little is known of Userkaf's activities beyond the construction of his
pyramid and sun temple. There may have been a military expedition to
Canaan or the Eastern Desert, and there probably were trade contacts
with the Aegean civilizations.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Userkaf>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1809:
War of the Fifth Coalition: Commanded by Napoleon, Franco-
German forces defeated a reinforced Austrian corps at the Battle of
Abensberg.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Abensberg>
1939:
Billie Holiday recorded the song "Strange Fruit", which later
became an emblem of the civil rights movement.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit>
1968:
Pierre Trudeau was sworn in as prime minister of Canada,
succeeding Lester B. Pearson.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau>
2010:
An explosion on Deepwater Horizon, an offshore rig in the Gulf
of Mexico, resulted in the largest marine oil spill in history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
nauplius:
(zoology) A crustacean larva that has three pairs of locomotive organs
(corresponding to antennules, antennae, and mandibles), a median eye,
and little or no segmentation of the body.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nauplius>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
There never was night that had no morn.
--Dinah Craik
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dinah_Craik>
The giant mouse lemurs (genus Mirza) are primates native to Madagascar,
like all other lemurs. The two described species, the northern
(pictured) and Coquerel's giant mouse lemurs, are found in the western
dry deciduous forests, Sambirano valley and Sahamalaza Peninsula. In
1870, British zoologist John Edward Gray assigned them to Mirza, but the
classification was not widely accepted until the 1990s, following the
revival of the genus by American paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall in
1982. Giant mouse lemurs weigh approximately 300 g (11 oz) and have a
long, bushy tail. They sleep in nests during the day and forage alone at
night for fruit, tree gum, insects, and small vertebrates. The northern
species has the largest testicles relative to body size of any living
primate. Predators of giant mouse lemurs include the Madagascar buzzard,
Madagascar owl, fossa, and narrow-striped mongoose. Both Mirza species
are endangered due to habitat destruction and hunting.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_mouse_lemur>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1713:
With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor,
issued the Pragmatic Sanction, which allowed daughters to inherit the
Habsburg hereditary possessions.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_VI,_Holy_Roman_Emperor>
1903:
Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Kishinev, the capital of
Bessarabia Governorate, causing the death of nearly 50 Jews and focusing
worldwide attention on the persecution of Jews in Russia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom>
1984:
"Advance Australia Fair", written by Scottish-born composer
Peter Dodds McCormick, officially replaced "God Save the Queen" as
Australia's national anthem.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Australia_Fair>
1995:
A truck bomb destroyed much of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building (damage pictured) in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168
people and injuring more than 680 others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Bronx cheer:
(US, idiomatic) Synonym of raspberry (“a sound intended to resemble
flatulence made by blowing air out of the mouth while the tongue is
protruding from and pressed against the lips, used humorously or to
express disdain or scorn”).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bronx_cheer>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it
gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead. The shaping power
of language cannot be avoided. We cannot choose to distance ourselves
from it. We can only choose to employ it in one way rather than another.
--Stanley Fish
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stanley_Fish>
William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville (1392–1461), was a powerful
landowner in southwest England. Undertaking royal service, he fought in
France in the later years of the Hundred Years' War. In 1415, he joined
the English invasion of France in the retinue of Thomas, Duke of
Clarence, Henry V's brother, and fought on the Agincourt campaign. In
1437, King Henry VI granted Bonville the profitable office of steward
of the Duchy of Cornwall, passing over and enraging Bonville's powerful
neighbour Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon. His dispute with Bonville
descended into violence, and the feud continued intermittently for the
next decade. In 1453, Henry became ill and entered a catatonic state for
eighteen months; Bonville generally seems to have remained loyal to the
king, although his guiding motivation was to support whoever would aid
him in his feud. In 1461, he took part on the losing side in the Second
Battle of St Albans during the Wars of the Roses and was beheaded for
it.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bonville,_1st_Baron_Bonville>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1738:
By royal decree, King Philip V established the Real Academia de
la Historia, tasked with studying the history of Spain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Academia_de_la_Historia>
1949:
The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 came into force, declaring
Ireland a republic and terminating its membership of the British
Commonwealth of Nations.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland>
1958:
Controversial American poet Ezra Pound was released from
St. Elizabeths Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C., in
which he had been incarcerated for twelve years.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound>
1980:
Robert Mugabe took the oath of office to become the first prime
minister of Zimbabwe upon the country's independence from the United
Kingdom.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
footbath:
1. The act of soaking or washing the feet.
2. A small basin or bath designed for soaking or washing the feet.
3. A liquid mixture, often medicinal, for soaking or washing the feet
with.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/footbath>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no
man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever. The
objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to
be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one
who hunches the world along.
--Clarence Darrow
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clarence_Darrow>
The Abbasid invasion of Asia Minor in 806 CE was an attack by the
Abbasid Caliphate against the Byzantine Empire in southeastern and
central Asia Minor. Soon after his accession in 802, the Byzantine
emperor Nikephoros I ceased paying tribute to the Caliphate and attacked
it. In retaliation, Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid caliph, invaded
Byzantium with a force far larger than any seen before. The Abbasid army
met no opposition and raided at will, capturing several towns and
fortresses, including Herakleia, whose fall was celebrated by the
Caliph's propaganda. Nikephoros was forced to seek peace and resume
paying tribute. Harun exacted a personal tax on the Emperor and his
heir, Staurakios, as a token of their submission and withdrew. Almost
immediately Nikephoros violated the peace terms, but Harun's
preoccupation with a rebellion prevented reprisal. Harun's death, the
Abbasid civil war, and Nikephoros' Bulgarian wars prevented the
resumption of large-scale warfare for two decades.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_invasion_of_Asia_Minor_%28806%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1797:
French Revolutionary Wars: British forces commanded by
Lieutenant-General Ralph Abercromby invaded the Spanish colonial port of
San Juan, Puerto Rico.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Juan_%281797%29>
1869:
The Free and Sovereign State of Morelos, named after José
María Morelos, the hero of the Siege of Cuautla, was admitted as the
27th state of Mexico.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morelos>
1951:
The Peak District was designated the first national park in the
United Kingdom.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_District>
1975:
The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the capital of the Khmer
Republic, ending the Cambodian Civil War and establishing the socialist
state of Democratic Kampuchea.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_Civil_War>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
implacable:
1. Not able to be placated or appeased.
2. Impossible to prevent or stop; inexorable, unrelenting, unstoppable.
3. Adamant; immovable.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/implacable>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
As a general rule, the better people are, the more Anarchists and
Socialists will be found among them.
--Benjamin Tucker
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker>
Vision in White is the first book of the Bride Quartet series of romance
novels, written by Nora Roberts (pictured). After its April 2009
release, it spent two weeks atop one of the New York Times bestseller
lists and reached number three on the USA Today bestseller list. In her
career, Roberts has published more than 225 novels. Vision in White was
one of ten Roberts novels published in 2009, including five new releases
and five reprints. It marked her return to contemporary romance. Like
several other Roberts novels, Vision in White explores how a protagonist
balances a successful career with a dysfunctional family environment.
The hero is a typical representation of the romance novel archetype of
the professor, but in an unusual twist for a romance novel, he is the
character who is ready for a commitment but must help the heroine
overcome her fears. A downloadable casual-play computer game based on
the book was introduced by I-Play in 2010.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_in_White>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1853:
The first passenger train of the Great Indian Peninsula
Railway, a predecessor of the modern-day Indian Railways, travelled from
Bombay to Tanna.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Indian_Peninsula_Railway>
1963:
In response to an open letter written by white clergymen four
days earlier, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the Letter from Birmingham
Jail, defending the strategy of nonviolent resistance against racism.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail>
2014:
The ferry MV Sewol sank 1.5 km (0.93 mi) off Donggeochado,
South Korea, killing 304 of 476 passengers on board, most of whom were
students from Danwon High School.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Sewol>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
boiling frog:
(idiomatic, often attributively) A person who, or thing which, is in a
gradually worsening situation without any realization of the peril until
it is too late.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/boiling_frog>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We that acquaint ourselves with every zone, And pass both
tropics and behold the poles, When we come home, are to ourselves
unknown, And unacquainted still with our own souls.
--John Davies
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Davies_%28poet%29>
Horologium is a constellation of six faintly visible stars in the
southern celestial hemisphere. It was first described by the French
astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1756 and visualized by him as a
clock with a pendulum and a second hand. The boundaries of Horologium
(literally 'an instrument for telling the hour') were specified in 1922
by the International Astronomical Union, and it has since been one of
their designated constellations. All parts of the constellation are
visible to observers south of 23°N. The constellation's brightest
star – and the only one brighter than an apparent magnitude of 4 –
is Alpha Horologii (at 3.85), an ageing orange giant star that has
swollen to around 11 times the diameter of the Sun. The long-period
variable-brightness star, R Horologii (4.7 to 14.3), has one of the
largest variations in brightness known for stars in the night sky
visible to the unaided eye. Four star systems in the constellation are
known to have exoplanets; one – Gliese 1061 – contains an
exoplanet in its habitable zone.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horologium_%28constellation%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1802:
English poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy
encountered a "long belt" of daffodils while walking around Ullswater in
the Lake District, inspiring him to pen his best-known work, "I Wandered
Lonely as a Cloud".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Wandered_Lonely_as_a_Cloud>
1994:
At a GATT ministerial meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco,
representatives of 123 countries and the European Communities signed an
agreement to establish the World Trade Organization.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organization>
2019:
A fire severely damaged the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral,
destroying the building's timber spire and much of its roof.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris_fire>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
mummy brown:
1. (painting, historical) A brown pigment originally prepared from the
ground-up remains of Egyptian animal or human mummies mixed with
bitumen, etc.
2. The colour of this pigment, a variable brown intermediate between raw
umber and burnt umber. mummy brown colour:
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mummy_brown>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Doubt comes in at the window, when Inquiry is denied at the door.
--Benjamin Jowett
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Jowett>
The Razing of Friesoythe took place on 14 April 1945 towards the end
of World War II. The 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division, advancing into
north-west Germany, attacked the German-held town of Friesoythe. The
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada captured the town. During
the fighting the battalion's commander was killed by a German soldier,
but it was reported that he had been killed by a civilian. The
division's commander, Major-General Christopher Vokes, ordered that the
town be razed in retaliation, and it was substantially destroyed. Twenty
German civilians died in Friesoythe during the fighting. The rubble of
the town was used to fill craters in local roads to make them passable
for the division's tanks and heavy vehicles. Little official notice was
taken of the incident and the Canadian Army official history glosses
over it. Forty years later, Vokes wrote in his autobiography that he had
"no great remorse over the elimination of Friesoythe".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razing_of_Friesoythe>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
966:
Mieszko I, ruler of the Polans, converted to Christianity, an
event considered to be the founding of the Polish state.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_during_the_Piast_dynasty>
1935:
Dust Bowl: A severe dust storm swept across Oklahoma and
northern Texas, removing an estimated 300 million tons of topsoil from
the prairies.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sunday_%28storm%29>
2010:
Nearly 2,700 people were killed in an earthquake registering
6.9 Mw in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Yushu_earthquake>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
enfeoff:
1. (transitive, chiefly law, historical) To transfer a fief to, to endow
with a fief; to put (a person) in legal possession of a freehold
interest.
2. (transitive, figuratively) To give up completely; to surrender, to
yield.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enfeoff>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I shall not ever return to you, my pigs, because, at worst, to
die valorously is better than to sleep out one's youth in the sun. A man
has but one life. It is his all. Therefore I now depart from you, my
pigs, to win me a fine wife and much wealth and leisure wherein to
discharge my geas. And when my geas is lifted I shall not come back to
you, my pigs, but I shall travel everywhither, and into the last limits
of earth, so that I may see the ends of this world and may judge them
while my life endures. For after that, they say, I judge not, but am
judged: and a man whose life has gone out of him, my pigs, is not even
good bacon.
--James Branch Cabell
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell>
Andha Naal (That Day) is a 1954 Indian Tamil-language mystery-thriller
film, produced by A. V. Meiyappan and directed by S. Balachander
(pictured). It is the first film noir in Tamil cinema, and the first
Tamil film made without songs, dancing, or stunt sequences. It is set in
Madras during World War II; after a radio engineer Rajan (Sivaji
Ganesan) is killed, each suspect's account points to a new suspect. The
film developed from a play script that Balachander wrote, adapting the
narrative style of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. The screenplay was written
by Javar Seetharaman, and cinematography was handled by S. Maruti Rao.
Released on 13 April 1954, the eve of Tamil New Year, the film was
initially a commercial failure, but it was re-released after winning a
Certificate of Merit in 1955 at the National Film Awards and became a
box-office success. In 2013, Andha Naal was included in CNN-News18's
list of the "100 Greatest Indian Films of All Time".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andha_Naal>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1829:
The Roman Catholic Relief Act received royal assent, removing
the most substantial restrictions on Catholics in the United Kingdom.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Relief_Act_1829>
1943:
The Neoclassical Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., was
formally dedicated on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's
birth.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Memorial>
1976:
Forty people died in an explosion at an ammunition factory in
Lapua, Finland.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapua_Cartridge_Factory_explosion>
1984:
Kashmir conflict: Indian forces launched a pre-emptive attack
on the disputed Siachen Glacier region of Kashmir, triggering a military
conflict with Pakistan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siachen_conflict>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Department of Redundancy Department:
(humorous) A fictitious department that is cited to draw attention to
needless repetition or excessiveness.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Department_of_Redundancy_Department>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen,
I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens,
trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel, or the tattered flags of
the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and
happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate
object of good government.
--Thomas Jefferson
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson>
Segnosaurus is a genus of large-bodied therizinosaurid dinosaurs that
lived during the Late Cretaceous. Discovered in the Gobi Desert in
southeastern Mongolia in the 1970s, incomplete but well-preserved
specimens included the lower jaw, neck and tail vertebrae, the pelvis,
the shoulder girdle, and limb bones. Parts of the specimens have since
gone missing or become damaged. Named in 1979, Segnosaurus ('slow
lizard') is estimated to have been about 6–7 m (20–23 ft) long and
to have weighed about 1.3 metric tons (1.4 short tons). It was bipedal,
with the trunk of its body tilted upwards. The head was small with a
beak at the tip of the jaws, and the neck was long and slender, adapted
to browsing. The forelimbs were robust, with three-fingered hands
bearing large claws, and the feet had four toes. The pubic bone was
turned backwards, as in birds. Segnosaurus and its relatives are thought
to have been mainly herbivorous, unlike most other theropods, and slow-
moving.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segnosaurus>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1822:
Greek War of Independence: Ottoman troops began a massacre of
tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chios_massacre>
1910:
SMS Zrínyi, one of the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the
Austro-Hungarian Navy, was launched.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Zr%C3%ADnyi>
1980:
Canadian athlete Terry Fox embarked on an east–west "Marathon
of Hope" with a prosthetic leg, beginning in St. John's, Newfoundland
and Labrador, and intending to reach Vancouver, to raise funds for
cancer research.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Fox>
2014:
A fire broke out in the hills near Valparaíso, Chile,
eventually destroying at least 2,500 homes and leaving approximately
11,000 people homeless.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Valpara%C3%ADso>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
spraddle:
1. (transitive, Canada, Caribbean (West Indies), US) To spread apart
(the legs).
2. (transitive, Canada, Caribbean (West Indies), US) To spread apart
the legs of (someone or something).
3. (intransitive, Canada, Caribbean (West Indies), US) To lie, move, or
stand with legs spread.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spraddle>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is
risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,
Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men,
and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
--Gospel of Luke
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Luke>
Apollo 13 (April 11–17, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the
Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The
landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module
(pictured) failed two days into the mission. Apollo 13 was commanded by
Jim Lovell with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise
as lunar module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken
Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella. After the
explosion, the CM's systems had to be shut down to conserve resources,
forcing the crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. Although the LM
was designed to support two men for two days, Mission Control
improvised new procedures so it could support three men for four days.
The astronauts' peril briefly renewed interest in the Apollo program;
tens of millions watched the splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean by
television. The story of Apollo 13 has been dramatized, most notably in
the 1995 film Apollo 13..
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13_%28film%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1713:
The main treaties of the Peace of Utrecht were signed in the
city of Utrecht in the Dutch Republic, helping to bring an end to the
War of the Spanish Succession.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Utrecht>
1913:
The cricket pavilion at the Nevill Ground was destroyed in an
arson attack (damage pictured) that was attributed to militant
suffragettes as part of a country-wide campaign co-ordinated by the
Women's Social and Political Union.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevill_Ground>
1979:
Uganda–Tanzania War: The allied forces of Tanzania and the
Uganda National Liberation Front captured the capital Kampala, deposing
Ugandan president Idi Amin.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Kampala>
1993:
Prisoners at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near
Lucasville, Ohio, rioted and took over the prison for 11 days,
resulting in the deaths of one officer and nine inmates.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ohio_Correctional_Facility>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
flabbergast:
(transitive) To overwhelm with bewilderment; to amaze, confound, or
stun, especially in a ludicrous manner.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flabbergast>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses. We are those
who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those
who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or
returned wordless.
--Primo Levi
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Primo_Levi>