The Northolt siege was a hostage situation which developed in Northolt,
West London, on 25 December 1985. After a domestic dispute, Errol
Walker forced entry into his sister-in-law's flat in Poynter Court
(pictured). He killed the woman, keeping her daughter and his own
daughter hostage. He released his daughter, but held the other girl
hostage. After more than a day, he ventured onto the communal balcony to
pick up an abandoned riot shield. Armed officers tried to intercept him
but he made it back to the flat. They threw stun grenades through the
windows, their first use by British police, and climbed through the
kitchen window. One officer found Walker lying on a sofa, holding a
knife to the child, and fired three shots, the first shooting by the
Metropolitan Police's Firearms Wing. Walker was shot twice, and was
later given life imprisonment for murder and other offences. One
historian of the unit felt that the incident showed that the police had
an alternative for crises that could not be resolved peacefully.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northolt_siege>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1879:
Angered by a controversial umpiring decision, cricket
spectators rioted and attacked the England team during a match in
Sydney, Australia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Riot_of_1879>
1910:
William D. Boyce established the Boy Scouts of America,
expanding the Scout Movement into the United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America>
1965:
After taking evasive action to avoid a mid-air collision just
after taking off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport,
Eastern Air Lines Flight 663 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing
all 84 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_663>
2010:
A freak storm triggered a series of avalanches that buried more
than 3.5 km (2.2 mi) of road near the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan,
killing 175 people and trapping more than 2,500 travellers.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Salang_avalanches>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
tufty:
1. Having the form of or resembling a tuft (“a bunch of grass, hair,
etc., held together at the base”).
2. Covered in or having many tufts.
3. (obsolete, rare) Covered with tufts (“small clumps of bushes or
trees”).
4. Growing in tufts.
5. (obsolete) Of a cow: seeking a bull to mate with.
6. (Britain, informal) The tufted duck (Aythya fuligula).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tufty>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy.
Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be
based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the
firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.
--John Ruskin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Ruskin>
Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe ('Jesus gathered the Twelve to Himself'),
BWV 22, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, written for the
last Sunday before Lent. He composed it as an audition piece for the
position of director of church music in Leipzig, and he first performed
it there in a church service at the Thomaskirche on 7 February 1723.
The work begins with a scene from the Gospel in which Jesus predicts his
suffering in Jerusalem, and is not understood by his disciples. Bach
showed, setting the prescribed text of an unknown poet, that he mastered
the composition of a dramatic scene, an expressive aria with obbligato
oboe, a recitative with strings, an exuberant dance, and a chorale in
the style of Johann Kuhnau, his predecessor in Leipzig. According to the
Bach scholar Richard D. P. Jones, several elements of the work such as
a "frame of biblical text and chorale around the operatic forms of aria
and recitative" became standards for Bach's Leipzig cantatas and even
his Passions.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nahm_zu_sich_die_Zw%C3%B6lfe,_BWV_22>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1900:
A Chinese immigrant in San Francisco fell ill with the bubonic
plague in the first epidemic of the disease in the continental United
States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_plague_of_1900%E2%80%931904>
1943:
World War II: Japan successfully withdrew its troops from
Guadalcanal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ke>
2014:
Researchers announced the discovery of the Happisburgh
footprints in Norfolk, England, the oldest known hominid footprints
outside Africa at more than 800,000 years old.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happisburgh_footprints>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
bicultural:
1. A person belonging to two cultures.
2. Adapted to two separate cultures.
3. Having working knowledge of two separate cultures.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bicultural>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not
looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty
will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is
anything to be got by it.
--Charles Dickens
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens>
Rhea Seddon (born 1947) is an American surgeon and retired astronaut for
NASA. After being selected as part of the first group of NASA astronauts
to include women in 1978, she flew on three Space Shuttle flights, as
mission specialist on STS-51-D and STS-40, and as payload commander for
STS-58, accumulating over 722 hours in space. On these flights, she
built repair tools for a US Navy satellite and performed medical
experiments. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and
the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Seddon was awarded her
doctor of medicine degree in 1973. During her residency with the
University of Tennessee hospitals, she was the only woman in the General
Surgery Residency Program. Before, during and after her career in the
astronaut program, she worked in hospital emergency departments. She
retired from NASA in November 1997 and became Chief Medical Officer of
the Vanderbilt Medical Group.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhea_Seddon>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1840:
British representatives and Māori chiefs first signed the
Treaty of Waitangi, widely regarded to be the founding document of New
Zealand.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi>
1952:
Elizabeth II became the queen regnant of the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon upon
the death of her father, King George VI.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_VI>
1976:
Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admitted that the
company had paid out approximately US$3 million in bribes to the office
of Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals>
2018:
The SpaceX launch vehicle Falcon Heavy made its maiden flight.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy_test_flight>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
rickroll:
1. To mislead (someone) into following a seemingly innocuous hyperlink,
or sometimes a QR code, that leads to a YouTube video of Rick Astley's
song "Never Gonna Give You Up".
2. (by extension) To surprise or trick (someone) into listening to this
song in a live setting.
3. (Internet slang) An act of or attempt at rickrolling.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rickroll>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea they're
using them to influence other Americans. There's no reason why on the
street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.
--Ronald Reagan
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan>
Colin Robert Chase (February 5, 1935 – October 13, 1984) was an
American academic. An associate professor of English at the University
of Toronto, he was known for his contributions to the studies of Old
English and Anglo-Latin literature. His father was a newspaper executive
and his mother, Mary Chase, was a playwright who won the Pulitzer Prize
for Drama. His best-known work, The Dating of Beowulf, challenged the
accepted consensus as to when the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (page
pictured) was created; it left behind what was described in A Beowulf
Handbook as "a cautious and necessary incertitude". Chase was also known
for writing Two Alcuin Letter-Books, a scholarly collection of 24
letters by the 8th-century scholar Alcuin. He also contributed to the
Dictionary of the Middle Ages and wrote the Beowulf section of "This
Year's Work in Old English Studies" for the Old English Newsletter for
nearly a decade.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Robert_Chase>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1818:
Charles XIV John succeeded to the thrones of Sweden and Norway
as the first monarch of the House of Bernadotte.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XIV_John>
1861:
In a speech before the U.S. Congress, Representative John
Edward Bouligny refused to join his fellow Louisiana congressmen in
heeding the state's secession convention and resigning.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Bouligny>
1913:
Greek military aviators Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis
Moraitinis performed the first naval air mission in history, with a
Farman MF.7 hydroplane.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristeidis_Moraitinis_%28aviator%29>
2004:
At least 21 cockle-gatherers were drowned by an incoming tide
in Morecambe Bay, England, prompting the establishment of the British
government's Gangmasters Licensing Authority.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morecambe_Bay_cockling_disaster>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Lantern Festival:
1. A festival marking the end of the Chinese New Year period, celebrated
on the fifteenth day of the first month in the Chinese calendar when the
first full moon of the year is seen (in February or early March).
2. ยี่เป็ง (Yi Peng), a festival celebrated chiefly in northern Thailand
on the day of the full moon in the second month of the northern Thai
lunar calendar (equivalent to the twelfth month of the lunar calendar
used in the rest of Thailand, generally in November).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Lantern_Festival>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been
avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.
--Adlai Stevenson II
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adlai_Stevenson_II>
Made in the Dark is the third studio album by English indietronica band
Hot Chip (pictured), released on 4 February 2008 through EMI Records
internationally and Astralwerks and DFA Records in the United States. A
defining feature of the 13-track album is the strong presence of
romantic ballads. Alexis Taylor, the main contributor to the lyrics,
felt that feelings of love and happiness, partly the result of his
recent marriage, had contributed to the album's romantic tone. The title
track was described as "sublime" by one critic. Songs such as "Ready for
the Floor" and "Bendable Poseable" were noted by critics to be
reminiscent of the band's previous release, The Warning. Some critics
felt that Made in the Dark lacked focus and contained too many varied
elements. The album peaked at number four on the UK Albums Chart, and
entered at number 109 on the U.S. Billboard 200. Several singles were
released from the album, including "Shake a Fist", "Ready for the
Floor", and "One Pure Thought".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_the_Dark>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1797:
The Riobamba earthquake, the most powerful in Ecuador's
history, devastated Riobamba and many other cities, causing at least
6,000 casualties.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1797_Riobamba_earthquake>
1820:
Chilean War of Independence: Chilean forces captured the city
of Valdivia and its harbour, depriving the Spanish Empire of an
important naval base.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Valdivia>
1899:
The Philippine–American War began when an American soldier,
under orders to keep insurgents away from his unit's encampment, fired
on a Filipino soldier in Manila.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manila_%281899%29>
2015:
Shortly after takeoff from Taipei Songshan Airport, the crew of
TransAsia Airways Flight 235 shut down the wrong engine in response to
a flameout, leading to a crash that resulted in 43 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransAsia_Airways_Flight_235>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
on the horns of a dilemma:
Facing a choice between two equally undesirable alternatives.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on_the_horns_of_a_dilemma>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved,
destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.
--Charles Lindbergh
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh>
HMS Argus was a British aircraft carrier that served in the Royal Navy
from 1918 to 1944. Converted from an ocean liner, she became the first
example of the standard pattern of aircraft carriers, with a full-length
flight deck allowing aircraft to take off and land. The ship was
involved for several years in the development of the optimum design for
other aircraft carriers. She spent one brief deployment on the China
Station in the late 1920s before being placed in reserve. Argus was
recommissioned and partially modernised shortly before the Second World
War. In July 1940 she made the first of her many ferry trips to fly off
fighters to Malta. In 1942 she was pressed into front-line service
despite her lack of speed and armament. She provided air cover during
the invasion of French North Africa and was slightly damaged by a bomb.
Argus was used again for deck-landing practice until September 1944. She
became an accommodation ship in December, was sold in late 1946 and was
scrapped in 1947.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Argus_%28I49%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1852:
The Argentine Confederation was defeated in the Platine War by
an alliance consisting of Brazil, Uruguay and the Argentine provinces of
Entre Ríos and Corrientes.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platine_War>
1972:
The deadliest blizzard in history began in Iran and continued
for a week leaving more than 4,000 people dead.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Iran_blizzard>
2010:
An edition of L'Homme qui marche I, a bronze sculpture by
Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, was sold for £65 million, setting
the record for the most expensive sculpture sold at auction.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Homme_qui_marche_I>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
inescutcheon:
(heraldry) A small escutcheon (“coat of arms; shield”) (such as an
escutcheon of pretence) which is charged (“represented”) on a larger
escutcheon.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inescutcheon>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
He who does not realize to what extent shifting fortune and
necessity hold in subjection every human spirit, cannot regard as
fellow-creatures nor love as he loves himself those whom chance
separated from him by an abyss. The variety of constraints pressing upon
man give rise to the illusion of several distinct species that cannot
communicate. Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows
how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice.
--Simone Weil
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_Weil>
Resolution Guyot, formerly known as Huevo, is a guyot (tablemount) in
the underwater Mid-Pacific Mountains. It is a circular flat mountain,
rising 500 metres (1,600 ft) above the seafloor to a depth of about
1,320 metres (4,330 ft), with a summit platform 35 kilometres (22 mi)
wide. The Mid-Pacific Mountains lie west of Hawaii and northeast of the
Marshall Islands, but at the time of its formation the guyot was located
in the Southern Hemisphere, by a hotspot in today's French Polynesia.
Plate tectonics shifted it to its present-day location, and the Easter,
Marquesas, Pitcairn and Society hotspots may have been involved in the
formation of Resolution Guyot. Volcanic activity has been dated to have
occurred 107 to 129 million years ago and formed a volcanic island that
was subsequently flattened by erosion. The platform emerged above sea
level at one point before eventually drowning for reasons still unknown,
with thermal subsidence lowering it further to its present depth.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_Guyot>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1659:
Jan van Riebeeck, the founder of Cape Town, produced the first
bottle of South African wine (vineyard pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_wine>
1913:
New York City's Grand Central Terminal, the world's largest
train station by number of platforms, opened immediately after midnight.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Terminal>
1942:
The first act of the Norwegian resistance movement took place
with the bombing of Oslo East Station by the Osvald Group to protest the
inauguration of Vidkun Quisling.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osvald_Group>
2009:
Omid, Iran's first domestically made satellite, was
successfully launched from Semnan Space Center.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
retrofit:
1. (transitive)
2. To supply (a device, structure, etc.) with new components or parts
that were not previously available or installed; to modernize.
3. To add or substitute (new components or parts) that were not
previously available for or installed in a device, structure, etc.
4. (computing) Synonym of backport (“to retroactively supply to (a
previous version of a software product) a fix, or a new feature, at the
same time or after supplying it to the current version; to retroactively
supply (a fix or a new feature) to a previous version of a software
product at the same time or after supplying it to the current version”)
5. (figuratively) To give new characteristics or make alterations (to
someone or something) to suit them to changed circumstances.
6. (intransitive) To supply a device, structure, etc., with new
components or parts that were not previously available or installed.
7. An act of supplying a device, structure, etc., with new components or
parts that were not previously available or installed; a retrofitting.
8. A change made to a device, structure, etc., by introducing components
or parts that were not previously available or installed.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retrofit>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I like to see a man of advancing years throwing caution to the
wind. It's inspiring in a way.
--Groundhog Day
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_%28film%29>
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was a fatal accident in the NASA
Space Shuttle program on February 1, 2003. During the launch of the
STS-107 mission, foam insulation from the Space Shuttle external tank
fell and damaged the thermal protection system of the orbiter. During
atmospheric reentry at the end of the mission, the damage allowed hot
gases to penetrate the heat shield and destroy the internal wing
structure. The orbiter broke apart inflight, killing all seven
astronauts on board (crew pictured). Debris was scattered over eastern
Texas and Louisiana, and a massive recovery effort was launched to
recover debris and crew remains. The accident resulted in a two-year
hiatus for the Space Shuttle program, and an investigation into its
cause discovered that NASA had become accustomed to insulation foam
hitting the orbiter on previous missions. The accident contributed to
the eventual cancellation and retirement of the Space Shuttle, which
last flew in 2011.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1662:
Sino-Dutch conflicts: The Dutch East India Company's rule in
Taiwan ended after a siege by the Ming loyalist Koxinga, who established
the Kingdom of Tungning on the island.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Zeelandia>
1942:
Voice of America, the official external radio and television
service of the United States federal government, began broadcasting with
programs aimed at Axis-controlled areas during World War II.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America>
1972:
Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, became the first
settlement in the country to be granted city status since independence.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur>
2012:
Following an Egyptian Premier League match in Port Said, Al
Masry fans rioted and violently attacked Al Ahly supporters, resulting
in 74 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Said_Stadium_riot>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
caseness:
(chiefly psychiatry) The state of accepted standardized diagnostic
criteria for a given condition applying to a given patient, or the
degree to which they are so applicable.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caseness>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Yesterday, there was a tsar, and there were slaves; today there
is no tsar, but the slaves remain; tomorrow there will be only tsars. We
march in the name of tomorrow's free man — the royal man. We have
lived through the epoch of suppression of the masses; we are living in
an epoch of suppression of the individual in the name of the masses;
tomorrow will bring the liberation of the individual — in the name of
man. Wars, imperialist and civil, have turned man into material for
warfare, into a number, a cipher. Man is forgotten, for the sake of the
sabbath. We want to recall something else to mind: that the sabbath is
for man. The only weapon worthy of man — of tomorrows's man — is
the word.
--Yevgeny Zamyatin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Zamyatin>