Al-Adid (1151–1171) was the fourteenth and last caliph of the Fatimid
dynasty, and the twenty-fourth imam of the Hafizi Isma'ili branch of
Shi'a Islam, reigning from 1160 to 1171. Like the previous two caliphs,
al-Adid came to the throne as a child, a puppet in the hands of various
strongmen who became viziers of the Fatimid Caliphate. The power
struggles in Cairo weakened the Fatimid state, strengthening both the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Crusader state, and Nur al-Din, the Sunni ruler
of Syria. The Crusaders repeatedly invaded Egypt; the Syrians sent their
general, Shirkuh, to counter them. In January 1169, Shirkuh occupied
Cairo and became vizier, but died shortly after. He was succeeded by his
nephew, Saladin, who was at first conciliatory towards al-Adid, but
proceeded to dismantle the Fatimid regime, with al-Adid sidelined. Sunni
Islam was established as state religion, culminating in the official
proclamation of Abbasid suzerainty in September 1171. Al-Adid died a
few days later; his family was placed under house arrest.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Adid>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1792:
The French Army achieved its first major victory of the War of
the First Coalition at the Battle of Valmy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Valmy>
1920:
Irish War of Independence: British auxiliary police officers
known as Black and Tans went on a rampage in Balbriggan, burning more
than fifty homes and businesses and killing two people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Balbriggan>
1967:
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, announced the
story of Xenu in a taped lecture sent to all Scientologists.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu>
1997:
Hurricane Erika, the strongest and longest-lasting hurricane of
the 1997 Atlantic hurricane season, dissipated after causing flooding
and power outages throughout Puerto Rico.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Erika_%281997%29>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
old timer's disease:
(neurology, pathology, slang, sometimes derogatory or humorous) Eggcorn
of Alzheimer's disease (“a disorder involving loss of mental functions
resulting from brain tissue changes”).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/old_timer%27s_disease>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
At this inflection point in history, we’re going to be judged
by whether or not we live up to the promises we have made to ourselves,
to each other, to the most vulnerable, and to all those who will inherit
the world we create, because that’s what we’re doing. Will we find
within ourselves the courage to do what must be done to preserve the
planet, to protect human dignity, to provide opportunity for people
everywhere, and to defend the tenets of the United Nations? There can
be only one answer to that question: We must, and we will.
--Joe Biden
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joe_Biden>
The Battle of Poitiers was fought on 19 September 1356 between a French
army commanded by King John II and an Anglo-Gascon force under Edward,
the Black Prince, during the Hundred Years' War. The Anglo-Gascons had
set out on a major campaign while John gathered a large and unusually
mobile army and pursued. The 6,000 Anglo-Gascons stood on the defensive
and were attacked by 14,000 to 16,000 Frenchmen. An initial assault was
driven back after hard fighting. A second under John's son and heir was
also repulsed. Many Frenchmen then left the field. Those remaining
gathered around the King and launched another attack, while signalling
that no prisoners were to be taken. The French got the better of this
fight until a small Anglo-Gascon force appeared behind them. The French
panicked and their force collapsed; John and his youngest son were taken
prisoner. Negotiations to end the war and ransom John resulted in the
1360 Treaty of Brétigny, which temporarily ended the war with an
English victory.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poitiers>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1846:
Near La Salette-Fallavaux in southeastern France, shepherd
children Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud reported a Marian
apparition, now known as Our Lady of La Salette (statue pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_La_Salette>
1940:
World War II: Polish resistance leader Witold Pilecki allowed
himself to be captured by German forces and sent to Auschwitz to gather
intelligence.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki>
1970:
The first Glastonbury Festival, the largest greenfield festival
in the world, was held at Michael Eavis's farm in Glastonbury, England.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Festival>
1995:
Industrial Society and Its Future, the manifesto of American
domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, was published in The Washington Post
almost three months after it was submitted.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
scuttlebutt:
1. (countable, nautical) Originally (now chiefly historical), a cask
with a hole cut into its top, used to provide drinking water on board a
ship; now (by extension, informal), a drinking fountain on a modern
ship.
2. (uncountable, originally US, nautical slang) Gossip, idle chatter;
also, rumour.
3. (transitive, rare) To spread (information) by way of gossip or
rumour.
4. (intransitive) To chat idly or gossip; also, to spread rumours.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scuttlebutt>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will
know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort
of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or
three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort
of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth.
--William Golding
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Golding>
Rod Steiger (1925–2002) was an American actor, noted for his portrayal
of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. He is closely
associated with the art of method acting, embodying the characters he
played, which at times led to clashes with directors and co-stars. He
starred with Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954), playing Charley,
the mobster brother of Brando's character. He played the title character
Sol Nazerman in The Pawnbroker (1964), and an opportunistic Russian
politician in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965). Steiger won the
Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Mississippi police
chief Bill Gillespie opposite Sidney Poitier in the film In the Heat of
the Night (1967). During the 1970s, Steiger turned to European
productions in his search for more demanding roles. He portrayed
Napoleon in Waterloo (1970) and a Mexican bandit in Sergio Leone's Duck,
You Sucker! (1971). He ended the decade playing a disturbed priest in
The Amityville Horror (1979).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Steiger>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1809:
The second Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (interior pictured),
opened in London after the original was destroyed by fire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Opera_House>
1875:
The Indianola hurricane dissipated over Mississippi after
killing around eight hundred people in Texas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1875_Indianola_hurricane>
1961:
An aircraft crashed near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, resulting
in the deaths of United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld and
15 others on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Ndola_Transair_Sweden_DC-6_crash>
1981:
While posing as an aristocrat, Belgian serial killer Nestor
Pirotte murdered an antiques dealer in Brussels, for which crime he was
sentenced to death.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Pirotte>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
greige:
1. (textiles) Of clothing, textiles, etc.: neither bleached nor dyed,
nor otherwise fully processed; unfinished.
2. Of a colour like that of unbleached or undyed fabric, between grey
and beige.
3. A colour like that of unbleached or undyed fabric between grey and
beige, closely akin to taupe. greige:
4. (textiles, archaic) Clothing, textiles, etc., which have neither been
bleached nor dyed, nor otherwise fully processed; greige goods.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/greige>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
You can always tell an old battlefield where many men have lost
their lives. The next spring the grass comes up greener and more
luxuriant than on the surrounding countryside; the poppies are redder,
the corn-flowers more blue. They grow over the field and down the sides
of the shell holes and lean, almost touching, across the abandoned
trenches in a mass of color that ripples all day in the direction that
the wind blows. They take the pits and scars out of the torn land and
make it a sweet, sloping surface again. Take a wood, now, or a ravine:
In a year's time you could never guess the things which had taken place
there. … To me it has always seemed that God is so sickened with men,
and their unending cruelty to each other, that he covers the places
where they have been as quickly as possible.
--William March
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_March>
Grand Theft Auto V is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by
Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 17
September 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in November 2014
for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, in April 2015 for Windows, and in
March 2022 for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The seventh main
entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, it is set within the fictional
state of San Andreas (based on Southern California) and its city of Los
Santos (based on Los Angeles). The single-player story follows three
protagonists and their heist attempts. Grand Theft Auto Online, the
game's online multiplayer mode, offers a number of different cooperative
and competitive game modes. The game received critical acclaim, with
praise directed at its multiple protagonist design, open world,
presentation, and gameplay. It is considered among the best video games
ever made and is the second-best-selling video game ever, with more than
180 million copies sold.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_V>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1382:
Following the death of Louis I without a male heir, his
daughter Mary was crowned with the title of King of Hungary.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Queen_of_Hungary>
1859:
Disgruntled with the legal and political structures of the
United States, Joshua Norton distributed letters to various newspapers
in San Francisco proclaiming himself to be Emperor Norton.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton>
1894:
The controversial Mormon bishop and prophetic dreamer John
Hyrum Koyle began excavating the Dream Mine, which he believed would
provide financial support to members of the LDS Church.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Mine>
1914:
Andrew Fisher, whose previous term as Prime Minister of
Australia oversaw a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until
the 1940s, became prime minister for the third time.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fisher>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
kerplunk:
1. (informal) A sound of someone or something falling and landing
heavily; a thud.
2. (figurative, US, slang, dated) A disappointment which comes as a
surprise.
3. Used to indicate a thudding sound.
4. (intransitive, informal) To make a sound of someone or something
falling and landing heavily; to thud.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kerplunk>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
To tell the truth, I myself never quite feel that I know what I
am talking about — if I did, and when I do, the thing written seems
nothing to me. However, what I do write and allow to survive I always
feel is worth while and that nobody else has ever come as near as I have
to the thing I have intimated if not expressed. To me it's a matter of
first understanding that which may not be put to words. I might add more
but to no purpose. In a sense, I must express myself, you're right, but
always completely incomplete if that means anything.
--William Carlos Williams
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams>
Astatine is a very rare radioactive chemical element with the chemical
symbol At and the atomic number 85. It occurs on Earth as the decay
product of heavier elements. All its isotopes are short-lived, with
half-lives of 8.1 hours or less. The element has never been viewed
because a mass large enough to be seen would be immediately vaporized by
the heat of its radioactivity. The bulk properties of astatine are not
known with any certainty, but they have been predicted based on its
similarity to the lighter halogens directly above it in the periodic
table: fluorine, chlorine, bromine and especially iodine. It is likely
to appear dark or lustrous and may be a semiconductor or a metal.
Chemically, several anionic species of astatine are known and most of
its compounds resemble those of iodine. It also shows some metallic
behavior, and may be able to form a stable monatomic cation in aqueous
solution, unlike the lighter halogens.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astatine>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1844:
Felix Mendelssohn completed the score of the Violin Concerto,
his final concerto.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_%28Mendelssohn%29>
1963:
Malaysia was formed as an independent nation from the
Federation of Malaya, the Colony of Singapore, the Crown Colony of North
Borneo, and the Crown Colony of Sarawak.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia>
1979:
Eight people escaped from East Germany to West Germany in a
home-made hot air balloon.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_balloon_escape>
1990:
Construction of the Northern Xinjiang railway (terminus
pictured) was completed between Ürümqi South and Alashankou, linking
the railway lines of China and Kazakhstan and adding a sizeable portion
to the Eurasian Land Bridge.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Land_Bridge>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
liken:
1. (transitive)
2. Followed by to or (archaic) unto: to regard or state that (someone or
something) is like another person or thing; to compare.
3. (also reflexive, rare) Chiefly followed by to: to make (oneself,
someone, or something) resemble another person or thing.
4. (rare) To represent or symbolize (something).
5. (intransitive, obsolete) Followed by to: to be like or resemble;
also, to become like.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liken>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Heart of my heart, the world is young; Love lies hidden in every
rose!
--Alfred Noyes
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_Noyes>
"Love Story" is a country pop song written and sung by Taylor Swift
(pictured). It was released on September 15, 2008, as the lead single
from Swift's album Fearless. Swift used Romeo and Juliet as a reference
point while writing "Love Story". The lyrics are about a couple's happy
ending after enduring a troubled romance. Critics praised the production
as catchy and have considered it one of Swift's best singles. "Love
Story" peaked in the top five on charts of at least seven countries
including the US, where it is Swift's best-selling single. Its music
video won Video of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards and
CMT Music Awards in 2009. Following the dispute over the ownership of
Swift's back catalog, Swift re-recorded the song and released it as
"Love Story (Taylor's Version)" in 2021. The re-recorded single topped
the Hot Country Songs chart and made Swift the second artist, after
Dolly Parton, to reach number one with both the original and re-recorded
versions of a song.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Story_%28Taylor_Swift_song%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1795:
French Revolutionary Wars: Great Britain seized the Dutch Cape
Colony to use its facilities against the French Navy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Cape_Colony>
1830:
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&M;), the first
locomotive-hauled railway to connect two major cities, opened with the
Duke of Wellington in attendance.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_of_the_Liverpool_and_Manchester_Railw…>
1954:
The scene in The Seven Year Itch of Marilyn Monroe standing in
a white dress over a subway grate was filmed by Billy Wilder.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dress_of_Marilyn_Monroe>
2013:
The Belarusian serial killer Ivan Kulesh murdered two
saleswomen in Lida.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Kulesh>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
plebiscite:
1. (law, politics) A direct popular vote on an issue of public
importance, such as an amendment to the constitution, a change in the
sovereignty of the nation, or some government policy; a referendum.
2. (by extension) An expression of the public's views on an issue,
whether legally binding or not.
3. (Ancient Rome, historical) Synonym of plebiscitum (“a law enacted by
the common people, under the superintendence of a tribune or some
subordinate plebeian magistrate, without the intervention of the
senate”)
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plebiscite>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I don't think necessity is the mother of invention — invention,
in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from
laziness. To save oneself trouble.
--Agatha Christie
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie>
Lisa Nowak (born 1963) is a former NASA astronaut and United States Navy
officer. Nowak graduated from the Naval Academy in 1985. A naval
aviator, she was selected for NASA Astronaut Group 16 in 1996,
qualifying as a mission specialist in robotics. She flew in space in
July 2006 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-121 mission,
where she was responsible for operating the robotic arms of the shuttle
and the International Space Station. In February 2007, Nowak was
arrested in Orlando, Florida, after she drove about 900 miles
(1,400 km) from Texas and accosted and pepper-sprayed Colleen Shipman,
a U.S. Air Force captain. Shipman's boyfriend, astronaut William
Oefelein, had been in a relationship with Nowak. Terminated by NASA,
Nowak pled guilty to burglary and battery in 2009, after which the Navy
demoted and discharged her under other than honorable conditions. It was
later reported that Nowak was working in Texas.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Nowak>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
919:
A coalition of native Irish, led by Niall Glúndub, failed in
their attempt to drive the Vikings of the Uí Ímair from Ireland.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Islandbridge>
1863:
American Civil War: The Little Rock campaign ended with the
Union Army capturing Little Rock, Arkansas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_campaign>
1914:
HMAS AE1, the Royal Australian Navy's first submarine, was
lost at sea; its wreck was not found until 2017.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_AE1>
1989:
Typhoon Sarah dissipated after causing extensive damage along
an erratic path across the Western Pacific, killing 71 in Taiwan, the
Philippines, and the Gotō Islands.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Sarah_%281989%29>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
rotten borough:
1. (historical) A parliamentary borough that was represented in
Parliament although the number of voters had diminished so greatly that
they were largely controlled by the main landowner; such boroughs were
abolished in the 19th century.
2. (by extension) A parliamentary constituency or electoral district in
a similar situation.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rotten_borough>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Work and play are an artificial pair of opposites, because the
best kind of play contains an element of work, and the most productive
kind of work must include something of the spirit of play.
--Sydney J. Harris
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sydney_J._Harris>
The 1867 U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania, voted on by the state
legislature, was held on January 15, 1867. Simon Cameron was elected to
the Senate for the third time; he had been chosen in 1845 and in 1857.
Cameron and Governor Andrew Curtin each led a faction of Republicans and
had clashed as early as 1855. Cameron tried to block Curtin from the
party nomination for governor in 1860, while Curtin attempted to get
Cameron excluded from Abraham Lincoln's cabinet; each failed. With the
Republicans holding a majority in the 1867 legislature, the battle was
for the party's endorsement, which Thaddeus Stevens and Galusha Grow
also sought. The party caucus chose Cameron, who then defeated incumbent
Edgar Cowan, the Democratic Party nominee. Cowan never again held
office; Curtin later served in Congress as a Democrat. Cameron remained
in the Senate until he resigned in 1877 to allow his son to take the
seat. The Cameron political machine dominated Pennsylvania politics for
a half century.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1867_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsyl…>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1567:
The siege of Inabayama Castle, the final battle in Oda
Nobunaga's campaign to conquer Mino Province, began; it culminated in a
decisive victory for Nobunaga.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Inabayama_Castle>
1848:
An explosion drove an iron rod through the head of railroad
foreman Phineas Gage; his survival and recovery influenced 19th-century
discussion of psychology and neuroscience.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage>
1919:
The Boston police strike ended after four days of rule by the
state militia, the deaths of nine people, and accusations that striking
officers were "agents of Lenin".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_police_strike>
2005:
A software bug caused a simulated pandemic in the online video
game World of Warcraft, serving as a model for epidemiologists to
understand how human interaction influences disease outbreaks.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
unseat:
1. (transitive)
2. To dislodge or remove (someone) from a seat, especially on horseback.
3. (figurative)
4. To remove (someone) from an office or position, especially a
political one; to dethrone.
5. To cause (something) to be removed or replaced in its role; to
displace, to overturn.
6. To upset the composure of (someone); to astound, to shock, to
unsettle.
7. (intransitive, technical) To come off or out of a seat.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unseat>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift
and how to use it in the world. Individuality is cherished and nurtured,
because, in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be strong
in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction, so they can be shared
with others.
--Robin Wall Kimmerer
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer>
Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the
longest Interstate Highway in the United States at 3,021 miles
(4,862 km). It runs from Seattle, Washington, to Boston, Massachusetts,
passing through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, and
Midwest. The highway serves 13 states and has 15 auxiliary routes,
primarily in major cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, and
Rochester. The route incorporates several toll roads that predate the
Interstate Highway System, including the Ohio Turnpike, New York State
Thruway, and Massachusetts Turnpike. These toll roads opened in the
1950s and were followed by toll-free sections a decade later. The
Midwestern sections of I-90 were fully completed in 1978, and the
majority of the route between Seattle and South Dakota opened by 1987.
The final section, near the western terminus in Seattle, opened on
September 12, 1993; an eastern extension in Boston was completed in
2003 as part of the Big Dig project.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_90>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1846:
The English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett
Browning eloped to Italy, marrying in secret to avoid their disapproving
families.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning>
1933:
Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard conceived of the idea
of the nuclear chain reaction while waiting for a traffic light in
Bloomsbury, London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Szilard>
1948:
The People's Liberation Army launched the Liaoshen campaign,
the first of the three major military campaigns during the late stage of
the Chinese Civil War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaoshen_campaign>
1995:
Hurricane Ismael formed off the southwest coast of Mexico; it
went on to kill over a hundred people in the country.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ismael>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
pink tea:
1. (countable, US)
2. (historical) A fashionable formal tea party or other social
gathering; specifically, one organized and attended chiefly by women to
discuss matters of suffrage, raise funds for charity, etc.
3. (by extension) Any exclusive social gathering.
4. (figurative, chiefly in the negative, also attributively) Something
(as an event or policy) excessively polite and refined; specifically,
one regarded as ineffective and weak.
5. (uncountable, India, Pakistan) A hot drink from the Indian
subcontinent with a pink colour, made with gunpowder tea, baking soda,
and milk.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pink_tea>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Cancel me not — for what then shall remain? Abscissas some
mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The
inverse of my verse, a null domain.
--Stanisław Lem
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem>
The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safe deposit boxes at the
Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, England, on the night of
11 September 1971. A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12 m) from a rented shop
two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault (diagram
shown). The property stolen was probably worth between £1.25 and
£3 million; only £231,000 was recovered by the police. The burglary
was planned by Anthony Gavin, a career criminal, who was inspired by
"The Red-Headed League", a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle in which
Sherlock Holmes waits in a bank vault to arrest a gang who have
tunnelled in through the floor. Gavin and his colleagues rented a
leather goods shop, and tunnelled during weekends. Police found members
of the gang soon after the break-in; one of the burglars had signed the
lease in his own name, and informers led investigators to Gavin. Many of
the papers relating to the burglary remain under embargo at The National
Archives until January 2071.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Street_robbery>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1945:
The Japanese-run camp at Batu Lintang, Sarawak, in Borneo was
liberated by the Australian 9th Division, averting the planned massacre
of its 2,000-plus Allied POWs and civilian internees by four days.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Lintang_camp>
1978:
British medical photographer Janet Parker became the last
recorded person to die from smallpox, leading to a debate on whether the
virus should be preserved.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom>
1995:
Mir EO-19, the nineteenth crewed mission to the Russian space
station Mir, returned to Earth after approximately 75 days in space. It
was the first Mir expedition launched on an American Space Shuttle.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_EO-19>
2001:
Al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger airliners to carry out a
series of terrorist attacks (second attack pictured) against targets in
New York City and the Washington, D.C., area.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
obtrusive:
1. (obsolete) Protruding or sticking out, especially in a way that
obstructs.
2. (figurative)
3. Of a person: overly assertive, bold, or domineering; pushy; also,
ostentatious.
4. Of a thing: noticeable or prominent, especially in a displeasing way.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/obtrusive>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We are today, as human beings, evolved and cultured far beyond
the taboos which are inherent in our culture. This is a very important
fact to realise.
--D. H. Lawrence
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/D._H._Lawrence>