The Donner Party was a group of American pioneers who set out for
California in a wagon train, but became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada
mountains in November 1846. Running out of food, some resorted to
cannibalism to survive. The journey west usually took between four and
six months, but the Donner Party had been slowed by following a new
route called the Hastings Cutoff, which crossed the Rocky Mountains'
Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake Desert in present-day Utah. They
lost many cattle and wagons in the rugged terrain, and divisions formed
within the group. Their food supplies ran low after they became trapped
by an early, heavy snowfall high in the mountains. In mid-December some
of the group set out on foot and were able to obtain help. Of the 87
members of the party, 48 survived to reach California. Historians have
described the episode as one of the most spectacular tragedies in
California history.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1892:
Liverpool F.C., one of England's most successful football
clubs, was founded.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_F.C.>
1937:
Half a year after abdicating the British throne, Edward, Duke
of Windsor, married American socialite Wallis Simpson in a private
ceremony in France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Simpson>
1969:
During a SEATO exercise in the South China Sea, a collision
between HMAS Melbourne and USS Frank E. Evans resulted in the latter
vessel being cut in two and the deaths of 74 personnel.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Frank_E._Evans>
1982:
A failed assassination attempt was made on Shlomo Argov, the
Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, which event was later used as
justification for the First Lebanon War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Argov>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
tandem:
1. One behind the other; in single file.
2. (figurative) In close collaboration; collaboratively, cooperatively.
3. (countable) A carriage pulled by two or more draught animals
(generally draught horses) harnessed one behind the other, both
providing pulling power but only the animal in front being able to
steer.
4. (by extension, countable)
5. Two draught animals (generally draught horses) harnessed one behind
the other.
6. A thing with two components arranged one behind the other.
7. (specifically, cycling) Short for tandem bicycle (“a bicycle or
tricycle in which two people sit one behind the other, both able to
pedal but only the person in front being able to steer”).
8. (medicine) A hollow metal tube containing radioactive material,
inserted through the vagina into the uterus to treat gynecological
cancer.
9. (figurative)
10. (countable) A group of two or more machines, people, etc., working
together; hence (uncountable), close collaboration.
11. (uncountable, education) A method of language learning based on
mutual exchange, where ideally each learner is a native speaker in the
language the other person wants to learn. [...]
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tandem>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of
those qualities which our fellow creatures love, and respect.
--Sydney Smith
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sydney_Smith>
John Richard Clark Hall (1855–1931) was a British scholar of Old
English, and a barrister. Hall's A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
(pictured) became a widely used work upon its 1894 publication, and
after multiple revisions remains in print. His 1901 prose translation of
Beowulf was still the canonical introduction to the poem into the 1960s;
some later editions included a prefatory essay by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Hall's other work on Beowulf included a metrical translation in 1914,
and the translation and collection of Knut Stjerna's Swedish papers on
the poem in the 1912 work Essays on Questions Connected with the Old
English Poem of Beowulf. In the final decade of his life, Hall's
writings took to a Christian theme. The Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge published two of his works in this time: Herbert Tingle, and
Especially his Boyhood, and Birth-Control and Self-Control. Hall worked
as a clerk at the Local Government Board in Whitehall, becoming
principal clerk in 1898.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Richard_Clark_Hall>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1919:
First Red Scare: The anarchist followers of Luigi Galleani set
off eight bombs in eight cities across the United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_United_States_anarchist_bombings>
1953:
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_Elizabeth_II>
1994:
The Royal Air Force suffered a significant peacetime disaster
when a Chinook helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland,
killing all 29 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Mull_of_Kintyre_Chinook_crash>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
snottite:
(bacteriology) A colony of single-celled extremophilic bacteria that
hangs in a sheet (having the consistency of snot or nasal mucus) from
the ceilings of some caves like stalactites.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snottite>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
A man should be only partially before his time — to be
completely to the vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's
warlike son been intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted
civilization without bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike
hero that he seemed, but nobody would have heard of an Alexander.
--Thomas Hardy
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy>
Ludwigsburg Palace is a 452-room complex of 18 buildings in Ludwigsburg,
Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the largest palatial estate in the
country and has been called the "Versailles of Swabia". Eberhard Louis,
Duke of Württemberg, began construction of the palace in 1704. Charles
Eugene, the son of his successor, completed it and refurbished parts in
the Rococo style, especially its theatre. Charles Eugene abandoned the
palace in 1775, and it began a decline until Frederick, the future duke,
moved into the palace in 1795. As King of Württemberg, Frederick and
his wife Queen Charlotte renovated the entirety of the palace in the
Neoclassical style. The palace was opened to the public in 1918. It
underwent periods of restoration, including for its tercentenary in
2004. It has hosted the Ludwigsburg Festival annually since 1947. The
palace is surrounded by gardens named Blooming Baroque (Blühendes
Barock), laid out in 1954 as they might have appeared in 1800.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwigsburg_Palace>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1857:
The Revolution of the Ganhadores, the first general strike in
Brazil, began in Salvador, Bahia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_the_Ganhadores>
1974:
In an informal article in a medical journal, Henry Heimlich
introduced the concept of abdominal thrusts, commonly known as the
Heimlich maneuver, to treat victims of choking.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Heimlich>
1988:
Group representation constituencies were introduced to the
parliament of Singapore.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_representation_constituency>
1999:
On landing at Little Rock National Airport in the U.S. state of
Arkansas, American Airlines Flight 1420 overran the runway and crashed
(wreckage pictured), resulting in 11 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_1420>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
baby's tears:
Any of various plants having parts (such as leaves or spots on leaves,
petals, etc.) resembling teardrops; specifically, angel's tears
(Soleirolia soleirolii), a plant in the nettle family grown as a green,
mossy ground cover.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/baby%27s_tears>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Once the expenditure of effort exceeds the value of the
political object, the object must be renounced and peace must follow.
We see then that if one side cannot completely disarm the other, the
desire for peace on either side will rise and fall with the probability
of further successes and the amount of effort these would require. …
If the incentive grows on one side, it should diminish on the other.
Peace will result so long as their sum total is sufficient — though
the side that feels the lesser urge for peace will naturally get the
better bargain.
--Carl von Clausewitz
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz>