William McSherry (1799–1839) was a Catholic priest, a prominent leader
of the Jesuits in the United States, and a president of Georgetown
College in Washington, D.C. Born in western Virginia, McSherry studied
at Georgetown and was educated for the priesthood in Rome, where he
discovered significant, forgotten holdings in the Jesuit archives about
the early European settling of Maryland and the language of Native
American tribes. McSherry served as the first provincial superior of the
Jesuit Maryland Province from 1833 to 1837 and laid the groundwork for
the sale of 272 of its slaves. He then became President of Georgetown
College, exchanging positions with Thomas Mulledy, who executed the sale
as provincial. Upon Mulledy's suspension in 1839 over the slave sale
scandal, McSherry again became provincial. Near to death, his term
lasted just several months. In 2015, due to his and Mulledy's
involvement in the slave sale, Georgetown University renamed McSherry
Hall.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McSherry>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1813:
Napoleonic Wars: Two evenly matched French and British frigates
fought for four hours at the Îles de Los off the coast of Guinea,
resulting in a stalemate.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_7_February_1813>
1940:
Walt Disney's Pinocchio, the first animated feature to win a
competitive Academy Award, debuted at the Center Theatre in New York
City.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio_%281940_film%29>
1984:
During the Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41-B,
astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart performed the first
untethered spacewalk.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-41-B>
1994:
Having retired four months earlier, American basketball player
Michael Jordan signed a contract to play baseball for the Chicago White
Sox.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
finesse:
1. (transitive, chiefly Canada, US, politics) To evade (a problem,
situation, etc.) by using some clever argument or strategem.
2. (transitive, card games) To play (a card) as a finesse.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To handle or manage carefully or
skilfully; to manipulate in a crafty way.
4. (intransitive, card games) To attempt to win a trick by finessing.
5. (intransitive, croquet, obsolete) To play a ball out of the way of an
opponent.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finesse>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
As actors it is easy for us to play the hero. We get to fight the
bad guys and stand up for justice. In real life, the choices are not
always so clear. The Hollywood Blacklist … was a time I remember well.
The choices were hard. The consequences were painful and very real.
During the blacklist, I had friends who went into exile when no one
would hire them; actors who committed suicide in despair. … I was
threatened that using a Blacklisted writer for Spartacus –– my
friend Dalton Trumbo — would mark me as a “Commie-lover” and end
my career. There are times when one has to stand up for principle. I am
so proud of my fellow actors who use their public influence to speak out
against injustice. At 98 years old, I have learned one lesson from
history: It very often repeats itself.
--Kirk Douglas
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kirk_Douglas>
SMS Zähringen was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Wittelsbach
class of the Imperial German Navy. She was laid down in November 1899
and completed October 1902. She and her sister ships—Wittelsbach,
Wettin, Schwaben and Mecklenburg—were armed with a main battery of
four 24 cm (9.4 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h;
21 mph). These and the other ships of I Squadron underwent extensive
annual training, as well as making goodwill visits to foreign countries.
Zähringen was decommissioned in September 1910 as dreadnought
battleships began to enter service and she saw little activity until the
start of World War I in 1914. Zähringen saw limited duty in the Baltic
Sea and played a minor role in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga. The ship
was withdrawn from active service in late 1915 due to crew shortages and
the threat from British submarines. After the war, she was converted
into a radio-controlled target ship..
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_ship>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1840:
British representatives and Māori chiefs first signed the
Treaty of Waitangi, widely regarded as the founding document of New
Zealand.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi>
1919:
More than 65,000 workers in Seattle began a five-day general
strike to gain higher wages after two years of U.S. World War I wage
controls.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_General_Strike>
1987:
Mary Gaudron became the first woman to be appointed a justice
of the High Court of Australia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Gaudron>
2000:
Second Chechen War: Russian forces captured Grozny, the capital
of Chechnya, from the separatist Chechen government following a siege
and assault that devastated the city.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_%281999%E2%80%932000%29>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
koha:
1. (New Zealand) A Māori tradition of reciprocal giving of gifts.
2. (New Zealand, by extension) A voluntary donation given for a service
that has been provided.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/koha>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I acknowledge that my verdict will not remove the President from
office. The results of this Senate Court will in fact be appealed to a
higher court: the judgement of the American people. Voters will make the
final decision, just as the President’s lawyers have implored. My vote
will likely be in the minority in the Senate. But irrespective of these
things, with my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I
did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country
expected it of me. I will only be one name among many, no more or less,
to future generations of Americans who look at the record of this trial.
They will note merely that I was among the senators who determined that
what the President did was wrong, grievously wrong. We’re all
footnotes at best in the annals of history. But in the most powerful
nation on earth, the nation conceived in liberty and justice, that is
distinction enough for any citizen.
--Mitt Romney
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney>
The mosaics of Delos are a significant body of ancient Greek mosaic art.
Most of the surviving mosaics from Delos, Greece, an island in the
Cyclades, date to the last half of the 2nd century BC and early 1st
century BC, during the Hellenistic period and beginning of the Roman
period. About half of all surviving tessellated mosaics from
Hellenistic Greece come from Delos. The paved walkways of Delos range
from simple pebble or chip-pavement constructions to elaborate mosaic
floors composed of tesserae. Most motifs contain simple geometric
patterns, while a handful utilize the opus tessellatum and opus
vermiculatum techniques to create lucid, naturalistic, and richly
colored scenes and figures. Mosaics have been found in places of
worship, public buildings, and private homes. They share characteristics
with those in other parts of the Greek world, such as Macedonian mosaics
in Pella. They often employ a black-background technique as seen in the
red-figure pottery of the Classical period..
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Greece>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1818:
Charles XIV John (portrait shown) 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_of_Sweden>
1923:
Australian cricketer Bill Ponsford made 429 runs to break the
world record for the highest first-class score.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ponsford>
1958:
A U.S. Mark 15 nuclear bomb disappeared off the shores of Tybee
Island, Georgia, after it was jettisoned during a practice exercise when
the bomber carrying it collided in midair with a fighter plane.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision>
2000:
Second Chechen War: As the Battle of Grozny came to a close,
Russian forces summarily executed at least 60 civilians in Grozny's
Novye Aldi suburb.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novye_Aldi_massacre>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
who would have thunk it:
(colloquial, sometimes sarcastic) A rhetorical question used to express
incredulity: who would have guessed it?; who would have thought that
would happen?
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/who_would_have_thunk_it>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I am a lawyer. I think that one of the most fundamental
responsibilities, not only of every citizen, but particularly of
lawyers, is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and
willingly, and it will be a very unhappy day for Anglo-Saxon justice
when a man, even a man in public life, is too timid to state what he
knows and what he has heard about a defendant in a criminal trial for
fear that defendant might be convicted. That would to me be the ultimate
timidity.
--Adlai Stevenson II
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adlai_Stevenson_II>
The Pacific swift (Apus pacificus) is a bird that breeds in eastern
Asia. This swift is strongly migratory, spending the northern
hemisphere's winter in a wide range of habitats in Southeast Asia and
Australia. The general shape and blackish plumage recall its relative,
the common swift, from which it is distinguished by a white rump band
and heavily marked underparts. Its main call is a screech typical of its
family. It breeds in sheltered locations such as caves and rock
crevices, or under the eaves of houses. The nest is a half-cup of dry
grass and other fine material that is gathered in flight, cemented with
saliva and attached to a vertical surface. Two or three white eggs are
incubated for about seventeen days before hatching. Like all swifts, the
Pacific swift feeds exclusively on insects caught in flight. The species
has a large population that occurs as far afield as the US and New
Zealand, and rarely in Europe.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_swift>
_______________________________
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>
1945:
World War II: U.S. forces liberated the Santo Tomas Internment
Camp in Manila, the largest of the Japanese internment camps in the
Philippines.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Tomas_Internment_Camp>
1974:
American newspaper heiress and socialite Patty Hearst was
kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, which she later joined, in
one of the most well-known cases of Stockholm syndrome.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Hearst>
2008:
The London low emission zone, governing what types of vehicles
may enter Greater London, came into operation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_low_emission_zone>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
cachexia:
(pathology) A systemic wasting of muscle tissue, with or without loss of
fat mass, that accompanies a chronic disease.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cachexia>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I recall standing on the edge of a deep valley in the Hawaiian
island of Maui, thinking that the life stream is like a mountain river
— springing from hidden sources, born out of the earth, touched by
stars, merging, blending, evolving in the shape momentarily seen. It is
molecules probing through time, found smooth-flowing, adjusted to shaped
and shaping banks, roiled by rocks and tree trunks — composed again.
Now it ends, apparently, at a lava brink, a precipitous fall. Near the
fall's brink, I saw death as death cannot be seen. I stared at the very
end of life, and at life that forms beyond, at the fact of immortality.
Dark water bent, broke, disintegrated, transformed to apparition — a
tall, stately ghost soul emerged from body, and the finite individuality
of the whole becomes the infinite individuality of particles. Mist
drifted, disappeared in air, a vanishing of spirit. Far below in the
valley, I saw another river, reincarnated from the first, its particles
reorganized to form a second body. It carried the same name. It was
similar in appearance. It also ended at a lava brink. Flow followed
fall, and fall followed flow as I descended the mountainside. The river
was mortal and immortal as life, as becoming.
--Charles Lindbergh
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh>
Ghost Stories was a U.S. pulp magazine that published 64 issues between
1926 and 1932. It was one of the earliest competitors to Weird Tales,
the first magazine to specialize in the fantasy and occult fiction
genre. Ghost Stories was a companion magazine to True Story and True
Detective Stories, and focused almost entirely on stories about ghosts,
many of which were written by staff writers but presented under
pseudonyms as true confessions. These were often accompanied by faked
photographs to make the stories appear more believable. Ghost Stories
also ran original and reprinted contributions, including works by Robert
E. Howard, Carl Jacobi, and Frank Belknap Long. Among the reprints were
Agatha Christie's "The Last Seance" (under the title "The Woman Who
Stole a Ghost"), several stories by H. G. Wells, and Charles Dickens's
"The Signal-Man". The magazine was initially successful, but had begun
to lose readers by 1930, and ceased publication at the start of 1932.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Stories_%28magazine%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1870:
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was
ratified, granting voting rights to citizens regardless of "race, color,
or previous condition of servitude".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Cons…>
1930:
The Communist Party of Indochina, the Communist Party of Annam
and the Communist League of Indochina merged to form the Communist Party
of Vietnam.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Vietnam>
2010:
A cast bronze sculpture, L'Homme qui marche I, by Swiss
sculptor Alberto Giacometti, was sold for £65 million (US$103.7
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:
flare:
1. (transitive) To cause to burn.
2. (transitive) To cause inflammation; to inflame.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To open outward in shape.
4. (transitive, intransitive, aviation) To (operate an aircraft to)
transition from downward flight to level flight just before landing.
5. (intransitive) To blaze brightly.
6. (intransitive) To shine out with a sudden and unsteady light; to emit
a dazzling or painfully bright light.
7. (intransitive, figuratively) To shine out with gaudy colours; to be
offensively bright or showy.
8. (intransitive, figuratively) To suddenly happen or intensify.
9. (intransitive, figuratively) To suddenly erupt in anger.
10. (intransitive, obsolete) To be exposed to too much light.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flare>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The human soul has need of consented obedience and of liberty.
Consented obedience is what one concedes to an authority because one
judges it to be legitimate. It is not possible in relation to a
political power established by conquest or coup d'etat nor to an
economic power based upon money. Liberty is the power of choice within
the latitude left between the direct constraint of natural forces and
the authority accepted as legitimate. The latitude should be
sufficiently wide for liberty to be more than a fiction, but it should
include only what is innocent and should never be wide enough to permit
certain kinds of crime.
--Simone Weil
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_Weil>
The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge half dollar is a fifty-cent piece
struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936 as a
commemorative coin. One of many commemoratives issued that year, it was
designed by Jacques Schnier and honors the opening of the Bay Bridge
that November. One side of the coin depicts a grizzly bear, a symbol of
California, and the other shows the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge,
with the Ferry Building. Congress passed authorizing legislation for the
coin in 1936. Schnier's models were approved and the coins were struck
at the San Francisco Mint. Just over 70,000 coins were sold, by mail, in
person, and from booths at the Bay Bridge's approaches, making it the
first commemorative coin to be sold on a drive-in basis. The coins were
taken off sale in February 1937, with the unsold remainder returned to
the Mint for redemption and melting. The Bay Bridge half dollar catalogs
in the low hundreds of dollars, depending on condition..
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Mint>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1438:
Nine leaders of the Transylvanian peasant revolt were executed
at Torda.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvanian_peasant_revolt>
1920:
The signing of the Treaty of Tartu ended the Estonian War of
Independence, with Russia agreeing to recognize the independence of
Estonia and renounce in perpetuity all rights to its territory.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tartu_%28Russian%E2%80%93Estonian%29>
1934:
The Export–Import Bank of the United States (seal pictured),
the country's official export credit agency, was established.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export%E2%80%93Import_Bank_of_the_United_Stat…>
2007:
Following a Derby di Sicilia match in Catania, football
violence caused the death of police officer Filippo Raciti, leading to
new safety regulations at Italian sporting events.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Catania_football_violence>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Imbolc:
(Britain, Ireland) A Gaelic and Wiccan festival celebrated on 1 or 2
February which marks the beginning of spring.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Imbolc>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of
whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with
the sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the
presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and
unites it with the secret cause.
--A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Portrait_of_the_Artist_as_a_Young_Man>
Prince Romerson (c. 1840 – 1872) was a Native Hawaiian who fought in
the American Civil War at a time when the Kingdom of Hawaii was an
independent nation. Living in the American Northeast before the war,
Romerson enlisted in the Union Navy in 1863 and served in the Atlantic
Blockading Squadron. After being discharged, he reenlisted in the 5th
Regiment Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Cavalry, a United States
Colored Troops (USCT) regiment, in April 1864. Romerson rose to the rank
of sergeant and was mustered out in October 1865, due to illness. After
the war, like many USCT veterans, he remained in the army as a member of
the Buffalo Soldiers (pictured), serving on the western frontier. In
2010, he was commemorated with over 100 other Native Hawaiian and
Hawaiian-born "Hawaiʻi Sons of the Civil War" when a bronze plaque was
erected along the memorial pathway at the National Memorial Cemetery of
the Pacific in Honolulu.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Romerson>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1884:
The first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary, a 352-page
volume that covered words from A to Ant, was published.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary>
1979:
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile and soon led
the Iranian Revolution to overthrow the U.S.-backed Pahlavi dynasty.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini%27s_return_to_Iran>
2003:
All seven crew members aboard Space Shuttle Columbia were
killed when the orbiter disintegrated over Texas during reentry.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
inexorable:
1. Impossible to prevent or stop; inevitable.
2. Unable to be persuaded; relentless; unrelenting.
3. Adamant; severe.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inexorable>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and
rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The
land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless
plain — All, all the stretch of these great green states — And
make America again!
--Langston Hughes
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes>
The Roman temple of Bziza is a well-preserved first-century AD Roman
temple in the Lebanese town of Bziza. It is dedicated to Azizos, a
personification of the morning star in the Canaanite mythology. The
temple's name is a corruption of Beth Azizo, meaning the house or temple
of Azizos. The building has two doors that connect the portico to a
square chamber. To the back of the temple lie the remains of the adyton
where images of the deity once stood. The ancient temple was meant to
function as the dwelling place of the deity. It was converted into a
church and underwent architectural modification during two phases of
Christianization: in the Early Byzantine period and in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. The church, colloquially known until modern times
as the Lady of the Pillars, fell into disrepair. Despite the church's
condition, Christian devotion was still maintained in the nineteenth
century in one of the temple's niches.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_temple_of_Bziza>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1862:
American astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint
white dwarf companion of Sirius (both stars pictured), the brightest
star in the night sky.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius>
1945:
Second World War: The British 3rd Commando Brigade defeated the
Japanese 54th Division at the Battle of Hill 170, causing Japanese
forces to withdraw from Burma's Arakan peninsula.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hill_170>
2000:
Alaska Airlines Flight 261, experiencing problems with its
horizontal stabilizer system, crashed in the Pacific Ocean off Anacapa
Island, California, killing all 88 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261>
2010:
James Cameron's Avatar became the first film to earn over $2
billion worldwide.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Tiggerish:
(Britain) (Excessively) cheerful and exuberant; bouncy.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tiggerish>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or
retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a
little bit.
--Norman Mailer
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer>
The golden swallow (Tachycineta euchrysea) is found in Hispaniola and
Jamaica mainly in isolated montane forests of Hispaniolan pine. The
Jamaican subspecies is likely extinct, perhaps through predation by
mammals and habitat loss, and the Hispaniolan subspecies is considered
to be vulnerable by the IUCN. This is a small swallow with mainly
copper-bronze upperparts and white underparts. The legs, feet, and
irises are dark brown, and the bill is black. The extant subspecies
differs from the Jamaican form in having a more forked tail and bluer
upperparts. The female is similar, but with mottled grey-brown on the
breast, and occasionally on the throat and undertail. In Hispaniola,
this swallow breeds from April to July, laying a clutch consisting of
two to four white eggs in a cup nest in Hispaniolan pine, in caves or
under eaves. It is an aerial insectivore, usually foraging up to 20 m
(66 ft) above the ground.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_swallow>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1835:
Richard Lawrence became the first person to attempt to
assassinate a sitting U.S. president when he failed to kill Andrew
Jackson at the U.S. Capitol (assassination attempt pictured) and was
subdued by the crowd.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lawrence_%28failed_assassin%29>
1945:
World War II: Allied forces liberated more than 500 prisoners
of war from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan in the Philippines.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_at_Cabanatuan>
2000:
Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near
Ivory Coast shortly after takeoff, killing 169 on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya_Airways_Flight_431>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
dehort:
(transitive, rare or obsolete) To dissuade.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dehort>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Those who cherish their freedom and recognize and respect the
equal right of their neighbors to be free and live in peace must work
together for the triumph of law and moral principles in order that
peace, justice, and confidence may prevail in the world. There must be a
return to a belief in the pledged word, in the value of a signed treaty.
There must be recognition of the fact that national morality is as vital
as private morality.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt>
The 23rd (Northumbrian) Division was an infantry division of the British
Army in the Second World War. Formed in 1939 from a cadre of the
Territorial Army's 50th (Northumbrian) Motor Division, it was sent to
France in April 1940 with scant training and preparation and inadequate
administration, logistics, and heavy weapons. When Germany invaded
Belgium, the British Expeditionary Force and French armies advanced,
leaving the 23rd Division behind to guard airfields. After the main
German attack came through the Ardennes, the division was ordered to the
front line to defend the Canal du Nord—the only river between the main
German assault and the English Channel. By the time the division
arrived, the Germans had already crossed south of their sector where
French forces had yet to take up positions. One of the division's
brigades was caught by armoured forces and overrun; the other conducted
rearguard actions during the retreat to Dunkirk. The remnants of the
division were evacuated on 31 May 1940, having suffered heavy losses.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23rd_%28Northumbrian%29_Division>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1891:
Liliʻuokalani, the last monarch and only queen regnant of the
Hawaiian Kingdom, ascended the throne.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili%CA%BBuokalani>
1944:
World War II: At least 38 civilians were killed and about a
dozen others injured when the Polish village of Koniuchy was attacked by
a Soviet partisan unit with a contingent of Jewish partisans.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koniuchy_massacre>
1991:
The first major ground engagement of the Gulf War began with
Iraq's invasion of the Saudi Arabian city of Khafji, which would be
recaptured two days later by Coalition forces.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khafji>
2006:
India's Irfan Pathan became the only bowler to take a Test
cricket hat-trick in the opening over of a match.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irfan_Pathan>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Rafflesian:
1. Of or relating to Sir Stamford Raffles, a British colonial statesman
known for his founding of modern Singapore and British Malaya.
2. (Singapore) Of or relating to an educational institution named after
Sir Stamford Raffles.
3. (Singapore) A current or former student of an educational institution
named after Sir Stamford Raffles.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Rafflesian>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is ridiculous that nations are to wait and government be
interrupted till boys grow to be men. Whether I have too little sense
to see, or too much to be imposed upon; whether I have too much or too
little pride, or of anything else, I leave out of the question; but
certain it is, that what is called monarchy, always appears to me a
silly, contemptible thing. I compare it to something kept behind a
curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a
wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by any accident, the
curtain happens to be open — and the company see what it is, they
burst into laughter.
--Thomas Paine
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine>