Istanbul, Turkey, known before 330 as Byzantium and between 330 and 1930
as Constantinople, is a transcontinental city of Europe and Asia,
straddling the Bosporus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black
Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side;
about a third of its residents live on the Asian side. The population of
the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s to around 15 million,
making Istanbul one of the world's most populous cities and the fourth-
largest city proper. Founded on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660
BCE, the city grew in size and influence. It was an imperial capital for
almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine (330–1204), Latin
(1204–1261), Palaiologos Byzantine (1261–1453) and Ottoman
(1453–1922) empires. Although Ankara was chosen as the new capital
after the Turkish War of Independence, Istanbul remains Turkey's
economic and cultural center.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1886:
American inventor Charles Martin Hall discovered an inexpensive
method of producing aluminum (sample pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martin_Hall>
1909:
The Silver Dart was flown off the ice of Bras d'Or Lake on Cape
Breton Island, making it the first controlled powered flight in Canada.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEA_Silver_Dart>
1947:
The International Organization for Standardization, responsible
for worldwide industrial and commercial standards, was founded.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization>
1991:
The government of Thai prime minister Chatichai Choonhavan was
deposed in a bloodless coup by General Sunthorn Kongsompong.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatichai_Choonhavan>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
navel-gazing:
1. Contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation.
2. (derogatory) Excessive focus on oneself; self-indulgent
introspection.
3. (sometimes derogatory) (Disproportionate) concentration on a single
issue.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/navel-gazing>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will
destroy the United States. And when we call for education we mean real
education. We believe in work. We ourselves are workers, but work is not
necessarily education. Education is the development of power and ideal.
We want our children trained as intelligent human beings should be, and
we will fight for all time against any proposal to educate black boys
and girls simply as servants and underlings, or simply for the use of
other people. They have a right to know, to think, to aspire.
--W. E. B. Du Bois
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois>
M-28 is an east–west state trunkline highway that almost completely
traverses the Upper Peninsula in the U.S. state of Michigan, from
Wakefield to near Sault Ste. Marie. M-28 is the longest state trunkline
with the "M-" prefix at 290 miles (467 km). Three sections of the
highway are part of the Lake Superior Circle Tour, and two sections
carry memorial highway designations. M-28 passes through forested
woodlands, bog swamps, and urbanized areas. Sections of roadway cross
the Ottawa National Forest and both sections of the Hiawatha National
Forest. Other landmarks accessible from the highway include the Seney
National Wildlife Refuge and several historic bridges. M-28 dates to the
1919 formation of the state's trunkline system, though the original
highway was much shorter. It was expanded eastward to the Sault Ste.
Marie area in the late 1920s.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-28_%28Michigan_highway%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1744:
War of the Austrian Succession: British ships began attacking
the Spanish rear of a Franco-Spanish combined fleet in the Mediterranean
Sea off the French coast near Toulon.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Toulon_%281744%29>
1899:
Philippine–American War: Filipino forces launched their first
counterattack in a failed attempt to recapture Manila from the
Americans.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Caloocan>
1959:
Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500 NASCAR auto race at the
Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959_Daytona_500>
2012:
A train failed to apply its brakes and crashed through a buffer
stop at Once Station in Buenos Aires, resulting in 51 deaths and more
than 700 injuries.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Buenos_Aires_rail_disaster>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
vamp:
1. (transitive) To patch, repair, or refurbish.
2. (transitive) Often as vamp up: to fabricate or put together
(something) from existing material, or by adding new material to
something existing.
3. (transitive) To cobble together, to extemporize, to improvise.
4. (transitive, intransitive, music, specifically) To perform a vamp (“a
repeated, often improvised accompaniment, for example, under dialogue or
while waiting for a soloist to be ready”).
5. (transitive, shoemaking) To attach a vamp (to footwear).
6. (transitive, intransitive, now dialectal) To travel by foot; to walk.
7. (intransitive) To delay or stall for time, as for an audience. […]
8. (transitive) To seduce or exploit someone.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vamp>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man,
that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his
friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far
from being the surest marks of it. I should be happy that my own
experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be
placed upon them.
--George Washington
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Washington>
SMS Kronprinz (Crown Prince) was the last battleship of the four-ship
König class of the Imperial German Navy, laid down in 1911 and launched
on 21 February 1914. The ship was armed with ten 30.5-centimeter
(12.0 in) guns in five twin turrets and could steam at a top speed of
21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). Along with her three sister ships, König,
Grosser Kurfürst and Markgraf, Kronprinz took part in most of the World
War I fleet actions, including the 1916 Battle of Jutland. She was
torpedoed by the British submarine HMS J1 in November 1916 during an
operation off the Danish coast. Following repairs, she participated in
Operation Albion, an amphibious assault in the Baltic, in October 1917.
After Germany's defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in
November 1918, Kronprinz and most of the capital ships of the High Seas
Fleet were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow, and later scuttled
by their German crews.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Kronprinz>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1828:
The inaugural issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first
newspaper in a Native American language, was published.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_Phoenix>
1919:
Bavarian socialist Kurt Eisner, who had organized the German
Revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy and established
Bavaria as a republic, was assassinated.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Eisner>
1929:
In the first battle of the Warlord Rebellion against the
Nationalist government of China, a 24,000-strong rebel force led by
Zhang Zongchang was defeated at Zhifu by 7,000 NRA troops.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Rebellion_in_northeastern_Shandong>
1973:
After accidentally having strayed into Israeli-occupied
airspace, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two Israeli
fighter aircraft, killing 108.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_114>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
analphabet:
A person who does not know the letters of the alphabet; a partly or
wholly illiterate person.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/analphabet>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
One handles truths like dynamite. Literature is one vast
hypocrisy, a giant deception, treachery. All writers have concealed more
than they revealed. But paradoxically, we create fiction out of human
concern for the victims of the revelations. This concern is at the root
of literature.
--Anaïs Nin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ana%C3%AFs_Nin>
Hurricane Juan was a large and erratic tropical cyclone that looped
twice near the Louisiana coast, causing widespread flooding. It was the
tenth named storm of the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season, forming in the
central Gulf of Mexico in late October. Juan made landfall near Morgan
City. Weakening to tropical storm status over land, it turned back to
the southeast over open waters, crossing the Mississippi River Delta.
Turning to the northeast, it made its final landfall just west of
Pensacola, Florida. Juan was the last of three hurricanes to move over
Louisiana during the season, after Danny in August and Elena in early
September. Twelve people died in the storm, including nine in maritime
accidents off Louisiana. Rainfall and a high storm surge flooded
50,000 houses and many communities in southern Louisiana, causing
extensive agriculture losses. Juan directly inflicted about
$1.5 billion in damage, making it among the costliest United States
hurricanes.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Juan_%281985%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1835:
An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 8.2 Ms devastated
Concepción, Chile, and the resulting tsunami destroyed the neighboring
city of Talcahuano.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1835_Concepci%C3%B3n_earthquake>
1872:
New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, today the largest
art museum in the United States with a collection of over two million
works of art, opened.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art>
1959:
The Canadian government under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker
cancelled the Avro CF-105 Arrow interceptor aircraft program amid much
political debate.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow>
2009:
The Tamil Tigers attempted to crash two aircraft packed with
C-4 in suicide attacks on Colombo, Sri Lanka, but the planes were shot
down before they reached their targets.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_suicide_air_raid_on_Colombo>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
esurient:
(formal, now often humorous) Very greedy or hungry; ravenous;
(figuratively) avid, eager.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/esurient>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Remember, stay ahead of them. Keep the mystery, always mystery.
Excess within control.
--Somewhere in Time
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Somewhere_in_Time>
The Wales national rugby union team competes annually in the Six Nations
Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. The
governing body, the Welsh Rugby Union, was established in 1881, the same
year that Wales played their first international against England, on 19
February. They have won the Six Nations and its predecessors 26 times
outright, most recently in 2013. They had many dominant teams from 1900
to 1911 and from 1969 to 1980. Wales played in the inaugural Rugby World
Cup in 1987 where they achieved their best ever result of third. After
the sport started allowing professionalism in 1995, Wales hosted the
1999 World Cup. They won Six Nations Grand Slams in 2005, 2008 and 2012.
Their home ground is the Millennium Stadium (pictured). Eight former
Welsh players have been inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame; ten
were inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame prior to its
2014 merger into the World Rugby Hall.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales_national_rugby_union_team>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1811:
Peninsular War: An outnumbered French force under Édouard
Mortier routed and nearly destroyed the Spanish at the Battle of the
Gebora near Badajoz, Spain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Gebora>
1942:
A book-burning was held and politicians were arrested in
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, as part of a simulated Nazi invasion.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Day>
1965:
Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo of the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam, along with Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Trần Thiện Khiêm
attempted a coup against the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_South_Vietnamese_coup>
1999:
U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a posthumous pardon to Henry
Ossian Flipper, the first African American graduate of West Point, who
had been accused of embezzlement in 1881.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ossian_Flipper>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
rainmaker:
1. Someone or something that causes or attempts to cause rain to fall.
2. An African or Native American medicine man who seeks to induce rain
through performing rituals.
3. A person who seeks to induce rainfall through scientific methods,
such as cloud seeding.
4. (originally Canada, US, figuratively, informal) A person having the
ability to generate business, raise funds, or otherwise engineer success
for a company, organization, etc.
5. (baseball, informal) A batted ball that is hit very high into the
air.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rainmaker>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Crossing that bridge, With lessons I've learned. Playing with
fire, And not getting burned. I may not know what you're going
through. But time is the space, Between me and you. Life carries
on... it goes on.
--Seal
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Seal_%28musician%29>
Lock Haven is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, in the
U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Located near the confluence of the West
Branch Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Creek, it is the principal city
of the Lock Haven Micropolitan Statistical Area, in a combined
statistical area that includes Williamsport. Its population in 2010 was
9,772. Built on a site long favored by pre-Columbian peoples, Lock Haven
began in 1833 as a timber town and a haven for loggers, boatmen, and
other travelers on the river or the West Branch Canal. Resource
extraction and efficient transportation financed much of the city's
growth through the end of the 19th century. In the 20th century, a
light-aircraft factory, a college, and a paper mill contributed to the
economy. The city has three sites on the National Register of Historic
Places: Memorial Park Site, a significant pre-Columbian archaeological
find; Heisey House, a Victorian-era museum; and Water Street District
(courthouse pictured), with a mix of 19th- and 20th-century
architecture.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_Haven,_Pennsylvania>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1814:
War of the Sixth Coalition: French troops led by Napoleon
forced the Army of Bohemia to retreat after having advanced dangerously
close to Paris.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Montereau>
1878:
Competition between two merchants in Lincoln County, New Mexico
Territory, U.S., turned into a range war when a member of one faction
was murdered by the other.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_County_War>
1942:
World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army began the systematic
extermination of perceived hostile elements among Chinese Singaporeans.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sook_Ching>
2010:
WikiLeaks published the first of hundreds of thousands of
classified documents disclosed by Chelsea Manning (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
husbandry:
1. The occupation or work of a husbandman or farmer; the cultivation of
crops and the raising of livestock; agriculture.
2. The prudent management or conservation of resources.
3. (now chiefly nautical) Administration or management of day-to-day
matters.
4. (obsolete) Agricultural or cultivated land.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/husbandry>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children. It is common
among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated
language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human
instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force
obedience. The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the
tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery
properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more
than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the
limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state
language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud
but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language
of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or
language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist
plunder in its literary cheek — it must be rejected, altered and
exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities,
tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and
patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the
bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language
— all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do
not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.
--Toni Morrison
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison>
Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky. It represents a bird-
of-paradise, and its name (from Greek for "without feet") was chosen
because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet.
First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus Plancius in 1598, it was
charted on a star atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria
(pictured). The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille
charted the brighter stars and gave them Bayer designations in 1756. The
five brightest stars are all reddish in hue. Shading the others at
apparent magnitude 3.8 is Alpha Apodis, an orange giant that has around
48 times the diameter and 928 times the luminosity of the Sun.
Marginally fainter is Gamma Apodis, another ageing giant star. Delta
Apodis is a double star, the two components of which are 103 arcseconds
apart and visible with the naked eye. Two star systems have been found
to have planets.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apus>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1859:
The French Navy captured the Citadel of Saigon, a fortress that
was manned by 1,000 Nguyễn dynasty soldiers, en route to conquering
Saigon and other regions of southern Vietnam.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_of_Saigon>
1904:
Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly (Geraldine
Farrar in the title role pictured) premiered at La Scala in Milan,
generating negative reviews that forced him to rewrite the opera.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madama_Butterfly>
1974:
A U.S. Army soldier stole a Bell UH-1 helicopter and landed it
on the White House South Lawn.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_White_House_helicopter_incident>
2006:
A massive landslide in the Philippine province of Southern
Leyte killed over 1,000 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Southern_Leyte_mudslide>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
hobbyist:
A person who is interested in an activity or a subject as a hobby.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hobbyist>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Nature is not merely present, but is implanted within things,
distant from none; naught is distant from her except the false, and that
which existed never and nowhere — nullity. And while the outer face of
things changeth so greatly, there flourisheth the origin of being more
intimately within all things than they themselves. The fount of all
kinds, Mind, God, Being, One, Truth, Destiny, Reason, Order.
--Giordano Bruno
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno>
Pseudoryzomys is a rodent from south-central South America in the family
Cricetidae. Found in lowland palm savanna and thorn scrub habitats, it
is a medium-sized rat, weighing about 50 grams (1.8 oz). It has gray-
brown fur, long and narrow hindfeet with small membranes between the
toes, and a tail that is about as long as the head and body. Its
conservation status has been assessed as least concern, although almost
nothing is known of its diet or reproduction. Its closest living
relatives are the large semiaquatic rats Holochilus and Lundomys. These
three genera form an assemblage within the oryzomyine tribe, a diverse
group including over one hundred species, mainly in South America. This
tribe is part of the subfamily Sigmodontinae and family Cricetidae,
which include many more species, mainly from Eurasia and the Americas.
The species Pseudoryzomys simplex was first described in 1888 on the
basis of subfossil cave specimens from Brazil (as Hesperomys simplex).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoryzomys>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1862:
American Civil War: A Union victory in the Battle of Fort
Donelson gave General Ulysses S. Grant the nickname "Unconditional
Surrender".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Donelson>
1923:
Howard Carter, the English Egyptologist and archaeologist,
unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun (mask pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun>
1983:
The Ash Wednesday bushfires burned over half a million acres
(over 2,000 km2) each in both South Australia and Victoria, killing 75
people and injuring 2,676 others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_bushfires>
1996:
Two trains collided in Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S., killing
11 people and leading to the creation of comprehensive federal rules for
passenger car design.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Maryland_train_collision>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
deglutition:
(physiology) The act or process of swallowing.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deglutition>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Boys never see a conclusion; only on the edge of the grave can
man conclude anything; but the first impulse given to the boy is apt to
lead or drive him for the rest of his life into conclusion after
conclusion that he never dreamed of reaching.
--Henry Adams
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Adams>
No Way Out (2004) was an American professional wrestling pay-per-view
event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), held on February
15 at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California. Sponsored by THQ, it was
the sixth event produced under the No Way Out name and starred wrestlers
from the SmackDown! brand. In the main event, Eddie Guerrero (pictured)
defeated WWE Champion Brock Lesnar to win the title, his sole world
championship before his death in 2005. In the undercard, Kurt Angle
defeated Big Show and John Cena in a Triple Threat match to earn a title
match for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XX. In a separate
storyline, Chavo Guerrero Jr. defeated Rey Mysterio. No Way Out grossed
more than $450,000 in ticket sales from an attendance of approximately
11,000 and received 350,000 pay-per-view buys, contributing to WWE's
increased pay-per-view revenue for the year. The event and its DVD
received favorable reviews.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Way_Out_%282004%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1949:
Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux began excavations
at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves in the West Bank, the location of the
first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qumran_Caves>
1979:
Don Dunstan resigned as Premier of South Australia, ending a
decade of sweeping social liberalisation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Dunstan>
1999:
Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the militant
organization the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was arrested by Turkish
security forces in Nairobi, Kenya.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan>
2010:
Two passenger trains collided in Halle, Belgium, when one
driver failed to stop at a red signal, resulting in 19 deaths and 171
injuries.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halle_train_collision>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
meet cute:
(intransitive, informal) Of characters in a story or people in real
life: to meet each other in an adorable, amusing, or cute way.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/meet_cute>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
What I like best is the kind of complicated messed up truth, you
know … the one that's so imperfect that you know it's true.
--Miranda July
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miranda_July>
Chains of Love is an American dating game show that aired for six
episodes in April and May 2001 on the United Paramount Network (UPN).
Adapted from a Dutch television series, it presents a man or woman who
is chained to four members of the opposite sex over four days and
nights. This person, identified as the Picker, is given $10,000 and can
remove three contestants one at a time. The Picker can give a portion of
the money to each eliminated participant. When left with a single
partner, the Picker can choose to either split the money or keep it.
Madison Michele (pictured) hosted each episode. Originally ordered by
NBC, it was produced by UPN as part of a campaign to run more unscripted
programming to boost the network's ratings. Media outlets have
identified Chains of Love as part of a renaissance in reality
television. The show's premise divided television critics, who compared
it in structure and tone to Blind Date and The Dating Game.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chains_of_Love_%28TV_series%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1852:
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, the first
hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for
children, was founded in London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ormond_Street_Hospital>
1924:
The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was renamed to
International Business Machines, which grew into one of the world's
largest companies by market capitalization.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM>
1979:
Adolph Dubs, United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, was
kidnapped by unknown agents and killed during a gun battle between
Afghan police and the perpetrators.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Dubs>
1989:
A fatwa was issued for the execution of Salman Rushdie for
authoring The Satanic Verses, a novel Islamic fundamentalists considered
blasphemous.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
love interest:
1. Especially of a character in film or literature: one who is of
interest as a (potential) partner in love.
2. A romantic relationship; a romance.
3. (film, literature, specifically) A romantic plot or subplot in a film
or book.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/love_interest>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain, But lust's effect is
tempest after sun; Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done; Love surfeits not,; lust
like a glutton dies, Love is all truth; lust full of forged lies.
--William Shakespeare
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare>