"North by North Quahog" is the first episode of season four of Family
Guy, following the revival of the series three years after its
cancellation in 2002. Directed by Peter Shin and written by series
creator Seth MacFarlane, the episode was first broadcast on May 1,
2005, on FOX. In "North by North Quahog", the show's main characters
Peter and Lois Griffin go on a second honeymoon to spice up their
marriage, but are eventually chased by Mel Gibson after Peter steals
the sequel to The Passion of the Christ from Gibson's private hotel
room. Meanwhile, their anthropomorphic dog Brian and their infant son
Stewie take care of their teenage kids Chris and Meg. Family Guy had
been canceled in 2002 due to low ratings, but was revived by FOX after
reruns on Adult Swim became the network's most watched program, and
more than three million DVDs of the show were sold. Much of the plot
and many of the technical aspects of the episode, as well as the title,
are direct parodies of the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock movie North by
Northwest. The episode was watched by 12Â million viewers and received a
Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Animated Program (for
Programming Less Than One Hour).
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_North_Quahog>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
454:
Roman Emperor Valentinian III killed Aetius in Ravenna.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavius_Aetius>
1792:
French Revolution: The National Convention voted to abolish the
monarchy, and proclaimed the First Republic.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Convention>
1898:
The Hundred Days' Reform in China was abruptly terminated when Empress
Dowager Cixi forced the reform-minded Guangxu Emperor into seclusion
and took over the government as regent.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days%27_Reform>
1937:
J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, a predecessor to The Lord of the Rings,
was first published.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit>
1939:
Romanian Prime Minister Armand Călinescu was assassinated in Bucharest
by pro-Nazi members of the Iron Guard.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_C%C4%83linescu>
1999:
A 7.6 Mw earthquake struck Jiji, Nantou County, Taiwan, killing 2,416
people, injuring over 11,000 others and causing about NT$300Â billion in
damage.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/921_earthquake>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
uraeus (n):
A representation of the sacred asp, symbolising supreme power in
ancient Egypt
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/uraeus>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
''I'm guided by a signal in the heavens,
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of
our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
--Leonard Cohen
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen>
The Economy of the Han Dynasty of ancient China reflects a period of
fluctuation between periods of economic prosperity and decline. Major
features of the Han economy were population growth, increasing
urbanization, unprecedented growth of industry and trade and government
experimentation with nationalization. In this era, the levels of
minting and circulation of coin currency grew significantly, forming
the foundation of a stable monetary system. The Silk Road facilitated
the establishment of trade and tributary exchanges with foreign
countries across Eurasia, many of which were previously unknown to the
people of ancient China. The imperial capitals of both Western-Han
(Chang'an), and of Eastern-Han (Luoyang), were among the largest cities
in the world at the time, in both population and area. Here, government
workshops manufactured furnishings for the palaces of the emperor and
produced goods for the common people. The government oversaw the
construction of roads and bridges, which facilitated official
government business and encouraged commercial growth. Under Han rule,
industrialists, wholesalers and merchants—from minor shopkeepers to
wealthy businessmen—could engage in a wide range of enterprises and
trade in the domestic, public, and even military spheres.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Han_Dynasty>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1356:
Hundred Years' War: English forces led by Edward the Black Prince
decisively won the Battle of Poitiers and captured King Jean II of
France.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poitiers_%281356%29>
1796:
George Washington's Farewell Address was published in many American
newspapers, warning citizens, among others, about the dangers of
political factionalism and to avoid permanent alliances with other
foreign powers.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewell_Address>
1893:
New Zealand became the first country to introduce universal suffrage,
following the women's suffrage movement led by Kate Sheppard.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_New_Zealand>
1944:
Finland and the Soviet Union signed the Moscow Armistice to end the
Continuation War.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War>
1985:
An 8.1Â ML earthquake struck Mexico City, killing at least nine thousand
people and leaving up to 100,000 homeless.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Mexico_City_earthquake>
1995:
The Manifesto of "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski was published in The
Washington Post and The New York Times, almost three months after it
was submitted.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
crocodile tears (n):
(idiomatic) A display of tears that is forced or false
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/crocodile_tears>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Basically I'm an optimist. Intellectually I can see man's balance is
about fifty-fifty, and his chances of blowing himself up are about one
to one. I can't see this any way but intellectually. I'm just
emotionally unable to believe that he will do this. This means that I
am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist, I
suppose.
--William Golding
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Golding>
Samuel Johnson's early life was marked by great intelligence and an
eagerness for learning. Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, the sickly
infant who grew up to become "arguably the most distinguished man of
letters in English history", soon began to exhibit the tics that would
colour how others viewed him in his later years. His early life was
dominated by his family's financial strain and his abortive efforts to
establish himself as a school teacher. Johnson spent a year studying at
Pembroke College, Oxford, but was unable to continue his education
there because of his lack of financial support. He tried to find
employment as a teacher, but found it impossible to secure a long-term
position. In 1735 he married Elizabeth "Tetty" Porter, a widow 20Â years
his senior. The responsibilities of marriage made Johnson determined to
succeed as an educator, and encouraged him to establish his own school.
The venture was unsuccessful however, and so he decided to leave his
wife behind in Lichfield and move to London, where he spent the rest of
his life, and where his literary career began. Working initially as a
minor Grub Street hack writer, he started to write essays for The
Gentleman's Magazine, and authored the Life of Mr Richard Savage—his
first successful literary biography—the powerful poem London, an
18th-century version of Juvenal's Third Satire, and the unsuccessful
tragic drama Irene, not produced until 1749.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson%27s_early_life>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
96:
Following the assassination of Roman Emperor Domitian, the Roman Senate
appointed Nerva , the first of the Five Good Emperors, to succeed him.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerva>
324:
Constantine the Great decisively defeated Licinius in the Battle of
Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman
Empire, and ultimately leading to the conversion of the whole empire to
Christianity.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chrysopolis>
1809:
The second theatre of the Royal Opera House in London opened after a
fire destroyed the original theatre one year earlier.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Opera_House>
1931:
The Mukden Incident: A section of the Japanese-built South Manchuria
Railway was destroyed, providing an excuse for the Japanese to blame
the act on Chinese dissidents, and thus giving a pretext for the
Japanese occupation of Manchuria.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident>
1998:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a
non-profit organization that manages the assignment of domain names and
IP addresses in the Internet, was established.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
proselytize (v):
1. To encourage or induce people to join a religious movement,
political party or other cause or organization.
2. To convert (someone) to one’s own faith or beliefs
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proselytize>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is
but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
--Samuel Johnson
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson>
Harbhajan Singh (born 1980) is an Indian cricketer. A specialist
bowler, he has the second-highest number of Test wickets by an off
spinner behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan. Harbhajan made his
Test and One Day International debuts in early 1998. His career was
initially beset by investigations into the legality of his bowling
action and disciplinary incidents that raised the ire of cricket
authorities. However in 2001, with leading leg spinner Anil Kumble
injured, Harbhajan's career was resuscitated after Indian captain
Sourav Ganguly called for his inclusion in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy
team. In that series victory over Australia, Harbhajan established
himself as the team's leading spinner by taking 32 wickets, becoming
the first Indian bowler to take a hat trick in Test cricket. Throughout
2006 and into early 2007, Harbhajan's accumulation of wickets fell and
his bowling average increased, and he was increasingly criticised for
bowling defensively with less loop. In early 2008, he was given a ban
by the International Cricket Council for racially vilifying Andrew
Symonds. The ban was revoked upon appeal, but in April, Harbhajan was
banned from the 2008 Indian Premier League and suspended from the ODI
team by the Board of Control for Cricket in India for slapping
Sreesanth after a match.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbhajan_Singh>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1176:
Byzantine–Seljuk wars: The Seljuk Turks prevented the Byzantines from
taking the interior of Anatolia at the Battle of Myriokephalon in
Phrygia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Myriokephalon>
1787:
The text of the United States Constitution was finalized at the
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution>
1859:
Disgruntled with the legal and political structures of the United
States, Joshua Norton distributed letters to various newspapers in San
Francisco, proclaiming himself Emperor Norton.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton>
1939:
World War II: The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen
days after Nazi Germany's attack on that country from the west.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland_%281939%29>
1978:
President Anwar Al Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of
Israel (pictured with U.S. President Jimmy Carter) signed the Camp
David Accords after twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
idiosyncrasy (n):
1. A behavior or way of thinking that is characteristic of a person.
2. A language or behaviour that is particular to an individual or
group.
3. A peculiarity that serves to distinguish or identify
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/idiosyncrasy>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The real crazies who are looking for a messiah... after an hour or so
they realise I'm not it and go off and look somewhere else.
--Ken Kesey
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey>
A quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of
matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the
best-known of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic
nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are
never found in isolation; they can only be found within hadrons. For
this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from
observations of the hadrons themselves. There are six different types
of quarks, known as flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.
Up and down quarks are generally stable and the most common in the
universe, whereas charm, strange, top, and bottom quarks can only be
produced in high energy collisions (such as those involving cosmic rays
and in particle accelerators). Quarks are the only elementary particles
in the Standard Model of particle physics to experience all four
fundamental interactions.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1830:
During the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway , one of the
world's first intercity passenger railways in which all the trains were
timetabled and operated for most of the distance solely by steam
locomotives, British Member of Parliament William Huskisson was struck
and killed by the locomotive engine Rocket.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_and_Manchester_Railway>
1831:
The John Bull, currently the oldest operable steam locomotive in the
world, ran for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy
Railroad.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull_%28locomotive%29>
1835:
During the second voyage of HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin reached the
Galápagos Islands, where he further developed his theories of
evolution.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_Islands>
1935:
Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German Jews of
citizenship, and adopted a new national flag emblazoned with a
swastika.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws>
2008:
The financial crisis of 2007–2009: The global financial-services firm
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy while holding over US$600 billion
in assets, the largest such filing in U.S. history.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_of_Lehman_Brothers>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
wherewithal (n):
The ability and the financial means required to accomplish some task
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wherewithal>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those
of others.
--François de La Rochefoucauld
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_de_La_Rochefoucauld>
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, located in the Haymarket,
in the City of Westminster. The present building was designed by
Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert
Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the
theatre. In the early decades of the 20th century, Tree produced
spectacular productions of Shakespeare and other classical works, and
the theatre hosted premières by major playwrights such as George
Bernard Shaw, J. M. Synge, Noel Coward and J. B. Priestley. Since World
War I, the wide flat stage has made the theatre suitable for
large-scale musical productions, and the theatre has specialised in
hosting musicals. The theatre has been home to record-setting musical
theatre runs, notably the World War I sensation Chu Chin Chow and the
current production, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera,
which has played continuously at Her Majesty's since 1986. The
theatre's capacity is 1,216Â seats, and the building was Grade II*
listed by English Heritage in January 1970. Really Useful Group
Theatres has owned the theatre since 2000.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_Majesty%27s_Theatre>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1759:
Although General James Wolfe was fatally wounded at the Battle of the
Plains of Abraham near Quebec City, New France , his British forces
defeated the French in a decisive battle in the French and Indian War.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Plains_of_Abraham>
1814:
War of 1812: Fort McHenry was attacked by British forces during the
Battle of Baltimore, later inspiring Francis Scott Key to write "The
Star-Spangled Banner," which later became the national anthem of the
United States.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baltimore>
1848:
American railroad worker Phineas Gage survived an accident in which a
large iron rod was driven completely through his head and destroyed
areas of his brain's frontal lobes.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage>
1987:
A radioactive item was scavenged from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia,
Brazil, resulting in four deaths and serious contamination in 249
others.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident>
1993:
After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, PLO leader Yasser Arafat
and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin formally signed the Oslo Peace
Accords.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
corkscrew (v):
To wind or twist in the path of a corkscrew; to move with much
horizontal and vertical shifting
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/corkscrew>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you
because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely
places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
--Roald Dahl
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl>