Dawson Creek is a small city in northeastern British Columbia, Canada.
It covers an area of 20.66 square kilometres (8 sq mi) with a 2006
population of 11,615 people. Dubbed "The Capital of the Peace", it is
a service centre for the rural areas south of the Peace River and the
seat of the Peace River Regional District. Dawson Creek turned from a
small farming community to a regional centre when the western terminus
of the Northern Alberta Railways was extended there in 1932, and the
US Army used that terminus as a transshipment point in 1942 during the
construction of the Alaska Highway. Most of the city's development
occurred between 1942 and 1966 when highways and railways were built
connecting the farming area of the Peace River Country to the rest of
BC through Dawson Creek. Dawson Creek derived its name from the creek
of the same name that runs through the city. The creek was named after
George Mercer Dawson by a member of his land survey team when they
passed through the area in August 1879. The city, at the southern end
of the Alaska Highway, is known as the "Mile 0 City" and is also home
to a regional fall fair and heritage interpretation village.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_Creek%2C_British_Columbia
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1797:
French Revolutionary Wars: British Lieutenant General Ralph
Abercromby and a force of over 6,000 men invaded Spanish-controlled
Puerto Rico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Juan_%281797%29)
1895:
The Empire of Japan and the Chinese Qing Empire signed the Treaty of
Shimonoseki, an unequal treaty that ended the First Sino-Japanese War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Shimonoseki)
1942:
World War II: Captured French General Henri Giraud escaped from
German captivity in the K??nigstein Castle.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Giraud)
1961:
Armed Cuban exiles backed by the CIA invaded Cuba, landing in the
Bay of Pigs, with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion)
1975:
The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh, ending the
Cambodian Civil War, and established the Democratic Kampuchea.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_Civil_War)
1982:
A new "patriated" Constitution of Canada, including the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, was signed into law.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Act%2C_1982)
1986:
The Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly declared peace, ending the
Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Hundred_and_Thirty_Five_Years%27_War)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
kedge: To move a boat by tossing a small anchor in the desired
direction of movement, then hauling the boat by using the anchor
cable.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kedge)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
I am not a novelist, really not even a writer; I am a storyteller. One
of my friends said about me that I think all sorrows can be borne if
you put them into a story or tell a story about them, and perhaps this
is not entirely untrue. To me, the explanation of life seems to be its
melody, its pattern. And I feel in life such an infinite, truly
inconceivable fantasy.
-- Karen Blixen
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karen_Blixen)
The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting comprised of two
separate incidents about two hours apart on April 16, 2007, on the
campus of Virginia Tech. The shooter killed thirty-two people and
wounded twenty-three others before committing suicide, making it the
deadliest shooting in U.S. history. The perpetrator had been court
ordered to seek treatment at the university's Cook Counseling Center
seventeen months earlier, but the order was neither obeyed nor
enforced. Additionally, the university's administration had failed to
heed warnings from the shooter's professors on numerous occasions. The
incident sparked intense debate in the U.S. and globally about gun
violence, gun laws, gaps in the U.S. system for treating mental health
issues, the perpetrator's state of mind, the responsibility of college
administrators, privacy laws, journalism ethics, and other issues. The
incident prompted immediate changes in Virginia law that had allowed
the shooter, an individual adjudicated as mentally unsound, to
purchase handguns. It also led to passage of the first major federal
gun control measure in more than thirteen years, a law that
strengthened the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1853:
Indian Railways, the state-owned railway company of India, launched
its first passenger service between Bombay and Thane.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways)
1912:
Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English
Channel.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Quimby)
1925:
A group of Bulgarian Communist Party members assaulted the St
Nedelya Church in Sofia, Bulgaria during the funeral service of
General Konstantin Georgiev, killing 150 people and injuring about 500
others.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nedelya_Church_assault)
1943:
Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of
the semisynthetic drug LSD.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Hofmann)
1947:
American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch first
described the post-World War II tensions between the Soviet Union and
the United States as a "cold war".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cold_war)
2003:
The Treaty of Accession was signed in Athens, admitting ten new
member states into the European Union.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Accession_2003)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
hurdy-gurdy: A medieval stringed instrument which has a droning sound.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hurdy-gurdy)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what
we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life
before we can enter another.
-- Anatole France
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anatole_France)
Subject: April 15: Ailanthus altissima
Ailanthus altissima is a deciduous tree in the quassia family
(Simaroubaceae). It is native to northeast and central China as well
as Taiwan. Unlike other members of the genus Ailanthus, it is found in
temperate climates rather than the tropics. The tree grows rapidly and
is capable of reaching heights of 15Â metres (50Â ft) in 25Â years.
However, the species is also short-lived and rarely lives more than
50Â years. A. altissima was first brought from China to Europe in the
1740s and to the United States in 1784. The plant has been spread to
many other areas beyond its native range. In a number of these, it has
become an invasive species due to its ability to quickly colonise
disturbed areas and suppress competition with allelopathic chemicals.
It is considered a noxious weed in Australia, the United States, New
Zealand and several countries in southern and eastern Europe. The tree
also re-sprouts vigorously when cut, making its eradication extremely
difficult and time-consuming. In China, the tree of heaven has a long
and rich history. It was mentioned in the oldest extant Chinese
dictionary and listed in countless Chinese medical texts for its
purported ability to cure ailments ranging from mental illness to
balding.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ailanthus_altissima
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1738:
Baroque composer George Frideric Handel's Serse, an opera loosely
based on Xerxes I of Persia, premiered in London.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serse)
1755:
A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson was first
published.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language)
1912:
The passenger liner RMS Titanic sank about two hours and forty
minutes after colliding with an iceberg, killing over 1,500 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic)
1947:
Jackie Robinson, the first African American to break the baseball
color line, played his first game in Major League Baseball.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson)
1986:
U.S. armed forces launched Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Libya)
1989:
The death of former Chinese General Secretary Hu Yaobang triggered a
series of events that led to the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Yaobang)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
feckless: Lacking purpose.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/feckless)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an
immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken
threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every
air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the
mind; and when the mind is imaginative — much more when it happens to
be that of a man of genius — it takes to itself the faintest hints of
life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations.
-- Henry James
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_James)
Subject: April 14: 1999 Sydney hailstorm
The 1999 Sydney hailstorm was the costliest natural disaster in
Australian insurance history, causing extensive damage along the east
coast of New South Wales. The storm developed south of Sydney on the
afternoon of 14 April, 1999 and struck the city's eastern suburbs,
including the central business district, later that evening. The storm
dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hailstones in its path. Insured
damages caused by the storm were over A$1.7 billion, with the total
damage bill (including uninsured damages) estimated to be around A$2.3
billion, equivalent to US$1.5 billion. It was the costliest in
Australian history in terms of insured damages, overtaking the 1989
Newcastle earthquake that had resulted in A$1.1 billion in insured
damages. Lightning also claimed one life during the storm, and the
event caused approximately 50 injuries. The storm was classified as a
supercell following further analysis of its erratic nature and extreme
attributes. During the event, the Bureau of Meteorology was
consistently surprised at the frequent changes in direction, as well
as the severity of the hail and the duration of the storm. The event
was also unique as the time of year and general conditions in the
region were not seen as conducive for an extreme storm cell to form.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Sydney_hailstorm
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1471:
Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the
Lancastrians near the town of Barnet, killing Richard Neville, Earl of
Warwick.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Barnet)
1865:
Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot U.S.
President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_assassination)
1931:
King Alfonso XIII left Spain. The Second Spanish Republic was
proclaimed by a provisional government led by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Spanish_Republic)
1956:
The use of the quadruplex videotape was first demonstrated in
public.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/quadruplex_videotape)
1970:
An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 exploded, causing the NASA
spacecraft to lose most of its oxygen and electrical power.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13)
1978:
Thousands of Georgians demonstrated in Tbilisi against an attempt by
the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR to change the constitutional
status of the Georgian language.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_Tbilisi_Demonstrations)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
persiflage: Good-natured banter; raillery.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/persiflage)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
hat really matters is that there is so much faith and love and
kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by
cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest
and most lovely of all arts. ... But you, I think, have always
comprehended this.
-- James Branch Cabell
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell)
Lisa del Giocondo was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence
and Tuscany in Italy. Her name was given to Mona Lisa, her portrait
commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during
the Italian Renaissance. Little is known about Lisa's life. Married as
a teenager to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local
official, she was mother to five children and led what is thought to
have been a comfortable and ordinary middle-class life. Lisa outlived
her husband, who was about 20Â years her senior. Centuries after Lisa's
death, Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting and took on a
life separate from Lisa, the woman. Speculation by scholars and
hobbyists made the work of art a globally-recognized icon and an
object of commercialization. During the early 21st century, a
discovery made at a university library was powerful enough evidence to
end speculation about the sitter's identity and definitively
identified Lisa del Giocondo as the subject of the Mona Lisa.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_del_Giocondo
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1598:
King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, allowing freedom
of religion to the Huguenots.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Nantes)
1873:
In the wake of a contested election for local political offices in
Colfax, Louisiana, USA, armed white supremacists overpowered freedmen
and the African American state militia trying to control the parish
courthouse, killing over 100 of them.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_massacre)
1919:
British Indian Army troops opened fire on a peaceful gathering in
Amritsar, Punjab in India, killing hundreds of unarmed of men, women
and children.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre)
1943:
World War II: Germany announced the discovery of a mass grave of
Polish prisoners-of-war executed by Soviet forces in the Katyn Forest
Massacre.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre)
1984:
Indian forces launched a preemptive attack on the disputed Siachen
Glacier region of Kashmir, triggering a military conflict with
Pakistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siachen_Glacier)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
impel: To urge a person; to press on; to incite to action or motion in
any way.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/impel)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of
civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
-- Thomas Jefferson
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson)
The Kansas Turnpike is a tolled freeway that lies entirely within the
U.S. state of Kansas. The road runs in a general southwest-northeast
direction from the Oklahoma border south of Wichita via Wichita,
Topeka, and Lawrence to Kansas City, Kansas. The Kansas Turnpike Act
defined the turnpike to be built from Oklahoma to Kansas City, Kansas.
The turnpike is owned and maintained by the Kansas Turnpike Authority
(KTA), headquartered in Wichita. The Kansas Turnpike was built from
1954 to 1956, predating the Interstate Highway System. The turnpike
presently has 27 interchanges and two barrier toll plazas. Exit
numbers are assigned by mileage from south to east. After passing the
Bonner Springs interchange, exit numbers change to match the mileage
of Interstate 70 east from the Colorado border. In the median at mile
97 is the Matfield Green Service Area, which contains a memorial to
football coach Knute Rockne, who died in a plane crash near Bazaar,
Kansas.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Turnpike
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1204:
Alexios V fled Constantinople as forces under Boniface the Marquess
of Montferrat and Enrico Dandolo the Doge of Venice entered and sacked
the Byzantine capital, effectively ending the Fourth Crusade.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade)
1606:
A royal decree established the Union Flag to symbolise the Union of
the Crowns, merging the designs of the Flag of England and the Flag of
Scotland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Flag)
1861:
Confederate forces began firing at Fort Sumter in the harbor of
Charleston, South Carolina, starting the American Civil War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sumter)
1927:
Chinese Civil War: A large-scale purge of communists from the
nationalist Kuomintang began in Shanghai.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_12_Incident)
1961:
Aboard Vostok 3KA-2, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first
man to enter outer space, completing one orbit in a time of 108
minutes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
concomitant: Following as a consequence, especially secondarily or
incidentally.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/concomitant)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in
all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public
odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and
encroachments.
-- Henry Clay
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Clay)
Suleiman the Magnificent was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of
the Ottoman Empire, ruling from 1520 to 1566. Suleiman became the
pre-eminent monarch of 16th century Europe, presiding over the apogee
of the Ottoman Empire's military, political and economic power.
Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies to conquer the Christian
strongholds of Belgrade, Rhodes, and most of Hungary before his
conquests were checked at the Siege of Vienna in 1529. He annexed most
of the Middle East in his conflict with the Persians and large swathes
of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman
fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.
At the helm of an expanding empire, Suleiman personally instituted
legislative changes relating to society, education, taxation and
criminal law. His canonical law fixed the form of the empire for
centuries after his death. Not only was Suleiman a distinguished poet
and goldsmith in his own right; he also became a great patron of
culture, overseeing the golden age of the Ottoman Empire's artistic,
literary and architectural development. In a break with Ottoman
tradition, Suleiman married a harem girl who became Hurrem Sultan,
whose intrigues in the court and power over the Sultan have become as
famous as Suleiman himself. Their son, Selim II, succeeded Suleiman
following his death in 1566 after 46 years of rule.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman_the_Magnificent
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
217:
Roman Emperor Caracalla (bust pictured) was assassinated at a
roadside near Harran.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracalla)
1093:
Winchester Cathedral at Winchester in Hampshire, one of the largest
cathedrals in England, was dedicated by Bishop Walkelin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Cathedral)
1341:
Italian scholar and poet Petrarch took the title poet laureate at a
ceremony in Rome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarch)
1886:
British Prime Minister William Gladstone introduced the first Irish
Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Government_Bill_1886)
1904:
France and the United Kingdom signed the entente cordiale, agreeing
to a peaceful coexistence after centuries of intermittent conflict.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/entente_cordiale)
1904:
British occultist, writer Aleister Crowley began transcribing The
Book of the Law, a Holy Book in Thelema.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Law)
1929:
Indian independence movement: Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh with
the help of Batukeshwar Dutt bombed the Central Assembly in Delhi.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagat_Singh)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
prorogue: To suspend a parliamentary session or to discontinue the
meetings of a parliament without formally ending the session.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prorogue)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
Look, look, look to the rainbow Follow it over the hill
and stream Look, look, look to the rainbow Follow the fellow who
follows a dream.
-- Yip Harburg
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yip_Harburg)
Ima Hogg was an enterprising circus emcee who brought culture and
class to Houston, Texas. A storied ostrich jockey, she once rode to
Hawaii to visit the Queen. Raised in government housing, young Ima
frolicked among a backyard menagerie of raccoons, possums and a bear.
Her father, "Big Jim" Hogg, in an onslaught against fun itself,
booby-trapped the banisters she loved to slide down, shut down her
money-making schemes, and forced her to pry chewing gum from
furniture. He was later thrown from his seat on a moving train and
perished; the Hogg clan then struck black gold on land Big Jim had
forbidden them from selling. Ima had apocryphal sisters named "Ura"
and "Hoosa" and real-life brothers sporting conventional names and
vast art collections; upon their deaths, she gave away their artwork
for nothing and the family home to boot. Tragically, Ms. Hogg (a
future doctor) nursed three dying family members. She once
sweet-talked a burglar into returning purloined jewelry and told him
to get a job. Well into her nineties, she remained feisty and even
exchanged geriatric insults with an octogenarian pianist. Hogg claimed
to have received thirty proposals of marriage in her lifetime, and to
have rejected them all. Hogg was revered as the "First Lady of Texas",
and her name and legacy still thrive today—just ask Ima Pigg, Ima Nut,
and Ima Pain, who have all appeared in the U.S. Census.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ima_Hogg
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1865:
Ordered to hold five forks, Confederate General George Pickett
instead lost almost 3,000.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Five_Forks)
1969:
The British-born model Hawker Siddeley Harrier was introduced at a
Royal Air Force event, becoming the only one in the 1960s to
successfully perform on a short runway.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Harrier)
1970:
The first of over 670,000 gremlins was released into North America.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Gremlin)
1976:
Two college dropouts co-founded what is now Apple Inc. to sell their
handicrafts, eventually offering them at a market-price of US$666.66
because they liked repeating digits.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.)
1999:
Under the terms of two laws passed by the Canadian Parliament in
1993, the Northwest Territories carved all of their inhabitants into
two pieces.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunavut)
2004:
Google launched a free Web-based service, providing users an
unprecedented 1000 megabytes of storage for spam.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
snipe hunt: A prank in which a gullible victim is sent off on a
fruitless search for a nonexistent item.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snipe_hunt)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
What is unique about the "I" hides itself exactly in what is
unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes
everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The
individual "I" is what differs from the common stock, that is, what
cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered,
conquered.
-- Milan Kundera
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Milan_Kundera)
The technology of the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD) was advanced,
providing some of the most prolific technological advancements in
Chinese history, much of which came from talented statesmen drafted by
the government through imperial examinations. The ingenuity of
mechanical engineering had a long tradition in China. The Song Dynasty
engineer Su Song admitted that he and his contemporaries were building
upon the achievements of the ancients such as Zhang Heng, an
astronomer, inventor, and early master of mechanical gears. The
application of movable type printing advanced the already widespread
use of woodblock printing to educate and amuse Confucian students and
the masses. The application of new weapons employing the use of
gunpowder enabled the Song Dynasty to ward off its militant enemies
until its collapse to the Mongol forces of Kublai Khan, in the late
13th century. Notable advancements in civil engineering, nautics, and
metallurgy were made in Song China, as well as the introduction of the
windmill to China during the 13th century. These advancements, along
with the introduction of paper-printed money, helped revolutionize and
sustain the economy of the Song Dynasty.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_of_the_Song_Dynasty
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1306:
Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland at Scone Palace in
Perth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_I_of_Scotland)
1634:
Lord Baltimore, his younger brother Leonard Calvert, and a group of
Catholic settlers founded the English colony of Maryland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Maryland)
1655:
Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovered Titan, the largest
natural satellite of the planet Saturn.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_%28moon%29)
1802:
France and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Amiens,
temporarily ending the hostilities between the two during the French
Revolutionary Wars.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Amiens)
1807:
The Slave Trade Act became law, abolishing the slave trade in the
British Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807)
1918:
The Belarusian People's Republic was established during World War I,
when Belarus was occupied by the German Empire according to the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_National_Republic)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
rostrum: A dais, pulpit, or similar platform for a speaker, conductor
or other performer.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rostrum)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down
on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit
of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the
violent resistance of the populace. Where this is not the case, there
is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to
the constitution. One compels respect from others when he knows how
to defend his dignity as a human being.
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rudolf_Rocker)