Adoption in Rome was a fairly common procedure, particularly in the
upper senatorial class. The need for a male heir and the expense of
raising children were strong incentives to have at least one son, but
not too many children. Adoption, the obvious solution, also served to
cement ties between the two families, thus fostering and reinforcing
alliances. In the Imperial period, the system also acted as a
mechanism for ensuring a smooth succession, the emperor taking his
chosen successor as his adopted son.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption_in_Rome
Today's selected anniversaries:
61 BC In Rome, Pompey the Great celebrated triumphs over pirates
in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and in the war against
king Mithridates VI of Pontus in Asia Minor, with enormous
parades of spoils, prisoners, army and banners depicting
battle scenes. It was also his 45th birthday.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompey)
1829 The first official police force in the world, the
Metropolitan Police of London, also known as the Met or
Scotland Yard, was founded by Sir Robert Peel.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Police_Service)
1941 In Kiev, Ukraine, the Babi Yar massacre began.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar)
1972 Sino-Japanese relations: Japan established diplomatic
relations with the People's Republic of China, breaking
official ties with the Republic of China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Communique_of_the_Government_of_Japan_an…)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important
to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it.
But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise
it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the
world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and
respect." ~ Hermann Hesse
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse)
A split infinitive is a phenomenon of the English language when an
adverb or adverbial phrase is inserted between "to" and a verb in its
infinitive form. One famous example is from the science fiction
series Star Trek: "To boldly go where no man has gone before." Here,
the infinitive verb form of "go" is "to go", and the adverb "boldly"
has been inserted, creating a split infinitive. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, some grammatical authorities argued that split
infinitives should not be allowed in English, by an analogy with
Latin, where they are usually impossible. Most authorities from the
last 100 years, however, agree that this rule was mistaken, and
indeed that splitting an infinitive can sometimes reduce ambiguity.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive
Today's selected anniversaries:
1066 William the Conqueror and his invasion fleet of around 600
ships and an army of 7000 reached England and landed at
Pevensey, Sussex.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror)
1542 Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first
European to travel the California coast, landed on what is
now San Diego.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rodriguez_Cabrillo)
1820 The tomato was publicly proved safe when Robert Johnson ate
a bushel of tomatoes outside a courthouse in Salem,
Massachusetts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tomato)
1994 The M/S Estonia, a ferry commuting between Tallinn, Estonia
and Stockholm, Sweden, sank. 852 people drowned or were
frozen to death in the cold water in one of the worst
maritime accidents on the Baltic Sea.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M/S_Estonia)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Those who think they know it all are very annoying to those of us
who do." ~ Anonymous
Yesterday is the name of a song written by Paul McCartney, originally
recorded by The Beatles for their album Help! in 1965. "Yesterday"
was the first official recording by the group which relied upon a
performance by a single member of the band, although the background
accompaniment of a string quartet was added a few days later during
the editing stage. It is a ballad about unrequited love, and differed
greatly from other works by the Beatles, leading the other three
members of the band to veto the song's release as a single in the
United Kingdom. Although solely written by McCartney, due to his
contract with the Beatles the song was credited to both him and John
Lennon as "Lennon/McCartney". According to the Guinness Book of
Records, "Yesterday" has the most cover versions (over three
thousand) of any song yet produced. BMI asserts that it was performed
over seven million times during the 20th century alone.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday_%28song%29
Today's selected anniversaries:
1540 Pope Paul III gave the final approval to the formation of
the Society of Jesus by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus)
1940 The Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by the major Axis
Powers — Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of
Japan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact)
1983 Richard Stallman announced the GNU project to develop a
free Unix-like operating system.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU)
1996 The Taliban drove President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of the
Afghan capital of Kabul, executed former President Mohammad
Najibullah, and established the Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban)
Wikiquote of the day:
"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to
make us love one another." ~ Jonathan Swift
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift)
A mixed-breed dog (also called a mutt or mongrel) is a dog that is a
mixture of two or more breeds. Mixed-breed dogs vary in size, shape,
and color, making them hard to classify physically, but some colors
are more common than others. With each generation of mixing, the
offspring move closer to the genetic norm. Dogs that are descended
from many generations of mixes are typically light brown or black and
weigh about 18 kg (40 lbs). The theory of hybrid vigor suggests that
dogs of mixed ancestry will be healthier than their purebred
counterparts. In some cases this might be true, because inbreeding
among purebreds has made some breeds prone to various genetic health
problems. Historically, dog shows and dog sports excluded mixed-breed
dogs from competition. While this tradition is changing, some sports
still remain open only to one breed of dog, such as greyhound racing.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed%2dbreed_dog
Today's selected anniversaries:
1687 The Parthenon in Athens was partially destroyed during an
armed conflict between Venetian and Ottoman forces.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon)
1907 New Zealand became a dominion within the British Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand)
1957 West Side Story, a musical written by Arthur Laurents,
Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and produced and
directed by Jerome Robbins, made its debut on Broadway.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Story)
1983 Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Union
averted a worldwide nuclear war.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it
from religious conviction." ~ Blaise Pascal
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal)
Du Fu was a Chinese poet during the Tang Dynasty. Along with Li Po,
he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His own
greatest ambition was to help his country by becoming a successful
civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary
accommodations. His life, like the country, was devastated by the An
Lushan Rebellion of 755, and the last 15 years of his life were a
time of almost constant unrest. Initially unpopular, his works came
to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese poetry. He has
been called "poet historian" and "poet sage" by Chinese critics,
while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to
Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare,
Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, B�ranger, Hugo or Baudelaire."
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu
Today's selected anniversaries:
1066 King Harold Godwinson of England and his army defeated a
Norwegian army under King Harald Hardr�de at the Battle of
Stamford Bridge outside the city of York, marking the end
of Viking invasions from Scandinavia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge)
1789 The Bill of Rights passed the United States Congress
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights)
1890 John Muir's vision succeeds: Yosemite National Park
established in California.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_National_Park)
2003 Magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck just offshore of Hokkaido,
Japan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes)
Wikiquote of the day:
"To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as
well as morals." ~ William Penn
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Penn)
The Ackermann function is an important example in mathematics of the
theory of computation. It is a recursive function which takes two
natural numbers as arguments and returns a natural number as its
value. In 1928, Wilhelm Ackermann considered a function A (m, n, p)
of three variables, the p-fold iterated exponentiation of m with n or
m → n → p in Conway's notation. He proved that it is a recursive
function which is not primitive recursive. This definition was later
simplified by Rozsa Peter and Raphael Robinson to the two-variable
definition given above. It grows extremely fast – this extreme growth
can be exploited to show that the computable function f (n) = A(n, n)
grows faster than any primitive recursive function and is therefore
not primitive recursive. Due to its definition in terms of extremely
deep recursion, it can be used as a benchmark of a compiler's ability
to optimize recursion.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackermann_function
Today's selected anniversaries:
1664 In the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Netherlands surrendered
to England a fortified settlement in the New Netherland
colony known as New Amsterdam, which would eventually
become New York City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Amsterdam)
1841 Sultan of Brunei granted Sarawak to British adventurer
James Brooke, who subsequently became the Rajah.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarawak)
1869 "Black Friday": Gold prices plummeted as a group of
speculators, headed by Jay Gould and James Fisk, plotted
but failed to control the market.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%281869%29)
1948 Soichiro Honda founded the Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and began
manufacturing motorcycles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Goodness alone is never enough. A hard cold wisdom is required,
too, for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom
invariably accomplishes evil." ~ Robert Heinlein in Stranger in a
Strange Land
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land)
A black hole is a theoretical concentration of mass with a
gravitational field so strong that its escape velocity exceeds the
speed of light. This implies that nothing, not even light, can escape
its gravity, hence the word "black." The term "black hole" is
widespread, even though the theory does not refer to any hole in the
usual sense. According to classical general relativity, no matter or
information can flow from the interior of a black hole to an outside
observer, although quantum mechanics may allow deviations from this
strict rule. The existence of black holes in the universe is well-
supported both theoretically and by astronomical observation;
however, a minority of physicists dissent.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
Today's selected anniversaries:
1459 - The Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the Wars
of the Roses, was fought at Blore Heath, in Staffordshire,
England. At least 3,000 men died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blore_Heath)
1846 - Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, was discovered by
French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, British
astronomer John Couch Adams and German astronomer Johann
Gottfried Galle.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune_%28planet%29)
1932 - Hejaz and Nejd were unified and became the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, with Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal Al Saud as
the first monarch and Riyadh as the capital city
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia)
Wikiquote of the day:
"At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity,
human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice
and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf
of religious or political idols." ~ Aldous Huxley
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley)
The history of Irish theatre begins with the rise of the English
administration in Dublin at the start of the 17th century. In the
early days of its history, theatrical productions in Ireland tended
to serve the political purposes of the administration, but as more
theatres opened and the popular audience grew, a more diverse range
of entertainments were staged. Many Dublin-based theatres developed
links with their London equivalents and performers and productions
from the English capital frequently found their way to the Irish
stage. However, most Irish playwrights from William Congreve to
George Bernard Shaw found it necessary to go abroad to establish
themselves. At the beginning of the 20th century, theatres and
theatre companies dedicated to the staging of Irish plays and the
development of indigenous writers, directors and performers began to
emerge. This allowed many of the most significant Irish dramatists
to learn their trade and establish their reputations at home rather
than in Britain or the United States.
Reah the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_theatre
Today's selected anniversaries:
1862 - The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by the Lincoln
administration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation)
1869 - Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold debuted in Munich.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Rheingold)
1961 - Peace Corps was founded. Within two years, over 7,300 Peace
Corps volunteers were serving in 44 countries.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Corps)
1980 - Iraq launched an invasion of Iran, starting the Iran-Iraq War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War)
1989 - Famed American composer Irving Berlin died in his sleep at age 101.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Berlin)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and
catastrophe." ~ H. G. Wells
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells)
The Coronation of the British monarch is a ceremony in which the
monarch is formally crowned and invested with regalia. The coronation
usually takes place several months after the death of the previous
monarch, for the coronation is considered a joyous occasion that
would be inappropriate when mourning still continues. For example,
Elizabeth II was crowned on 1953-06-02, having ascended to the throne
on 1952-02-06. The ceremony is officiated by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the most senior cleric of the Church of England. Many
other government officials and guests attend.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_the_British_monarch
Today's selected anniversaries:
1792 - French Revolution: The National Convention voted to abolish the
monarchy, and the First Republic was proclaimed.
(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 prequel to The Lord of the
Rings, was first published, with many black-and-white drawings
by Tolkien himself.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit)
2003 - After 14 years of flight time and 8 years of service in the
Jovian system, Galileo spacecraft's mission was terminated by
sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_spacecraft)
Wikiquote of the day:
"What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Beyond_Good_and_Evil)
The U.S. Electoral College is a specific form of an electoral college
and is the method by which the President and Vice President of the
United States are chosen. The Electoral College was established by
Article Two, Section One of the U.S. Constitution, and meets every
four years with electors from each state. The 23rd Amendment to the
Constitution has allowed electors from the District of Columbia to
cast votes for the election of the president. The electoral process
was modified in 1804 with the ratification of Amendment XII.
Presidential elections take place on the Tuesday after the first
Monday in November in years evenly divisible by four. Although
ballots typically list the names of the Presidential candidates,
voters within the 50 states and the District of Columbia actually
choose electors when they vote for President. These electors in turn
cast the official votes for President. Federal law says that each
state's electors meet in their state capitals on the Monday following
the second Wednesday of December. There, they cast their electoral
votes for President and Vice President.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College
Today's selected anniversaries:
451 - Attila, king of the Huns, invaded Gaul, but was defeated by
Aetius with the help of Roman Foederati in the Battle of
Chalons.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chalons)
1378 - Papal Schism: Unhappy with the behavior of Pope Urban VI, a
group of cardinals elected a rival papacy in Antipope Clement
VII, throwing the Church into a turmoil.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism)
1854 - The Crimean War began with a Franco-British victory over
Russian forces at the Battle of Alma.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alma)
1946 - The first Cannes Film Festival began. Eleven films shared the
Palme d'Or that year.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannes_Film_Festival)
1973 - Billie Jean King thrashed Bobby Riggs in straight sets before
30,492 spectators at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas in an
internationally televised tennis match dubbed as the "Battle
of the Sexes".
Wikiquote of the day:
"A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility.
It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has
something to do with the energy of love... Something in him so loves
the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance.
Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a
seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His
house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He
can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of
the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing
monsters of love." ~ Leonard Cohen
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen)