The Quietly Confident Quartet was the self-given name of the Australian men's 4 × 100 metres medley relay swimming team that won the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. This was the only year since its inception that the event has not been won by the United States, which was boycotting the Moscow Olympics after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The quartet consisted of backstroker Mark Kerry, breaststroker Peter Evans, butterflyer Mark Tonelli and freestyler Neil Brooks. Tonelli, the oldest at 23, was also a spokesperson for the Australian athletes' campaign to compete at the Olympics against the wishes of the Fraser Government. All four clashed with swimming authorities over disciplinary issues, and three were suspended or expelled from the Australian team. After the backstroke leg, Australia was in fourth place and more than a second behind, but Evans was the fastest breaststroker, moving into second position at the halfway point, and Tonelli completed his leg in a personal best time. Brooks overtook the Soviet swimmer Sergey Kopliakov in the latter half of the final leg to secure a narrow victory.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quietly_Confident_Quartet
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1241:
First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongols overwhelmed the Polish armies of Sandomierz and Kraków provinces in the Battle of Chmielnik and plundered the abandoned city of Kraków. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chmielnik
1741:
New York governor George Clarke's complex at Fort George was destroyed by a fire supposedly set by slaves, starting the New York Conspiracy of 1741. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Conspiracy_of_1741
1871:
French President Adolphe Thiers ordered the evacuation of Paris after an uprising broke out as the result of France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, leading to the establishment of the Paris Commune government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune
1906:
Romanian inventor Traian Vuia became the first person to fly a heavier-than-air monoplane with an unassisted takeoff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traian_Vuia
1996:
The deadliest fire in Philippine history burned a nightclub in Quezon City, leaving 162 dead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_Disco_Club_fire
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
saw gourds: (chiefly late-19th-century US slang, intransitive) To snore very loudly. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/saw_gourds
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Our brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-Thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books. --John Updike https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Updike