Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians (died 911) became ruler of English
Mercia shortly after the death of its last king, Ceolwulf II, in 879.
His rule was confined to the western half, as eastern Mercia was then
part of the Viking-ruled Danelaw. Æthelred's origin is unknown, and he
was first recorded as the probable leader of an unsuccessful Mercian
invasion of Wales in 881. Shortly afterwards, he married Æthelflæd, a
daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex, and submitted to Alfred's
lordship, an important step towards the unification of England in the
next century. In the 890s the Vikings renewed their attacks, and in 893
Æthelred led a joint force of Mercians, West Saxons and Welsh to a
decisive victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Buttington. He spent
much of the decade fighting the Vikings in cooperation with Alfred's
son, the future Edward the Elder. Historians disagree whether Æthelred
governed Mercia as Alfred's deputy or whether he was a ruler of a semi-
independent territory. Æthelred died in 911 and was succeeded by his
widow, and then briefly by his daughter, before Mercia was annexed by
Edward the Elder in 918.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelred,_Lord_of_the_Mercians>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1852:
The inaugural Harvard–Yale Regatta—the first
intercollegiate sports event in the United States—was held on Lake
Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard%E2%80%93Yale_Regatta>
1900:
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, a pioneer in the mass
production of automobile tires, was founded by Harvey Firestone in
Akron, Ohio, US.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_Tire_and_Rubber_Company>
1929:
Jiddu Krishnamurti, believed to likely be the messianic "World
Teacher", shocked the Theosophy movement by dissolving the Order of the
Star, the organisation established to support him.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Star_in_the_East>
1940:
World War II: Italy began their invasion of British Somaliland.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_conquest_of_British_Somaliland>
2007:
Former Deputy Director of the Chilean secret police Raúl
Iturriaga was captured after having been on the run following a
conviction for kidnapping.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Iturriaga>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
bowdlerize:
To remove those parts of a text considered offensive, vulgar, or
otherwise unseemly.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bowdlerize>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
 There was a world of mutants, men and women who were more
than normal men and women, persons who had certain human talents and
certain human understandings which the normal men and women of the world
had never known, or having known, could not utilize in their entirety,
unable to use intelligently all the mighty powers which lay dormant in
their brains.
--Clifford D. Simak
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak>