The Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar was a fifty-cent piece struck
intermittently by the United States Bureau of the Mint between 1926 and
1939. The coin was designed by Laura Gardin Fraser and James Earle
Fraser, and honors those who traveled the Oregon Trail and settled the
Pacific Coast of the United States. Ohio-born Ezra Meeker had traveled
the Trail with his family in 1852 and spent the final two decades of his
long life publicizing the Trail. In 1926, at age 95, he appeared before
a Senate committee, requesting that the government issue a commemorative
coin to raise money for markers to show where the Trail had been. The
many varieties produced after Meeker's death in 1928 came to be
considered ripoffs, and in 1939 Congress ended the series. The Oregon
Trail Memorial Association, distributor of the coin, had difficulty in
selling them, and they remained available from the OTMA's successor
organization as late as 1953. Just over 260,000 of the 6,000,000
authorized coins were struck, of which about 60,000 were melted. The US
commemorative coin struck over the longest period, the Oregon Trail
Memorial half dollar has been widely praised for its design.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail_Memorial_half_dollar>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1493:
Christopher Columbus became the first European to land on
Puerto Rico, naming it San Juan Bautista after John the Baptist.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico>
1816:
The University of Warsaw (main gate pictured), currently the
largest university in Poland, was established as Congress Poland found
itself a territory without a university.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Warsaw>
1941:
World War II: The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the
German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran destroyed each other in the Indian
Ocean.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_between_HMAS_Sydney_and_German_auxiliary_cruiser_Kormoran>
1969:
Playing for Santos against Vasco da Gama in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazilian footballer Pelé scored his 1000th goal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pel%C3%A9>
1994:
The first National Lottery draw in the United Kingdom was held,
with seven winners sharing a prize of £5,874,778.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lottery_(United_Kingdom)>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
omega:
1. The final letter of the Greek alphabet.
2. (idiomatic) The end; the final, last or ultimate in a series.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/omega>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
First of all, everyone must acknowledge and feel that child
slavery still exists in the world, in its ugliest face and form. And
this is an evil, which is crime against humanity, which is intolerable,
which is unacceptable and which must go. That sense of recognition must
be developed first of all. And secondly there is a need of higher
amounts of political will. There is a need of higher amount of corporate
engagement, and the engagement of the public towards it. So, everybody
has a responsibility to save and protect the children on this planet.
--Kailash Satyarthi
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kailash_Satyarthi>