4chan is an English-language imageboard website based on the Japanese Futaba Channel. Launched on October 1, 2003 by "moot" (allegedly "Christopher Poole"), its boards are primarily used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime. Users generally post anonymously, and the site has been linked to Anonymous culture and Project Chanology. The Guardian describes 4chan as "at once brilliant, ridiculous and alarming". The "/b/" board is by far 4chan's most popular forum. It is known as the "random" board; there are minimal rules on posted content. It is thus notorious on the Internet; Gawker.com once claimed in jest that "reading /b/ will melt your brain". The site has generated broad media attention, and its members have been responsible for the formation and popularization of Internet memes such as lolcats, rickrolling, and the popularity of the Tay Zonday song "Chocolate Rain". It has also received media attention for its attacks against other websites and Internet users, and for the threats of real world violence that have been posted on it.
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1301:
1724:
1761:
1814:
Sweden and Denmark–Norway signed the Treaty of Kiel, whereby Frederick VI of Denmark, a loser in the Napoleonic Wars, ceded Norway to Sweden in return for the Swedish holdings in Pomerania.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Kiel)
2004:
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it. --Yukio Mishima