The planet Venus has been used as a setting in fiction since before the 19th century. Its impenetrable cloud cover gave writers free rein to speculate on conditions at Venus's surface, which was often depicted as warmer than Earth's but habitable. Images of a lush, verdant paradise, an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like beasts or other monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction, particularly from the 1930s to the 1950s. Some stories portrayed the surface as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. Venusians were often portrayed as gentle, ethereal, beautiful, and female, after the Roman goddess Venus. Since the discovery of Venus's harsh surface conditions, the planet has mostly been portrayed as a hostile, toxic inferno. Some stories have imagined the planet's colonization and terraforming, although the vision of a tropical Venus has occasionally been revisited in intentionally retro stories.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_fiction
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1931:
American gangster Al Capone was convicted on five counts of income-tax evasion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone
1952:
Indonesian Army elements surrounded the Merdeka Palace, demanding that President Sukarno disband the Provisional People's Representative Council. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_October_affair
1973:
Yom Kippur War: Egyptian forces retreated from the Battle of the Chinese Farm, allowing Israeli forces to build their first bridge across the Suez Canal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Chinese_Farm
2000:
A fatal rail accident at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, led to the introduction of widespread speed limit reductions throughout the British rail network and eventually caused the collapse of the railway management group Railtrack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
emboss: 1. To cause (something) to stick out or swell; to extrude; also, to cause (someone or something) to be covered in swellings. 2. To make (a design on a coin, an ornament on an object, etc.) stand out from a surface. 3. To represent (a subject) on an object in relief; also, of a design or subject: to stand out on (an object) in relief. 4. To decorate or mark (something) with a design or symbol in relief. 5. To decorate (something) with bosses (“ornamental convex protuberances”); to boss; hence, to decorate (something) richly. 6. (figurative) 7. To cause (something) to be prominent or stand out. 8. (obsolete) To make (speech, etc.) unduly bombastic or grand. 9. (obsolete, rare) Synonym of boss (“a knob or projection”) [...] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/emboss
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Be grateful for the highs — and be grateful for the lows — 'cause it's in the lows where you learn. --Suzanne Somers https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Suzanne_Somers