In prosody, alliterative verse is any of a number of closely related verse forms that are the common inheritance of the older Germanic languages. This was the verse form in which the Old English epic Beowulf was written, as well as most of the other Old English poetry; so were the Bavarian Muspillo and the Old Saxon Heliand. A modified form of alliterative verse is found in the Elder Edda. Alliterative verse exists from the earliest attested monuments of the Germanic languages; extended passages of alliterative verse are attested in Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, and Old Saxon. The basic shape of the inherited form of alliterative verse is that a line of verse is divided into two half-lines by a cæsura, and each half-line has two strongly stressed words, or "lifts."
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Today's selected anniversaries:
* 1331 - Stefan Dušan declared himself king of Serbia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Dusan)
* 1636 - A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes Harvard College as the first college founded in the Americas. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University)
* 1900 - Galveston Hurricane of 1900: A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900)
* 1941 - World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins - German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad)
* 1978 - Iranian Revolution: Mass protests in Tehran were met with military tanks and helicopter gunship on Black Friday. Hundreds of demonstrators were killed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution)
Wikiquote of the day:
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.