Hurricane Connie was the first of three hurricanes to strike North
Carolina in 1955. It formed on August 3 in the eastern Atlantic Ocean,
and killed three people in the United States Virgin Islands while
passing nearby. Connie reached reported maximum sustained winds of
120 knots (140 mph, 220 km/h), making it a Category 4 hurricane,
before it weakened and moved ashore on August 12. It tracked north
through the Chesapeake Bay region, and was later absorbed by a cold
front over Lake Huron on August 15. The hurricane caused around
$86 million in damage, and at least 295,000 people nationwide lost
power during the storm. In North Carolina, the storm killed 27 people.
In the Chesapeake Bay, Connie capsized a boat, killing 14 people. There
were also 4 deaths in Washington, D.C., 6 deaths each in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, 14 in New York, and 3 in Ontario. Connie was followed days
later by Hurricane Diane, which caused $700 million in flood damage.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Connie>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1847:
Mexican–American War: American and Mexican forces clashed at
the Battle of San Pasqual, a series of skirmishes near San Diego,
California.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Pasqual>
1912:
The Nefertiti Bust, listed among the "Top 10 Plundered
Artifacts" by Time magazine, was found in Amarna, Egypt, before being
taken to Germany.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti_Bust>
1989:
Claiming to be "fighting feminism", 25-year-old Marc Lépine
killed fourteen women before committing suicide at the École
Polytechnique in Montreal, Canada.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre>
1999:
The Recording Industry Association of America filed a lawsuit
against the peer-to-peer file sharing network Napster, alleging that the
service facilitated widespread copyright infringement.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
picaresque:
1. Of or pertaining to adventurers or rogues.
2. (literature) Characteristic of a genre of Spanish satiric novel
dealing with the adventures of a roguish hero.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/picaresque>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
There will be and can be no rest till we admit, what cannot be
denied, that there is in man a third faculty, which I call simply the
faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion, but in all
things; a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain
sense contradicted by sense and reason; but yet, I suppose, a very real
power, if we see how it has held its own from the beginning of the world
— how neither sense nor reason has been able to overcome it, while it
alone is able to overcome both reason and sense.
--Max Müller
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_M%C3%BCller>