The Bone Wars were rivalries between paleontologists, mainly Edward
Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh (pictured), that led to a surge
of fossil discoveries during the Gilded Age of American history. Cope,
of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and Marsh, of the
Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale, competed using underhanded
methods, resorting to bribery, theft, destruction of bones, and mutual
attacks in scientific publications. They sought fossils in rich bone
beds in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. From 1877 to 1892, they used
their wealth and influence to finance their own expeditions and to
procure services and dinosaur bones from fossil hunters. Cope and Marsh
were financially and socially ruined by their attempts to disgrace each
other, but their contributions to science and the field of paleontology,
including many unopened boxes of fossils found after their deaths, were
massive. Their efforts led to many new descriptions of dinosaur species,
of which 32 remain valid today. The Bone Wars shed light on prehistoric
life and sparked the public's interest in dinosaurs, leading to
continued fossil excavation in North America in the decades to follow.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1745:
Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the Jacobite standard at
Glenfinnan in the Scottish Highlands to begin the Second Jacobite
Rising.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rising_of_1745>
1934:
A German referendum supported the recent merging of the posts
of Chancellor and President, consolidating Adolf Hitler's assumption of
supreme power.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_referendum,_1934>
1964:
Over 17,000 fans saw the Beatles on the opening date of the
group's first nationwide U.S. tour.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_in_the_United_States>
1987:
A 27-year-old unemployed local labourer shot and killed sixteen
people and wounded fifteen others before fatally shooting himself in
Hungerford, Berkshire, England, one of the worst criminal atrocities
involving firearms in British history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre>
2003:
A Hamas suicide bomber killed 23 people and wounded over 130
others on a crowded public bus in the Shmuel HaNavi quarter in
Jerusalem.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_HaNavi_bus_bombing>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
trickle truth:
(informal) Facts gradually and reluctantly admitted by one's significant
other under questioning, especially about having been unfaithful.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trickle_truth>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the
time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren’t still there,
he’s no longer a political leader.
--Bernard Baruch
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bernard_Baruch>