Villa Park is an association football stadium in Aston, Birmingham, England, with a seating capacity of 42,682. Formerly a sports ground in a Victorian amusement park, it has been the home of Aston Villa Football Club since 17 April 1897. The ground has hosted sixteen England internationals at senior level, the first in 1899 and the most recent in 2005. It has hosted 55 FA Cup semi-finals, more than any other stadium. The club has initial planning permission to redevelop its North Stand, which will increase its capacity to around 50,000. Aside from football- related uses, the stadium has seen concerts and other sporting events, including boxing matches and international rugby league and rugby union matches. In 1999, the last ever final of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup took place at Villa Park. It also hosted the 2012 FA Community Shield, as Wembley Stadium was being used for the final of the Olympic football tournament.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Park
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1362:
Lithuanian Crusade: After a month-long siege, the Teutonic Order captured and destroyed Kaunas Castle (reconstruction pictured) in Lithuania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Kaunas_(1362)
1907:
Brazil became the third country in the world to start construction on a dreadnought battleship, sparking a vastly expensive South American naval arms race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_American_dreadnought_race
1961:
Armed Cuban exiles backed by the CIA invaded Cuba, landing in the Bay of Pigs, with the aim of overthrowing the Cuban government under Fidel Castro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
1975:
The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh, ending the Cambodian Civil War, and established Democratic Kampuchea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_Civil_War
2014:
NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, the first exoplanet with a radius similar to Earth's discovered in the habitable zone of another star. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-186f
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
hate-watch: (informal) To watch a television programme, etc., that one dislikes, for the pleasure one gets from criticizing or making fun of it. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hate-watch
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes, Anarchists and criminals. --Benjamin Tucker https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker