Lightning is a fictional character from Square Enix's Final Fantasy
series. She first appeared as a playable character and protagonist in
the role-playing video game Final Fantasy XIII, and reappeared as a
supporting character in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and as the sole playable
character in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. She was created by
Motomu Toriyama, the director and scenario writer of XIII, and designed
by Tetsuya Nomura, a regular character artist for the series. Their idea
was to create a strong female protagonist who was adept at combat and
less feminine than previous Final Fantasy heroines. Lightning has
received mixed commentary from critics—much of it relating to her cold
personality, which was compared to that of Final Fantasy VII's
protagonist Cloud Strife. Some critics saw her in Lightning Returns as
underdeveloped and unlikable, while others found her better developed
and more human than in previous games. In lists later compiled by video
game publications, Lightning was commended as one of the best characters
in the Final Fantasy series and in video games as a whole.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(Final_Fantasy)>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1587:
Anglo-Spanish War: In the Bay of Cádiz, Francis Drake led the
first of several naval raids on the Spanish Armada that destroyed so
many ships that Philip II of Spain had to delay his plans to invade
England for over a year.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singeing_the_King_of_Spain%27s_Beard>
1770:
British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour
(replica pictured), the first European ship to land in eastern
Australia, reached the coast of Botany Bay near present-day Sydney.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Endeavour>
1903:
A 30 million cubic-metre landslide buried the town of Frank,
Northwest Territories, and killed at least 70 of the town's residents,
making it the deadliest landslide in Canadian history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Slide>
1946:
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened
and indicted Hideki Tojo and 27 other Japanese leaders for war crimes.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East>
1997:
The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention went into effect,
outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons in
those countries that ratified the arms control agreement.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
scrape the bottom of the barrel:
(idiomatic) To use the least desirable parts of something.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scrape_the_bottom_of_the_barrel>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally
convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
--Henri Poincaré
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9>