The Australian women's national wheelchair basketball team played in the
2012 Summer Paralympics in London. The wheelchair basketball team, known
as the Gliders, included nine Paralympic veterans, Bridie Kean, Amanda
Carter, Sarah Stewart, Tina McKenzie, Kylie Gauci, Katie Hill, Cobi
Crispin, Clare Nott and Shelley Chaplin (pictured), along with three
newcomers, Amber Merritt, Sarah Vinci and Leanne Del Toso. The team had
won silver in Sydney and Athens, but never gold. The Gliders faced a
formidable task just to make the finals, as their round-robin pool
included Brazil, Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. After a
narrow victory over Brazil, and an easier one against Great Britain, the
Gliders were defeated by Canada, but won their final match against the
Netherlands to finish at the top of their pool. They went on to win the
quarterfinal against Mexico and the semifinal against the United States,
but lost to Germany in the final, winning silver.
Read more:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_wheelchair_basketball_team_at_the_2012_Summer_Paralympics>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1934:
A referendum supported the recent merging of the posts of
Chancellor and President of Germany, consolidating Adolf Hitler's
assumption of supreme power.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_German_referendum>
1964:
More than 17,000 fans saw the Beatles at the Cow Palace in Daly
City, California, on the opening date of the group's first nationwide
U.S. tour.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatlemania#First_visit_to_the_US_and_Ed_Sullivan_Show_performances>
2002:
The single deadliest helicopter crash took place when a team of
Chechen separatists brought down a Russian Mil Mi-26 with a man-portable
air-defense system, resulting in 127 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Khankala_Mi-26_crash>
2017:
Around 250,000 farmed non-native Atlantic salmon were
accidentally released into the wild near Cypress Island, Washington.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypress_Island_Atlantic_salmon_pen_break>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Palladian:
1. (Greek mythology, rare) Of or relating to Pallas, an epithet of
Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
2. (by extension, rare) Of or relating to knowledge, study, or wisdom.
[...]
3. (architecture) In the style of the Italian neoclassical architect
Andrea Palladio.
4. (architecture) An architect who designs buildings in the Palladian
style.
5. (architecture) A building or an architectural element (for example, a
window) designed in the Palladian style.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Palladian>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh,
that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.
--Samuel Richardson
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Richardson>