Muckaty Station is a 2,380-square-kilometre (590,000-acre) Aboriginal
freehold landholding in Australia's Northern Territory, approximately
800 kilometres (500 mi) south of Darwin. Originally under traditional
Indigenous Australian ownership, the area became a pastoral lease in the
late 19th century and for many years operated as a cattle station.
Muckaty Station was returned to its Indigenous custodians in 1999. It is
traversed by the Stuart Highway, built in the 1940s along the route of
the service track for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line, a natural
gas pipeline, and the Adelaide–Darwin railway. The area comprises
semi-arid stony ridges, claypans and a stony plateau, and experiences a
sub-tropical climate, with a wet season between January and March. The
vegetation is mostly scrubland, including spinifex grasslands. The fauna
is generally typical of Australian desert environments, and includes the
red kangaroo (pictured), the eastern wallaroo, the northern nail-tail
wallaby, and the spinifex hopping mouse. A site within Muckaty is being
considered for Australia's low-level and intermediate-level radioactive
waste storage and disposal facility. The plan is subject to a Federal
Court challenge due to be heard early in 2013.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckaty_Station>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1702:
Carolina colonial governor James Moore abandoned the siege
against the Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine, Spanish Florida,
and retreated to Charles Town in disgrace.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_St._Augustine_(1702)>
1896:
Philippine Revolution: Nationalist José Rizal was executed by
a firing squad in Manila after Spanish authorities convicted him of
rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Rizal>
1947:
Michael, King of Romania, was forced to abdicate by the
country's communist government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_of_Romania>
2005:
Tropical Storm Zeta was declared a tropical depression, making
it the record-breaking thirtieth tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic
hurricane season, the most active in recorded history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Zeta>
2006:
MV Senopati Nusantara, an Indonesian ferry, sank in the Java
Sea during a storm, killing at least 400 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Senopati_Nusantara>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
peckled:
(now UK dialectal) Speckled, spotted.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peckled>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Never do I hesitate to look squarely at the unexpected face that every
passing hour unveils to us, and to sacrifice the false images of it
formed in advance, however dear they may be. In me, the love of life in
general predominates over love of my own life (that, indeed, would never
have sufficed to bear me up). May life herself speak! However inadequate
I may be in listening to her, and in repeating her words, I shall try to
record them, even if they contradict my most secret desires. In all that
I write, may her will, not mine, be done!
--Romain Rolland
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Romain_Rolland>