Westcott railway station served the village of Westcott,
Buckinghamshire, near Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild's estate at
Waddesdon Manor. It was built by the Duke of Buckingham in 1871 as part
of a short horse-drawn tramway that met the Aylesbury and Buckingham
Railway at Quainton Road. The next year, it was converted for passenger
use, extended to Brill railway station, and renamed the Brill Tramway.
The poor quality locomotives running on the cheaply built and ungraded
line were very slow, initially limited to 5 miles per hour (8 km/h).
The line was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway in 1899, and
transferred to public ownership in 1933. Westcott station became part of
the London Underground, despite being over 40 miles (60 km) from
central London, until the closure of the line in 1935. The station
building and its associated house (pictured) are the only significant
buildings from the Brill Tramway to survive other than the former
junction station at Quainton Road.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westcott_railway_station>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1607:
Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, considered the
first fully developed opera, was first performed in Mantua, Duchy of
Mantua (now in Italy).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Orfeo>
1803:
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Marbury v. Madison, declared an act
of Congress unconstitutional for the first time, forming the basis of
judicial review.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison>
1875:
The steamship SS Gothenburg hit a section of the Great Barrier
Reef at low tide and sank northwest of Holbourne Island, Queensland,
Australia, with over 98 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Gothenburg>
1946:
Colonel Juan Perón, founder of the political movement that
became known as Peronism, was elected to his first term as President of
Argentina.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Per%C3%B3n>
1989:
United Airlines Flight 811 experienced an uncontrolled
decompression after leaving Honolulu International Airport, Hawaii,
killing nine passengers when their seats were sucked out of the plane.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
logrolling:
1. (US) The rolling of logs from one place to another; an occasion when
people meet to help each other roll logs.
2. (US, lumberjacking) The act of balancing on a log floating on a river to
guide it downstream, often involving rolling it using one's feet;
birling.
3. (US, sports) A sport in which two people balance on a log floating in a
body of water, each one aiming to cause the opponent to fall off by
rolling or kicking the log.
4. (US, politics, figuratively) A concerted effort to push forward mutually
advantageous legislative agendas by combining two items, either or both
of which might fail on its own, into a single bill that is more likely
to pass.
5. (US, figuratively) Mutual recommendation of friends' or colleagues'
services or products, such as book recommendations in literary reviews.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/logrolling>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of
times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.
--Steve Jobs
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs>