Hedley Verity (1905–43) was a professional cricketer who played for
Yorkshire and England between 1930 and 1939. He was named as one of the
Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1932 and is regarded by critics as one
of the most effective slow left-arm bowlers to have played cricket. In
1932, he took all 10 wickets in an innings against Nottinghamshire
while conceding just 10 runs. These bowling figures remain, as of 2013,
a record in first-class cricket for the fewest runs conceded while
taking all 10 wickets. Verity was never lower than fifth in the
national bowling averages and took over 150 wickets in every year
except his first, assisting Yorkshire to the County Championship seven
times in his ten seasons with the club. He played regularly for England
and achieved the best performance of his career when he took 15 wickets
against Australia in a Test match at Lord's Cricket Ground in 1934. The
outbreak of the Second World War ended his career and he joined the
Green Howards in 1939, achieving the rank of captain. During the Allied
invasion of Sicily in 1943, Verity was severely wounded and captured by
the Germans. Taken to Italy, he died in Caserta from his injuries and
was buried there.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedley_Verity>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1703:
English writer Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for
seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet politically satirising the
High Church Tories.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe>
1917:
First World War: The Battle of Passchendaele began near Ypres
in West Flanders, Belgium, with the Allied Powers aiming to force German
troops to withdraw from the Channel Ports.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele>
1941:
The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann
Göring ordered SS General Reinhard Heydrich to handle "the final
solution of the Jewish question".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution>
1975:
The Troubles: In a botched paramilitary attack, three members
of the popular Miami Showband and two Ulster Volunteer Force gunmen were
killed in County Down, Northern Ireland.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Showband_killings>
1991:
Soviet Special Purpose Police Unit troops killed seven
Lithuanian customs officials in Medininkai in the most serious attack of
their campaign against Lithuanian border posts.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_OMON_assaults_on_Lithuanian_border_posts>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
coppice:
A grove of small growth; a thicket of brushwood; a wood cut at certain
times for fuel or other purposes, typically managed to promote growth
and ensure a reliable supply of timber.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coppice>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor
what he can do for his country. He will ask rather "What can I and my
compatriots do through government" to help us discharge our individual
responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above
all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with
another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a
Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to
protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and
history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration
of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an
instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by
concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom.
Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and
even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power
will both attract and form men of a different stamp.
--Milton Friedman
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman>