Juan Manuel de Rosas (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877) was an army
officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine
Confederation. Like other wealthy provincial warlords, Rosas enlisted
rural workers from his landholdings in a private militia, and took part
in the numerous disputes and civil wars in his country. He eventually
became the undisputed leader of the Argentine army and the Federalist
Party. In 1831, he signed the Federal Pact, recognizing provincial
autonomy and creating the Argentine Confederation. He established a
dictatorship and formed the repressive Mazorca, an armed parapolice that
killed thousands of citizens. By 1848, after a war against the
Peru–Bolivian Confederation, a blockade by France, and a revolt in his
own province, he ruled all of Argentina, and was attempting to annex the
neighboring nations of Uruguay and Paraguay. When the Empire of Brazil
came to Uruguay's aid, Rosas declared war in August 1851. The short
Platine War ended with the defeat of Rosas and his flight to Britain.
His last years were spent in exile living as a tenant farmer.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_de_Rosas>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1867:
U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the
purchase of Alaska for US$7.2 million from Russia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase>
1899:
A committee of the German Society of Chemistry invited other
national scientific organizations to appoint delegates to form the
International Committee on Atomic Weights.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Isotopic_Abundances_and_Atomic_Weights>
1918:
Fighting began during the March Days revolt in Baku,
Azerbaijan, resulting in up to 12,000 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Days>
1950:
Usmar Ismail began filming Darah dan Doa, formally recognised
as the first Indonesian film.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darah_dan_Doa>
2009:
Twelve gunmen attacked the Manawan Police Academy in Lahore,
Pakistan, and held it for several hours before security forces could
retake it.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Lahore_police_academy_attacks>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
baked Alaska:
A dessert consisting of ice cream encased in cake and meringue and
briefly baked.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/baked_Alaska>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
When I have a difficult subject before me — when I find the road
narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth
except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand
fools — I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no
notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to
extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the
cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at
peace.
--Maimonides
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maimonides>