Hurricane Dean evolved into one of two storms in the 2007 Atlantic
hurricane season to make landfall as a Category 5 hurricane. Dean was
the seventh most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded, tied with
Camille and Mitch, and the third most intense Atlantic hurricane ever at
landfall. Its winds, rains and storm surge were responsible for at least
45 deaths across ten countries and caused around US$1.66 billion in
damage. The storm was designated Tropical Depression Four on August 13,
born more than 1,500 mi (2,400 km) east of the Lesser Antilles in a
vigorous tropical wave heading west from Africa. A deep layered ridge
steered the system towards the Caribbean and warmer waters. It was
upgraded to Tropical Storm Dean the next day, and to a hurricane two
days later. In the Caribbean Sea, the storm rapidly intensified to a
Category 5 hurricane, then brushed the southern coast of Jamaica on
August 19. It crossed the Yucatán Peninsula and emerged, weakened,
into the Bay of Campeche, then briefly restrengthened in the warm waters
of the bay before making a second landfall in Veracruz.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorological_history_of_Hurricane_Dean>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1521:
After an extended siege, forces led by Spanish conquistador
Hernán Cortés captured Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc and conquered the Aztec
capital of Tenochtitlan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Tenochtitlan>
1624:
Cardinal Richelieu became the chief minister to King Louis
XIII, and under his supervision, France's feudal political structure
transformed into one with a powerful central government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu>
1906:
The all-black infantrymen of the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry
Regiment were accused of killing a white bartender and wounding a white
police officer in Brownsville, Texas, despite exculpatory evidence; all
were later dishonorably discharged.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownsville_Affair>
1937:
The Battle of Shanghai broke out, eventually becoming one of
the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire Second Sino-Japanese
War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shanghai>
1996:
Marc Dutroux was arrested for the kidnapping of 14-year-old
Laetitia Delhez, revealing a number of other victims and one of
Belgium's biggest child molestation cases.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
natatorium:
(US) A swimming pool, especially an indoor one; a building housing one
or more swimming pools.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/natatorium>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Good deeds remain good, no matter whether we know how the world
was made or not. Vile deeds are vile, no matter whether we know or do
not know what, after death, will be the fate of the doer. We know, at
least, what his fate is now, namely, to be wedded to the vileness. The
question for anyone to decide, who hesitates between good and evil, is
whether he aspires to be a full-weight man, or merely the fragment, nay,
the counterfeit of a man. Only he who ceaselessly aims at moral
completeness is, in the true sense, a human being.
--Felix Adler
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Felix_Adler>