[Daily article] January 9: Falcon's Fury

Falcon's Fury is a freestanding Sky Jump drop tower attraction at the Busch Gardens Tampa amusement park in Tampa, Florida. Manufactured by Intaride, a subsidiary of Intamin, the ride is North America's tallest freestanding drop tower, at a maximum height of 335 feet (102 m). It is also the first drop tower to use 90-degree tilting seats, facing riders straight down through five seconds of free fall. They reach a speed of 60 miles per hour (100 km/h) before rotating back into a vertical position and decelerating at about 3.5 Gs. The ride's name is meant to suggest a falcon's ability to dive steeply at high speed to capture prey. Due to the height of the attraction, approval from the Federal Aviation Administration was required. Construction was delayed until 2013, and the opening date was also delayed by mechanical and technical issues. Falcon's Fury opened to park employees in August before a soft opening on August 16, 2014, and an official opening on September 2, 2014. Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon%27s_Fury> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 475: Basiliscus became Byzantine Emperor after Zeno was forced to flee Constantinople. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basiliscus> 1816: Inventor Humphry Davy first tested his Davy lamp (examples pictured), a safety lamp containing a candle for use in coal mines. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_lamp> 1909: Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition, planted the British flag 97 nautical miles (180 km) from the South Pole, the furthest south anyone had ever reached at that time. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farthest_South> 1991: Representatives from the United States and Iraq met at the Geneva Peace Conference to try to find a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Peace_Conference_(1991)> 1996: First Chechen War: Chechen separatists launched raids in the city of Kizlyar, Republic of Dagestan, which turned into a massive hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye_hostage_crisis> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: strife: Conflict, sometimes violent, usually brief or limited in scope. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/strife> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   You can't decide how you're going to die. Or when. What you can decide is how you're going to live now.   --Joan Baez <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joan_Baez>