Presque Isle State Park is a 3,112-acre (1,259 ha) Pennsylvania state
park on an arching, sandy peninsula that juts into Lake Erie, near the
city of Erie, Pennsylvania. The peninsula was formed from glacial
deposits more than 14,000 years ago, and is constantly being reshaped by
waves and wind. There are seven ecological zones within the park, each
with a different plant and animal community. The Erielhonan, a Native
American tribe who gave their name to Lake Erie, probably lived on
Presque Isle, which was named by the French in the 1720s. A French fort
was built nearby, followed by a British and then an American fort.
During the War of 1812 the peninsula sheltered the fleet of Commodore
Oliver Hazard Perry. With the growing importance of shipping on Lake
Erie in the 19th century, several lighthouses were built on Presque
Isle. In 1876 the US Life-Saving Service opened a station, still in use
and operated by the US Coast Guard. Presque Isle became a state park in
1921, and a National Natural Landmark in 1967.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presque_Isle_State_Park>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1809:
Napoleonic Wars: In the Bay of Bengal, a French frigate
squadron captured three East Indiamen mainly carrying recruits for the
Indian Army.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_18_November_1809>
1872:
American suffragette Susan B. Anthony was arrested and fined
$100 for having voted in the U.S. presidential election in Rochester,
New York, two weeks prior.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_B._Anthony>
1956:
In the Polish embassy in Moscow, Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev said "We will bury you" while addressing Western envoys,
prompting them to leave the room.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you>
1987:
In London, an underground fire killed 31 people at King's Cross
St. Pancras tube station.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire>
2012:
Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria took office as the 118th Pope of
the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Tawadros_II_of_Alexandria>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
swingeing:
1. (chiefly Britain) Huge, immense.
2. Heavy, powerful, scathing.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/swingeing>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
There were a lot of utopias in the nineteenth century, wonderful
societies that we might possibly construct. Those went pretty much out
of fashion after World War I. And almost immediately one of the utopias
that people were trying to construct, namely the Soviet Union, threw out
a writer called Zamyatin who wrote a seminal book called We, which
contains the seeds of Orwell and Huxley. Writers started doing dystopias
after we saw the effects of trying to build utopias that required,
unfortunately, the elimination of a lot of people before you could get
to the perfect point, which never arrived. … I don’t believe in a
perfect world. I don’t believe it’s achievable, and I believe the
people who try to achieve it usually end up turning it into something
like Cambodia or something very similar because purity tests set in. Are
you ideologically pure enough to be allowed to live? Well, it turns out
that very few people are, so you end up with a big powerful struggle and
a mass killing scene.
--Margaret Atwood
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood>