USS Marmora was a sternwheel steamer serving in the Union Navy from
1862 to 1865 in the American Civil War. Built in 1862 as a civilian
vessel, she was bought for military service in September, and converted
into a tinclad warship. Commissioned on October 21, she served on the
Yazoo River and was on the Yazoo during the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou in
December. She was assigned in 1863 to a fleet operating against Fort
Hindman, but was absent when the fort surrendered on January 11. From
February to April, she participated in the Yazoo Pass expedition, and in
June burned two Arkansas settlements. In August, she saw action on the
White River when the Little Rock campaign was beginning, and patrolled
on the Mississippi River late that year. She fought in the Battle of
Yazoo City on March 5. She was declared surplus in May 1865 and put in
reserve status at Mound City, Illinois. She was decommissioned in July,
and sold at auction on August 17, after which nothing is known.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Marmora_%281862%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1789:
With the first use of his 1.2-metre (3.9 ft) telescope, then
the largest in the world, William Herschel discovered a new moon of
Saturn, later named Enceladus.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus>
1909:
The 1909 Monterrey hurricane dissipated; one of the deadliest
Atlantic tropical cyclones on record, it killed an estimated 4,000
people throughout Mexico.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1909_Monterrey_hurricane>
1963:
American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered
the speech "I Have a Dream" during the March on Washington, calling for
civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream>
1987:
Construction began on the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, the
tallest building in North Korea.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
contraction:
1. Senses relating to becoming involved with or entering into,
especially entering into a contract.
2.
3. An act of incurring debt; also (generally), an act of acquiring
something (generally negative).
4. (archaic) An act of entering into a contract or agreement;
specifically, a contract of marriage; a contracting; also (obsolete), a
betrothal.
5. (biology, medicine) The process of contracting or becoming infected
with a disease.
6. Senses relating to pulling together or shortening.
7. A (sometimes reversible) contracting or reduction in length, scope,
size, or volume; a narrowing, a shortening, a shrinking.
8. (archaic or obsolete) An abridgement or shortening of writing, etc.;
an abstract, a summary; also (uncountable), brevity, conciseness.
9. (biology, medicine) A stage of wound healing during which the wound
edges are gradually pulled together.
10. (biology, medicine) A shortening of a muscle during its use;
specifically, a strong and often painful shortening of the uterine
muscles prior to or during childbirth.
11. (economics) A period of economic decline or negative growth.
12. (linguistics) A process whereby one or more sounds of a free
morpheme (a word) are reduced or lost, such that it becomes a bound
morpheme (a clitic) that attaches phonologically to an adjacent word.
13. (linguistics, phonology, prosody) Synonym of syncope (“the elision
or loss of a sound from the interior of a word, especially of a vowel
sound with loss of a syllable”)
14. (orthography) In the English language: a shortened form of a word,
often with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe or a diacritical
mark.
15. (by extension) A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the
purpose of brevity.
16. (obsolete, rare) An act of collecting or gathering.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contraction>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations
of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is
something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold
which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our
rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek
to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness
and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of
dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to
degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the
majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.>