Chelsea Bridge spans the River Thames in west London, connecting Chelsea on the north bank to Battersea. The first bridge on the site, Victoria Bridge, was proposed in the 1840s as part of the Battersea Park development of marshlands on the south bank. Work on the nearby Chelsea Embankment delayed the opening of this suspension bridge until 1857. Although well received architecturally, as a toll bridge it was unpopular and faced competition from the newly built Albert Bridge. It was acquired in 1877 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, which abolished the tolls. Victoria Bridge, narrow and structurally unsound, was renamed Chelsea Bridge to avoid embarrassment to the Royal Family if it collapsed. After population growth and the introduction of the automobile, the bridge was demolished, and replaced in 1937 by the current structure, the first self-anchored suspension bridge in Britain. During the early 1950s it became popular with motorcyclists, who staged regular races across it. The bridge is floodlit from below at night, when the towers and cables are illuminated by 936 feet (285 m) of light-emitting diodes. In 2008 it achieved Grade II listed status.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Bridge
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1460:
War of the Roses: King Henry VI of England was captured by Yorkists at the Battle of Northampton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Northampton_(1460)
1800:
Lord Wellesley, Governor-General of the British Raj, founded Fort William College in Fort William, India, to promote Bengali, Hindi and other vernaculars of the subcontinent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_William_College
1925:
Indian mystic and spiritual master Meher Baba began his silence until his death in 1969, only communicating by means of an alphabet board or by unique hand gestures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meher_Baba
1941:
The Holocaust: A group of non-Jewish ethnic Poles from around the nearby area murdered hundreds of Jewish residents of Jedwabne in occupied Poland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedwabne_pogrom
1962:
Telstar, the world's first active, direct relay communications satellite, was launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
badinage: Playful raillery; banter. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/badinage
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe. --Nikola Tesla https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla