Don Tallon (1916–1984) was an Australian cricketer who played 21 Test
matches as a wicket-keeper between 1946 and 1953. He was widely
regarded by his contemporaries as Australia's finest ever wicket-keeper
and one of the best in Test history, with an understated style, an
ability to anticipate the flight, length and spin of the ball and an
efficient stumping technique. Tallon toured England as part of Don
Bradman's Invincibles of 1948 and was recognised as one of the Wisden
Cricketers of the Year in 1949 for his performances during that season.
During his Test career, Tallon made 58 dismissals comprising 50
catches and 8 stumpings. His early cricket was played in Bundaberg
where he was selected to represent Queensland Country against the
England cricket team during the infamous Bodyline tour. Following the
Second World War and the retirement or unavailability of other
candidates, he was finally given an opportunity to play Test cricket,
making his debut against New Zealand in 1946 aged 30. Following the
Invincibles tour, poor health dogged Tallon, causing him to miss the
1949–50 tour of South Africa. He retired from first-class cricket in
1953 and returned to Bundaberg, assisting his brother in running a
corner store. He died in Bundaberg aged 68.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Tallon>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1774:
British scientist Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen gas,
corroborating the prior discovery of this element by German-Swedish
chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/oxygen>
1834:
Slavery was officially abolished in the majority of the British Empire
as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 came into force.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833>
1927:
In the Nanchang Uprising, the first major engagement in the Chinese
Civil War, Communist forces seized control over the entire city of
Nanchang from the Kuomintang.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanchang_Uprising>
1944:
World War II: The Polish Home Army began the Warsaw Uprising in Warsaw
against the Nazi occupation of Poland, a rebellion that lasted 63 days
until it was quelled by the Germans.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising>
1981:
The American cable television network MTV made its debut with the music
video for the song "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
sphericon (n):
(geometry) A solid constructed by slicing a 90-degree bicone through a
plane containing both apices, rotating one half by 90 degrees, and
reconnecting the two halves
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sphericon>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each
event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but
still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from
behind the unreasoning mask.
--Herman Melville
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herman_Melville>