The Great Western Railway War Memorial is a First World War memorial by Charles Sargeant Jagger and Thomas S. Tait. It stands on platform 1 at London Paddington station, commemorating the 2,500 Great Western Railway (GWR) employees killed in the conflict. A third of the GWR's workforce of almost 80,000 left to fight in the war, the company guaranteeing their jobs. The memorial consists of a bronze statue of a soldier in heavy winter clothing, reading a letter from home. The statue stands on a polished granite plinth, within a white stone surround. The names of the dead are on a roll buried in the plinth. GWR chairman Viscount Churchill unveiled the memorial on 11 November 1922 in front of over 6,000 people, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, GWR officials, and relatives of the dead. When public gatherings were restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic, local communities on the GWR network laid wreaths on trains that carried them to Paddington to be laid at the memorial for Armistice Day.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Railway_War_Memorial
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1867:
Work began on the covering of the Senne, burying the polluted main river of Brussels to allow for urban renewal in the centre of the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covering_of_the_Senne
1945:
World War II: The Allies began a strategic bombing of Dresden, Germany, resulting in a lethal firestorm that killed tens of thousands of civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
1978:
A bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, the site of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, killing three people and injuring eleven others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hilton_Hotel_bombing
2012:
The first Vega rocket was launched by the European Space Agency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_%28rocket%29
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
shock stall: (aviation) A stall (“sudden loss of efficiency”) caused when the airflow over an aircraft's wings is disturbed by shock waves that occurs at a specific Mach number when the aircraft is accelerating to transonic speeds. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shock_stall
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money. --George Meredith https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Meredith