The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR;), the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, first operated on 27 September 1825. It initially connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham, north-east England. The transport of coal proved profitable, and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough. The opening of the S&DR; was seen as proof of steam railway effectiveness. While coal was hauled by steam locomotives, horses drew passenger coaches along the rails until carriages hauled by locomotives were introduced in 1833. The S&DR; suffered severe financial difficulties at the end of the 1840s but the discovery of iron ore in Cleveland led to an increase in revenue. At the beginning of the 1860s it took over railways that had crossed the Pennines, but was itself taken over by the North Eastern Railway, continuing to operate independently until 1876. Much of the original route is now served by the Tees Valley line.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_%26_Darlington_Railway
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1875:
The merchant ship Ellen Southard was wrecked in a storm at Liverpool, England; the U.S. Congress subsequently awarded 27 Gold Lifesaving Medals to the men who rescued her crew. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Southard
1940:
World War II: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin, officially forming a military alliance known as the Axis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact
1949:
Members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference unanimously selected Zeng Liansong's design for the flag of China (pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_China
2014:
Mount Ontake in central Japan unexpectedly erupted, killing 63 people in the nation's deadliest eruption in more than 100 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Mount_Ontake_eruption
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
fount: 1. (chiefly poetic, dated or archaic) Synonym of fountain (“a natural source of water”); a spring. 2. (by extension, agriculture, archaic) A device from which poultry may drink; a waterer. 3. (figurative) That from which something proceeds; an origin, a source. 4. (UK, printing, typography, chiefly dated, historical) Synonym of font (“a set of glyphs of unified design, usually representing the letters of an alphabet and its supplementary characters belonging to one typeface, style, and weight; a typeface; a family of typefaces”) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fount
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. We must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves. --Samuel Adams https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams