Stretford (pop. 46,910) is a town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England. Lying on flat ground between the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, it is 3.8 miles (6.1 km) to the southwest of Manchester city centre. Historically in Lancashire, Stretford was an agricultural village during much of the 19th century known locally as Porkhampton, in reference to the large number of pigs produced for the nearby Manchester market. The arrival of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894, and the subsequent development of the Trafford Park industrial estate in the north of the town, accelerated the industrialisation that had begun in the late 19th century; by 2001 less than one per cent of Stretford's population was employed in agriculture. Stretford has been the home of Manchester United Football Club since 1910, and of Lancashire County Cricket Club since 1864. Residents have included the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, the painter L. S. Lowry, Morrissey, Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, Jay Kay of Jamiroquai, and Manchester's first multi-millionaire, the industrialist and philanthropist John Rylands.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretford
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1692:
Nearly forty men from the Clan MacDonald of Glen Coe, Scotland, were massacred early in the morning for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new joint monarchs, William III and Mary II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Glencoe
1815:
The Cambridge Union (building pictured), one of the oldest debating societies in the world, was founded at the University of Cambridge in England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambridge_Union
1945:
World War II: The Allies began their strategic bombing of Dresden, Saxony, 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
1960:
African American college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee, part of a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial segregation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_sit-ins
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
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
jab molassie: (Trinidad and Tobago) A traditional character in the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival dressed as a devil, mostly naked and covered in molasses or grease and a colourful dye. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jab_molassie
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war- making is the way to the prisoner's dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure. --Robert H. Jackson https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_H._Jackson