Abberton Reservoir is a pumped storage freshwater reservoir in England
near the Essex coast, with an area of 700 hectares (1,700 acres). Most
of its water is pumped in from the River Stour. Constructed between 1935
and 1939, it is currently owned by Essex and Suffolk Water, and lies
6 km (4 mi) south-west of Colchester. In World War II, the reservoir
was mined to deter invading seaplanes, and it was used by the RAF's
No. 617 Squadron ("The Dam Busters") to practise for the bombing of the
German dams in the Ruhr. A project to increase the reservoir's capacity
to 41,000 megalitres (9.0×109 imperial gallons) was completed in 2013,
along with a new link to transfer water from Norfolk's River Ouse to the
Stour. The reservoir is important for its breeding cormorants, wintering
and moulting waterfowl, and migrating birds. It is an internationally
important wetland, designated as a Ramsar site, SSSI and SPA and listed
in A Nature Conservation Review. A small part of the site is managed by
the Essex Wildlife Trust.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abberton_Reservoir>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1697:
Nine Years' War: A French warship captured York Factory, a
trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company in present-day Manitoba,
Canada.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hudson%27s_Bay>
1836:
Sam Houston became the first popularly elected president of the
Republic of Texas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston>
1905:
Under the mediation of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, the
Russo-Japanese War officially ended with the signing of a treaty at the
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Portsmouth>
1943:
World War II: American and Australian airborne forces landed
at Nadzab as part of the New Guinea campaign against Japan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_at_Nadzab>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
ascesis:
1. (Rigorous) self-discipline, particularly as a religious observance;
asceticism.
2. (Christianity, chiefly Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism,
specifically) The praxis or "exercise" of asceticism and self-denial of
impulses or passions for the sake of piety, theosis, and connection with
God.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ascesis>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The divine is everywhere, even in a grain of sand…
--Caspar David Friedrich
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich>