The Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR) was a British railway
company established in 1893 that bored an underground "tube" railway
deep below the streets of London. Construction began in 1898, but was
delayed by funding problems that included the collapse of its parent
company through the massive fraud of its main shareholder Whitaker
Wright. In 1902, the BS&WR came under the control of American financier
Charles Yerkes who quickly raised the funds to enable the line to be
completed. When opened on 10 March 1906, the BS&WR's line served nine
stations and ran completely underground in a pair of tunnels for 5.81
kilometres (3.61 mi) between Baker Street and its southern terminus at
Elephant and Castle. Extensions took the northern end of the line to
the Great Western Railway's Paddington terminus by 1913 and to Watford
by 1917, with services covering a total distance of 33.34 kilometres
(20.72 mi). In 1933, the B&SWR and its parent company, the Underground
Electric Railways Company of London, were taken into public ownership
and, today, the railway's tunnels and stations form the London
Underground's Bakerloo line.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Street_and_Waterloo_Railway>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1607:
Susenyos defeated the combined armies of Yaqob and Abuna Petros II at
the Battle of Gol in Gojjam, making him Emperor of Ethiopia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susenyos_of_Ethiopia>
1876:
Alexander Graham Bell made his first successful bi-directional
telephone call, saying, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_telephone>
1975:
Ho Chi Minh Campaign: North Vietnam began its final push for victory
over South Vietnam with an attack on Ban Me Thuot.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ban_Me_Thuot>
1977:
Astronomers using NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory, an observatory
aboard a highly modified jet aircraft, discovered a faint planetary
ring system around Uranus.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Uranus>
2005:
Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong, announced his
resignation following widespread dissatisfaction with his leadership.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tung_Chee_Hwa>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
normothermic (adj):
(medicine) Having a normal body temperature
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/normothermic>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Where storm-born shadows hide and hunt
I knew thee, in thy glorious youth,
And loved thy vast face, white
as truth;
I stood where thunderbolts were wont
To smite thy Titan-fashioned
front,
And heard dark mountains rock and roll;
I saw the lightning's
gleaming rod
Reach forth and write on heaven's scroll
The awful autograph of God!
--Joaquin Miller
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joaquin_Miller>