Nelson's Pillar was a large granite column capped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, erected in the centre of O'Connell Street, Dublin, Ireland in 1809. It was severely damaged by explosives in March 1966 and demolished a week later. The monument was erected after the euphoria following Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It proved a popular tourist attraction but provoked aesthetic and political controversy, and there were frequent calls for it to be removed, or replaced with a memorial to an Irish hero. Nevertheless it remained, even after Ireland became a republic in 1948. Although influential literary figures defended the Pillar on historical and cultural grounds, its destruction just before the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising was, on the whole, well received by the Irish public. The police could not identify those responsible; when in 2010 a former republican activist admitted planting the explosives, he was not charged. The Pillar was finally replaced in 2003 with the Spire of Dublin. Relics of the Pillar are found in various Dublin locations, and its memory is preserved in numerous works of Irish literature.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson%27s_Pillar
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1479 BC:
Thutmose III (statue pictured) became the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, although during the first 22 years of the reign he was co-regent with his aunt, Hatshepsut. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III
1704:
The first issue of The Boston News-Letter, the first continuously published newspaper in British North America, was published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boston_News-Letter
1916:
Irish republicans led by Patrick Pearse began the Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland, and proclaimed the Irish Republic an independent state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising
1933:
Nazi Germany began its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_in_Nazi_Germany
2013:
A building in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed, resulting in over 1,100 deaths, making it the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Savar_building_collapse
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
have legs: 1. (idiomatic) To have endurance; to have prospects to exist or go on for a long time. 2. (nautical) To have speed. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/have_legs
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
things explain each other, Not themselves. --George Oppen https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Oppen