Caroline Island is the easternmost of the uninhabited coral atolls which
comprise the southern Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean. First
sighted by Europeans in 1606 and claimed by the United Kingdom in 1868,
it has been part of the Republic of Kiribati since the island nation's
independence in 1979. Despite guano mining, copra (coconut meat)
harvesting, and human habitation in the 19th and 20th centuries,
Caroline Island has remained relatively unspoiled compared to other
tropical islands. It is home to one of the world's largest populations
of the coconut crab and is an important breeding site for seabirds, most
notably the sooty tern. The atoll is known for its role in celebrations
surrounding the arrival of the year 2000. A 1995 realignment of the
International Date Line made Caroline Island the easternmost land west
of the Date Line and therefore one of the first points of land on Earth
to see sunrise in the year 2000.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Island>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1870:
Franco-Prussian War: Prussian forces captured Napoleon III at
the Battle of Sedan, which led to the collapse of the Second French
Empire within days.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sedan>
1957:
South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm began an official
visit to Australia, the first by a foreign incumbent head of state to
the country.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem_presidential_visit_to_Australia>
1985:
Hurricane Elena, an unpredictable and damaging tropical cyclone
that affected eastern and central portions of the United States Gulf
Coast, made landfall near Biloxi, Mississippi, as a Category 3 major
hurricane.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Elena>
1992:
An earthquake registering 7.7 Mw off the coast of Nicaragua
became the first tsunami earthquake to be captured on modern broadband
seismic networks.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Nicaragua_earthquake>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
tar with the same brush:
(transitive, figuratively) To characterize (someone or something) using
the same undesirable attribute, especially unjustly.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tar_with_the_same_brush>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I wanted to have a voice, and it was okay if I wasn't going to be
so famous or so rich. And this the one thing I learned: How do you
recognize what's your true dream and what is the dream that you are
dreaming for other people to love you? … The difference is very easy
to understand. If you enjoy the process, it's your dream. … If you are
enduring the process, just desperate for the result, it's somebody
else's dream.
--Salma Hayek
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Salma_Hayek>