India is a country in South Asia. Comprising the bulk of the Indian
subcontinent, India owes its geography, climate and biodiversity to
ancient plate tectonics which pushed the Indian Plate north from deep in
the Southern Hemisphere. Modern humans arrived on the subcontinent from
Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Settled life emerged in the
western margins of the Indus River basin 9,000 years ago. India is home
to a large mix of languages, religions, and cultures. It is the world's
most populous democracy, with 1.3 billion people, and a secular federal
republic governed in a parliamentary system. It is the world's third-
largest economy in purchasing power parity, and a fast-growing major
economy. After 190 years in the British Empire, India gained
independence in 1947 through a campaign of nonviolent resistance whose
enduring symbol is Mahatma Gandhi (born 2 October 1869).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1937:
President Rafael Trujillo announced that Dominican troops had
begun mass killings of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsley_massacre>
1942:
Second World War: HMS Curacoa was accidentally rammed and sunk
by RMS Queen Mary while escorting the liner to provide protection from
submarine attacks.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Curacoa_%28D41%29>
1996:
A maintenance worker's failure to remove tape covering the
static ports of the aircraft caused Aeroperú Flight 603 to crash into
the ocean near Lima, Peru, killing all 70 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroper%C3%BA_Flight_603>
2005:
The first parkrun, then known as the Bushy Park Time Trial,
took place in Bushy Park, London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkrun>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
pleach:
(transitive) To unite by interweaving, as (horticulture) branches of
shrubs, trees, etc., to create a hedge; to interlock, to plash.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pleach>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The truth seems to be that we live in concepts of the imagination
before the reason has established them. If this is true, then reason is
simply the methodizer of the imagination.
--Wallace Stevens
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wallace_Stevens>
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