Saguaro National Park is a United States national park in southeastern Arizona that preserves Sonoran Desert landscapes, fauna, and flora, including the giant saguaro cactus. The 92,000-acre (37,000 ha) park has two separate areas—the Tucson Mountain District (TMD) about 10 miles (16 km) west of the city of Tucson and the Rincon Mountain District about 10 miles (16 km) east of the city. The Rincon Mountains are part of the Madrean Sky Islands between the southern Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico; they are significantly higher and wetter than the Tucson Mountains, and support many plants and animals that do not live in the TMD. Earlier residents of and visitors to the lands in and around the park before its creation included the Hohokam, Sobaipuri, Tohono O'odham, and Apaches, as well as Spanish explorers, missionaries, miners, homesteaders, and ranchers. In 1933, President Herbert Hoover, using the Antiquities Act, established the original park, Saguaro National Monument, in the Rincon Mountains. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy added the TMD.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saguaro_National_Park

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

763:

The Abbasid Caliphate crushed the Alid revolt when one of the rebel leaders was mortally wounded in battle near Basra in what is now Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alid_revolt_of_762%E2%80%93763

1789:

The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, widely considered to be the first American novel, was published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Sympathy

1941:

Sparked by the murder of a German officer the previous day in Bucharest, Romania, members of the Iron Guard engaged in a rebellion and pogrom, killing 125 Jews. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires%27_rebellion_and_Bucharest_pogrom

1968:

Vietnam War: The Vietnamese People's Army attacked Khe Sanh Combat Base, a U.S. Marines outpost in Quảng Trị Province, South Vietnam, starting the Battle of Khe Sanh (U.S. Army soldiers pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khe_Sanh

2011:

Demonstrations in Tirana to protest the alleged corruption of the Albanian government led to the killings of three demonstrators by the Republican Guard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Albanian_opposition_demonstrations

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

breadbasket: 1. A basket used for storing or carrying bread. 2. A region which has favourable conditions to produce a large quantity of grain or, by extension, other food products; a food bowl. 3. (humorous) The abdomen or stomach, especially as a vulnerable part of the body in an attack. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/breadbasket

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Though "none by searching can find out God, or the Almighty to perfection," yet I am persuaded, that if mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to him and one another, and be proportionally delighted and blessed with the views of his moral government, make better members of society, and acquire, manly powerful incentives to the practice of morality, which is the last and greatest perfection that human nature is capable of.   --Ethan Allen https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ethan_Allen