The planet Venus has been used as a setting in fiction since before the
19th century. Its impenetrable cloud cover gave writers free rein to
speculate on conditions at Venus's surface, which was often depicted as
warmer than Earth's but habitable. Images of a lush, verdant paradise,
an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like
beasts or other monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction,
particularly from the 1930s to the 1950s. Some stories portrayed the
surface as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. Venusians were
often portrayed as gentle, ethereal, beautiful, and female, after the
Roman goddess Venus. Since the discovery of Venus's harsh surface
conditions, the planet has mostly been portrayed as a hostile, toxic
inferno. Some stories have imagined the planet's colonization and
terraforming, although the vision of a tropical Venus has occasionally
been revisited in intentionally retro stories.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_fiction>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1931:
American gangster Al Capone was convicted on five counts of
income-tax evasion.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone>
1952:
Indonesian Army elements surrounded the Merdeka Palace,
demanding that President Sukarno disband the Provisional People's
Representative Council.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_October_affair>
1973:
Yom Kippur War: Egyptian forces retreated from the Battle of
the Chinese Farm, allowing Israeli forces to build their first bridge
across the Suez Canal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Chinese_Farm>
2000:
A fatal rail accident at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, led to the
introduction of widespread speed limit reductions throughout the British
rail network and eventually caused the collapse of the railway
management group Railtrack.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
emboss:
1. To cause (something) to stick out or swell; to extrude; also, to
cause (someone or something) to be covered in swellings.
2. To make (a design on a coin, an ornament on an object, etc.) stand
out from a surface.
3. To represent (a subject) on an object in relief; also, of a design or
subject: to stand out on (an object) in relief.
4. To decorate or mark (something) with a design or symbol in relief.
5. To decorate (something) with bosses (“ornamental convex
protuberances”); to boss; hence, to decorate (something) richly.
6. (figurative)
7. To cause (something) to be prominent or stand out.
8. (obsolete) To make (speech, etc.) unduly bombastic or grand.
9. (obsolete, rare) Synonym of boss (“a knob or projection”) [...]
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/emboss>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Be grateful for the highs — and be grateful for the lows —
'cause it's in the lows where you learn.
--Suzanne Somers
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Suzanne_Somers>
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