The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program is a program within the U.S. Navy that studies and trains marine mammals — principally Bottlenose Dolphins and California Sea Lions — for military activities, such as ship protection, mine clearance, and equipment recovery. The program is based in San Diego, California, where animals are kept and trained continuously. NMMP animal teams have been deployed for use in conflict situations, such as the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. The program has been dogged by controversy over its treatment of the animals, and by speculation on the nature of its mission and training; this has been due at least in part to the secrecy of the program, which was de-classified in the early 1990s. The Navy cites external oversight, including ongoing monitoring, to defend its standard of animal care; however, there is ongoing opposition to the concept of using marine mammals for military purposes. Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Navy_Marine_Mammal_Program _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1803: As part of the Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans was transferred from France to the United States. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase) 1860: South Carolina seceded from the United States, leading to the American Civil War. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War) 1917: Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky founded the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheka) 1995: The NATO-led IFOR began peacekeeping in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFOR) 1999: Portugal transferred sovereignty of Macau to the People's Republic of China. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau) _____________________ Wikiquote of the day: "For most of human history we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Who are we? What are we? We find that we inhabit an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions, and by the depth of our answers." -- Carl Sagan (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan)