Alec Douglas-Home (1903–95) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister from October 1963 to October 1964. His reputation rests more on the two periods when he served as the UK foreign minister than on his brief, uneventful premiership. As parliamentary aide to Neville Chamberlain, he witnessed Chamberlain's efforts to preserve peace before the Second World War. In 1951 he inherited the earldom of Home and became a member of the House of Lords. Under Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan he was appointed to posts including Leader of the House of Lords and Foreign Secretary. In October 1963 Macmillan resigned as Prime Minister. Home was controversially chosen to succeed him, renouncing his earldom and winning election to the House of Commons. He was criticised by the Labour Party as an out-of-touch aristocrat, and he came over stiffly in television interviews. After narrow defeat in the 1964 general election he resigned as party leader; he later served under Edward Heath as Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. After the defeat of the Heath government in 1974 he retired from front-line politics.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Douglas-Home

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

706:

In China, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang interred the final bodies in the Qianling Mausoleum, which remained unopened until the 1960s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianling_Mausoleum

1890:

The U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first United States government action to limit monopolies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act

1917:

White residents of East St. Louis, Illinois, burned entire sections of the city and shot black inhabitants as they escaped the flames. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_St._Louis_Riot

1950:

A mentally ill Buddhist monk set fire to the Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji (restoration pictured), destroying what is now one of the most popular tourist destinations in Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkaku-ji

1976:

More than a year after the end of the Vietnam War, North and South Vietnam officially united under communist rule to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

geodesy: Scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of earth, its gravitational field and geodynamic phenomena (polar motion, earth tides, and crustal motion) in three‐dimensional, time‐varying space. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/geodesy

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity.   --Hermann Hesse https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse