The shotgun house is a type of house that was the most popular style in the American South from just after the Civil War until the 1920s. The style was developed in New Orleans, but the houses can be found as far away as Chicago and California. Shotgun houses are characterized by their narrow rectangular structure, usually no more than 12 feet (3.5 m) wide, three to five rooms deep, all connected to each other with no hallways, with doors at each end. The term "shotgun" is usually said to come from the saying that one could fire a shotgun through the front door and the pellets would fly cleanly through the house and out the back door. Shotgun houses, though initially popular with the middle class as much as the poor, became a symbol of poverty in the mid-20th century, but opinion is now more mixed, with some the targets of bulldozing due to urban renewal, but others the recipients of historical preservation and gentrification. They remain the most prevalent housing in many southern cities and towns.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

378: A large Roman army led by Emperor Valens was destroyed by the Visigoths in the Battle of Adrianople. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople)

1173: The construction of a campanile, which would eventually become the Leaning Tower of Pisa, began. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa)

1942: The British Raj arrested Mahatma Gandhi and various leaders of the Congress Party, beginning the suppression of the Quit India Movement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quit_India_Movement)

1945: World War II: USAAF bomber Bockscar dropped an atomic bomb named Fat Man, devastating Nagasaki, Japan (pictured). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man)

1974: The Watergate scandal: Richard Nixon became the first president of the United States to resign from office. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society... But for me, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists." -- Jean Piaget (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget)