The Bone Wars were rivalries between paleontologists, mainly Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh (pictured), that led to a surge of fossil discoveries during the Gilded Age of American history. Cope, of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and Marsh, of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale, competed using underhanded methods, resorting to bribery, theft, destruction of bones, and mutual attacks in scientific publications. They sought fossils in rich bone beds in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. From 1877 to 1892, they used their wealth and influence to finance their own expeditions and to procure services and dinosaur bones from fossil hunters. Cope and Marsh were financially and socially ruined by their attempts to disgrace each other, but their contributions to science and the field of paleontology, including many unopened boxes of fossils found after their deaths, were massive. Their efforts led to many new descriptions of dinosaur species, of which 32 remain valid today. The Bone Wars shed light on prehistoric life and sparked the public's interest in dinosaurs, leading to continued fossil excavation in North America in the decades to follow.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1745:
Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan in the Scottish Highlands to begin the Second Jacobite Rising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rising_of_1745
1934:
A German referendum supported the recent merging of the posts of Chancellor and President, consolidating Adolf Hitler's assumption of supreme power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_referendum,_1934
1964:
Over 17,000 fans saw the Beatles on the opening date of the group's first nationwide U.S. tour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_in_the_United_States
1987:
A 27-year-old unemployed local labourer shot and killed sixteen people and wounded fifteen others before fatally shooting himself in Hungerford, Berkshire, England, one of the worst criminal atrocities involving firearms in British history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre
2003:
A Hamas suicide bomber killed 23 people and wounded over 130 others on a crowded public bus in the Shmuel HaNavi quarter in Jerusalem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_HaNavi_bus_bombing
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
trickle truth: (informal) Facts gradually and reluctantly admitted by one's significant other under questioning, especially about having been unfaithful. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trickle_truth
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren’t still there, he’s no longer a political leader. --Bernard Baruch https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bernard_Baruch
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