Jerusalem is Israel's capital, seat of government, and largest city, both in terms of population and area, with 732,100 residents in an area of 126 sq. km (49 sq. mi.). Located in the Judean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea, the city has a history that goes back as far as the 4th millennium BCE. The walled area of Jerusalem, which constituted the entire city until the 1860s, is now called the Old City, and was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1982. The Old City is home to several sites of key religious importance: the Temple Mount and its Western Wall for Jews, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians, and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims. Modern Jerusalem has grown up around the Old City, with its civic and cultural hub extending westward toward the country's urban center in Gush Dan. Today, Jerusalem remains a bone of contention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem (captured in the 1967 Six-Day War) has been particularly controversial, as there are Palestinians who view this part of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Thus, the status of a united Jerusalem as Israel's "eternal capital" has not been recognized by the United Nations and much of the international community.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1430: Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc was captured at the Siege of Compiègne. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Compi%C3%A8gne)

1533: The marriage of Henry VIII of England and his first wife Catherine of Aragon was annulled. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Aragon)

1568: The Eighty Years' War broke out when Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau invaded Friesland in the Battle of Heiligerlee. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War)

1873: The North West Mounted Police was established to bring law and order to and assert Canadian sovereignty over in the Northwest Territories. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Mounted_Police)

1934: American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_and_Clyde)

1945: End of World War II in Europe: Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz was captured and his Flensburg government was dissolved. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_D%C3%B6nitz)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophecy or as poesy. ... should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth. -- Margaret Fuller (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Fuller)