The 2008 Monaco Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on May 25, 2008 at the Circuit de Monaco; contested over 76 laps, it was the sixth race of the 2008 Formula One season. The race was won by the season's eventual Drivers' Champion, Lewis Hamilton, for the McLaren team. BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica finished second, and Felipe Massa, who started from pole position, was third in a Ferrari. Conditions were wet at the start of the race. Massa maintained his lead into the first corner, but his teammate Kimi Räikkönen was passed for second by Hamilton, who had started in third position on the grid. Hamilton suffered a punctured tyre on lap six, forcing him to make a pit stop from which he re-entered the race in fifth place. As the track dried and his rivals made their own pit stops Hamilton became the race leader, a position he held until the end of the race. Kubica's strategy allowed him to pass Massa during their second pit stops, after the latter's Ferrari was forced to change from wet to dry tyres. Räikkönen dropped back from fifth position to ninth after colliding with Adrian Sutil's Force India late in the race. The race was Hamilton's second win of the season, his first in Monaco, and the result meant that he led the Drivers' Championship, seven points ahead of Räikkönen and eight ahead of Massa.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Monaco_Grand_Prix

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1640:

John IV was declared King of Portugal, resulting in the Portuguese Restoration War with Spain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_IV_of_Portugal

1822:

Pedro I was crowned the first Emperor of Brazil, less than two months after he actually began his reign on October 12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_I_of_Brazil

1955:

African-American Civil Rights Movement: Seamstress Rosa Parks was arrested for violating the racial segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama, after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, precipitating the Montgomery Bus Boycott. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

1959:

Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War, banning military activity in Antarctica and setting the continent aside as a scientific preserve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System

1990:

Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France met 40 metres (131 ft) beneath the English Channel seabed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

hebetude (n): Mental lethargy or dullness http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hebetude

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

There's an old joke... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life — full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness — and it's all over much too quickly. --Woody Allen http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Woody_Allen