Muckaty Station is a 2,380-square-kilometre (590,000-acre) Aboriginal freehold landholding in Australia's Northern Territory, approximately 800 kilometres (500 mi) south of Darwin. Originally under traditional Indigenous Australian ownership, the area became a pastoral lease in the late 19th century and for many years operated as a cattle station. Muckaty Station was returned to its Indigenous custodians in 1999. It is traversed by the Stuart Highway, built in the 1940s along the route of the service track for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line, a natural gas pipeline, and the Adelaide–Darwin railway. The area comprises semi-arid stony ridges, claypans and a stony plateau, and experiences a sub-tropical climate, with a wet season between January and March. The vegetation is mostly scrubland, including spinifex grasslands. The fauna is generally typical of Australian desert environments, and includes the red kangaroo (pictured), the eastern wallaroo, the northern nail-tail wallaby, and the spinifex hopping mouse. A site within Muckaty is being considered for Australia's low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste storage and disposal facility. The plan is subject to a Federal Court challenge due to be heard early in 2013.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckaty_Station

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1702:

Carolina colonial governor James Moore abandoned the siege against the Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine, Spanish Florida, and retreated to Charles Town in disgrace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_St._Augustine_(1702)

1896:

Philippine Revolution: Nationalist José Rizal was executed by a firing squad in Manila after Spanish authorities convicted him of rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Rizal

1947:

Michael, King of Romania, was forced to abdicate by the country's communist government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_of_Romania

2005:

Tropical Storm Zeta was declared a tropical depression, making it the record-breaking thirtieth tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, the most active in recorded history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Zeta

2006:

MV Senopati Nusantara, an Indonesian ferry, sank in the Java Sea during a storm, killing at least 400 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Senopati_Nusantara

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

peckled: (now UK dialectal) Speckled, spotted. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peckled

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Never do I hesitate to look squarely at the unexpected face that every passing hour unveils to us, and to sacrifice the false images of it formed in advance, however dear they may be. In me, the love of life in general predominates over love of my own life (that, indeed, would never have sufficed to bear me up). May life herself speak! However inadequate I may be in listening to her, and in repeating her words, I shall try to record them, even if they contradict my most secret desires. In all that I write, may her will, not mine, be done! --Romain Rolland https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Romain_Rolland