The Exelon Pavilions are four structures which generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, US. The pavilions provide sufficient energy to power the equivalent of 14 Energy star-rated energy-efficient houses in Chicago. The four pavilions, which cost $7 million, were designed in January 2001; construction began in January 2004. The South Pavilions were completed and opened in July 2004, while the North Pavilions were completed in November 2004, with a grand opening on April 30, 2005. In addition to producing energy, three of the four pavilions provide access to the parking garages below the park, while the fourth serves as the park's welcome center and office. Exelon, a company that generates the electricity transmitted by its subsidiary Commonwealth Edison, donated $5.5 million for the pavilions. Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin praised the South Pavilions as "minor modernist jewels", but criticized the North Pavilions as "nearly all black and impenetrable". The North Pavilions have received the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver rating from the United States Green Building Council, as well as an award from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1684:

Edmond Halley presented the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, containing Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, to the Royal Society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_motu_corporum_in_gyrum

1898:

Forces led by Nguyen Trung Truc, an anti-colonial guerrilla leader in southern Vietnam, sank the French lorcha L'Esperance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_Trung_Truc

1907:

During the Brown Dog affair, about 1,000 protesters marched through London and then clashed with 400 police officers in Trafalgar Square over the existence of a memorial for animals which have been vivisected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affair

1936:

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, out of a desire to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson against widespread opposition, abdicated the royal throne, the first and only British monarch to have done so since the Anglo-Saxon period. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII_abdication_crisis

1979:

The Kuomintang (KMT) dictatorship of Taiwan arrested a larger number of opposition leaders who had organized pro-democracy demonstrations, an incident credited with ending the KMT's rule in 2000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaohsiung_Incident

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

intempestivity (n): Unseasonability; untimeliness http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intempestivity

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. --Theodore Roosevelt http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt