The Somerset Levels are about 160,000 acres (650 km2) of coastal plains and wetlands in Somerset, South West England, running south from the Mendip Hills to the Blackdown Hills. About 70 per cent of the land is used as grassland and the rest is arable. Willow and teazel are grown commercially, and peat is extracted. Neolithic people exploited the resources of the reed swamps and started to construct wooden trackways, including the world's oldest known timber trackway, the Post Track, dating from the 3800s BC. Several settlements and hill forts were built on slightly raised land, including at Brent Knoll and Glastonbury. The Shapwick Hoard, 9,238 silver Roman coins discovered at the village of Shapwick, is the second largest Roman coin collection ever found in Britain. In 1685 the Battle of Sedgemoor ended the Monmouth Rebellion. The area has been extensively studied for its biodiversity and history, and has a growing tourism industry.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1791:

The Priestley Riots began, in which Joseph Priestley and other religious Dissenters were driven out of Birmingham, England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestley_Riots

1958:

Faisal II, the last king of Iraq, was overthrown by a military coup d'état led by Abd al-Karim Qasim. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_July_Revolution

2003:

In an effort to discredit U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had written an op-ed critical of the invasion of Iraq, his wife Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative was leaked to and published by Washington Post columnist Robert Novak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair

2015:

The New Horizons probe became the first spacecraft to explore Pluto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

chasse-café:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chasse-caf%C3%A9

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

No matter how bad the wicked world has hurt you, in the long run, there is something gained, and it is all for the best … The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine, and any song that says, the pleasures I have seen in all of my trouble, are the things I never can get — don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as there is a human to race. The human race is a pretty old place.   --Woody Guthrie https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie