Mount Rushmore is a United States presidential memorial that represents the first 150 years of the history of the United States of America with the 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of former U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. The entire memorial covers 1,278 acres (5.17 km²), and is 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level. It is managed by the National Park Service, a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior. The memorial attracts around 2 million people annually. The mountain known to the Lakota Sioux as Six Grandfathers, was renamed after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, in 1885. The project of carving Mount Rushmore originally started with the purpose of increasing tourism in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. After long negotiations involving a Congressional delegation and President Calvin Coolidge, the project received Congressional approval. Under the direction of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, the carving started in 1927 and ended in 1941.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1768: The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica)

1917: Halifax Explosion: A ship in Halifax Harbour carrying trinitrotoluene (TNT) and picric acid caught fire after a collision with another ship and exploded, devastating Halifax, Canada. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion)

1922: The Irish Free State came into existence, one year after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State)

1957: Project Vanguard: An attempt to launch the first American satellite failed with an explosion on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Vanguard)

1989: Marc Lépine killed 14 women in the École Polytechnique Massacre in Montreal. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

Never think that you're not good enough. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning. -- Anthony Trollope (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_Trollope)