William Speirs Bruce (1867–1921) was a London-born Scottish naturalist,
polar scientist and oceanographer who organized and led the Scottish
National Antarctic Expedition to the South Orkney Islands and the
Weddell Sea. Among other achievements the expedition established the
first permanent weather station below the Antarctic Circle. Bruce later
founded the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, but his plans for a
transcontinental Antarctic march via the South Pole were stillborn
through lack of public and financial support. In 1892 Bruce abandoned
his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh and joined the
Dundee Whaling Expedition to Antarctica as a scientific assistant. This
was followed by Arctic voyages to Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Franz
Josef Land. In 1899 Bruce, by then Britain's most experienced polar
scientist, applied for a post on Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery
Expedition, but delays over this appointment and clashes with Royal
Geographical Society president Sir Clements Markham led him instead to
organize his own expedition, and earned him the permanent enmity of the
British geographical establishment. Between 1907 and 1920 Bruce made
many journeys to the Arctic regions, both for scientific and for
commercial purposes.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Speirs_Bruce>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1800:
War of the Second Coalition: French forces under General Jean Moreau
defeated the Austrians and Bavarians under Archduke John in
Hohenlinden, near Munich, forcing the Austrians to sign an armistice.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hohenlinden>
1854:
At least 22 people were killed and 35 others were injured when
rebelling miners at the Eureka Stockade clashed violently with the
police and the military in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade>
1967:
Cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human
heart transplant on Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape
Town, South Africa.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Barnard>
1971:
The formal initiation of hostilities of the Indo-Pakistani War began
with the Pakistani Air Force launching pre-emptive airstrikes on
several forward airbases and radar installations of the Indian Air
Force.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chengiz_Khan>
1999:
NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before it reached
the atmosphere of Mars and disappeared.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Polar_Lander>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
flaneur (n):
One who wanders aimlessly, who roams, who travels at a lounging pace
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flaneur>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone
are quite capable of every wickedness.
--Joseph Conrad
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad>
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