The Turabay dynasty was a family of Bedouin emirs who governed the district of Lajjun in northern Palestine during Ottoman rule in the 16th–17th centuries. The family's forebears had served as chiefs of Jezreel Valley during Mamluk rule in the late 15th century. During the Ottoman conquest of the region in 1516–1517, the family aided Ottoman sultan Selim I. The Ottomans kept them as guardians of the strategic Via Maris and Damascus–Jerusalem highways and rewarded them with tax farms. Although in the 17th century several of their emirs lived in towns, the Turabays largely remained nomads, camping with their tribesmen near Caesarea in the winters and the plain of Acre in the summers. The eastward migration of their tribesmen to the Jordan Valley, Ottoman centralization, and falling tax revenues brought about their political decline and they were permanently stripped of office in 1677. Descendants of the family continue to live in the area..

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1789:

The national colours of Italy first appeared on a tricolour cockade in Genoa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockade_of_Italy

1911:

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by museum employee Vincenzo Peruggia and was not recovered until two years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa

1944:

World War II: A combined Canadian–Polish force captured the town of Falaise, France, in the final offensive of the Battle of Normandy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tractable

2007:

BioShock was released in North America, becoming a critical success and a demonstration of video games as an art form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

accretion: 1. (uncountable, also figurative) Increase by natural growth, especially the gradual increase of organic bodies by the internal addition of matter; organic growth; also, the amount of such growth. 2. (uncountable) (Gradual) increase by an external addition of matter; (countable) an instance of this. 3. (geology) The process by which material is added to a geological feature; specifically, to a tectonic plate at a subduction zone. 4. (uncountable, also figurative) Followed by of: external addition of matter to a thing which causes it to grow, especially in amount or size. 5. (uncountable) The process of separate particles aggregating or coalescing together; concretion; (countable) a thing formed in this manner. 6. (astrophysics) The formation of planets, stars, and other celestial bodies by the aggregating of matter drawn together by gravity; also, the growth of a celestial body through this process. 7. (countable, chiefly figurative) Something gradually added to or growing on a thing externally. 8. (conservation science) A substance which has built up on the surface of an object, rather than become embedded in it. 9. (law) 10. (uncountable) Increase in property by the addition of other property to it (for example, gain of land by alluvion (“the deposition of sediment by a river or sea”) or dereliction (“recession of water from the usual watermark”), or entitlement to the products of the property such as interest on money); or by the property owner acquiring another person's ownership rights; accession; (countable) an instance of this. 11. (uncountable) Increase of an inheritance to an heir or legatee due to the share of a co-heir or co-legatee being added to it, because the latter person is legally unable to inherit the share. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accretion

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Folks, all of us carry a special obligation. Independents, Republicans, Democrats. We saved democracy in 2020, and now we must save it again in 2024. The vote that each of us cast this year will determine whether democracy and freedom will prevail. It’s that simple. It’s that serious. And the power is literally in your hands. History’s in your hands. Not hyperbole. It’s in your hands. America’s future’s in your hands.   --Joe Biden https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joe_Biden