Banff National Park is Canada's first national park, established in
1885, in the Canadian Rockies. The park, located 120 kilometres west
of Calgary in the province of Alberta, encompasses 6,641 square
kilometres of mountainous terrain, with numerous glaciers and
icefields, dense coniferous forest, and alpine landscapes. The
Icefields Parkway extends from Lake Louise, connecting to Jasper
National Park in the north. Provincial forests and Yoho National Park
are neighbours to the west, while Kootenay National Park is located to
the south, and Kananaskis Country to the southeast. The main
commercial center of the park is the town of Banff, in the Bow River
valley. Millions more pass through the park on the Trans-Canada
Highway. As one of the world's most visited national parks, the health
of Banff's ecosystem has been threatened. In the mid-1990s, Parks
Canada responded by initiating a two-year study, which resulted in
management recommendations, and new policies that aim to preserve
ecological integrity.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banff_National_Park
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1066:
Battle of Hastings: The Norman invasion forces of William the Conqueror
defeated the English army and killed Harold Godwinson, the last crowned
Anglo-Saxon king of England.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings)
1773:
The first recorded ministry of education, the Commission of National
Education, was formed in Poland.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komisja_Edukacji_Narodowej)
1947:
Flying a Bell X-1, test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to
break
the sound barrier.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager)
1953:
Qibya massacre: Israeli military commander Ariel Sharon and his Unit 101
special forces were ordered to "inflict heavy damage on the
inhabitants" of a
village on the West Bank.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibya_massacre)
1981:
Hosni Mubarak was elected President of Egypt, one week after Anwar
Sadat was
assassinated.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosni_Mubarak)
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Wikiquote of the day:
In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one
should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are
comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong. -- John Kenneth
Galbraith
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith)