U.S. Route 491 is a north–south U.S. Highway serving the Four Corners region of the United States. One of the newest designations in the U.S. Highway System, it was created in 2003 as a renumbering of U.S. Route 666. With the 666 designation, this road was nicknamed Devil's Highway because of the common Christian belief that 666 is the Number of the Beast. This satanic connotation, combined with a high fatality rate along the New Mexico portion, convinced some people the highway was cursed. The problem was compounded with persistent sign theft. These factors led to two efforts to renumber the highway, by officials in Arizona and then in New Mexico. Since the renumbering, as a result of safety improvement projects, fatality rates have decreased. The highway runs through Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, as well as the tribal nations of the Navajo Nation and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. Features along the route include an extinct volcanic core named Shiprock, Mesa Verde National Park, and the self-proclaimed pinto-bean capital of the world, Dove Creek, Colorado.
Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_491
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1054:
Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", which was in actuality the supernova that created the Crab Nebula. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula
1776:
In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing that the thirteen American colonies were no longer a part of the British Empire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
1862:
In a rowing boat on the River Thames from Oxford to Godstow, author Lewis Carroll told Alice Liddell and her sisters a story that would eventually form the basis for his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland
2005:
The NASA space probe Deep Impact impacted the nucleus of the comet Tempel 1, excavating debris from its interior so that its composition could be studied. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_%28spacecraft%29
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
auteur (n): A creative artist, especially a film director, seen as having a specific, recognisable artistic vision, and who is seen as the single or preeminent ‘author’ of their works http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/auteur
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. --Nathaniel Hawthorne http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne
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