Nebula Science Fiction was the first Scottish science fiction magazine. It was published from 1952 to 1959, and was edited by Peter Hamilton, a young Scot who was able to take advantage of spare capacity at his parents' printing company, Crownpoint, to launch the magazine. Nebula's circulation was international, with only a quarter of the sales in the United Kingdom: this led to disaster when both South Africa and Australia imposed import controls on foreign periodicals at the end of the 1950s. Excise duties imposed in the UK added to Hamilton's financial burdens, and he was rapidly forced to close the magazine down. The last issue was dated June 1959. The magazine was popular with writers, partly because Hamilton went to great lengths to encourage new writers, and partly because he paid better rates per word than much of his competition. Initially he could not compete with the American market, but he offered a bonus for the most popular story in the issue, and eventually was able to match the leading American magazines. He published the first stories of several well-known writers, including Robert Silverberg, Brian Aldiss, and Bob Shaw. Nebula was also a fan favourite: author Ken Bulmer recalls that it became "what many fans regard as the best-loved British SF magazine". (more...)

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

447:

An earthquake destroyed large sections of the Walls of Constantinople . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Constantinople

1868:

Boshin War: The Battle of Toba-Fushimi, where pro-Imperial forces defeated those of the Tokugawa shogunate and which was a catalyst for the Meiji Restoration, began in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Toba-Fushimi

1888:

Two weeks after a group of over thirty explorers and scientists met in Washington, D.C., to organize "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge," the National Geographic Society, publisher of the National Geographic Magazine, was incorporated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Society

1980:

With the assistance of Canadian government officials, six American diplomats who had avoided capture in the Iran hostage crisis escaped to Zurich, Switzerland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Caper

2002:

An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, killed at least 1,100 people and displaced over 20,000 others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagos_Armoury_Explosion

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

dubitation (n): 1. The process of doubting or the state of being in doubt; hesitation, uncertainty. 2. A pang or expression of doubt http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dubitation

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I suppose every child has a world of his own — and every man, too, for the matter of that. I wonder if that's the cause for all the misunderstanding there is in Life? --Lewis Carroll http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll