The Cotswold Olimpick Games is an annual public celebration of games and sports held near Chipping Campden, in the Cotswolds of England. They probably began in 1612, and have continued on and off since (1636 depiction shown). They were started by a local lawyer, Robert Dover, with the approval of King James. Events included horse-racing, coursing with hounds, running, dancing, sledgehammer throwing, fighting with swords, and wrestling. By the time of James's death in 1625, many Puritan landowners had forbidden their workers to attend, and the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 brought the Games to an end. Revived after the Restoration of 1660, they gradually degenerated into a drunk and disorderly country festival. They ended again in 1852, when the common land on which they had been staged was partitioned and enclosed. Since 1966 the Games have been held each year on the Friday after Spring Bank Holiday. Events have included the tug of war, gymkhana, shin-kicking, dwile flonking, motor cycle scrambling, judo, piano smashing, and morris dancing. The British Olympic Association has recognised the Cotswold Olimpick Games as "the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings".

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1223:

Mongol invasions: Mongol forces defeated a combined army of Kiev, Galich, and the Cumans at the Kalchik River in present-day Ukraine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Kalka_River

1669:

Citing poor eyesight, English naval administrator and Member of Parliament Samuel Pepys recorded his last entry in his diary, one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pepys

1935:

A 7.7 Mw earthquake struck Balochistan in the British Raj, now part of Pakistan, killing anywhere between 30,000 and 60,000 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Balochistan_earthquake

1981:

An organized mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitias began burning the public library in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, destroying over 97,000 items in one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Jaffna_library

2009:

American physician George Tiller who was nationally known for being one of the few doctors in the United States to perform late-term abortions, was shot and killed by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

omnishambles: (UK, chiefly politics) A situation that is bad or mismanaged in every way. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/omnishambles

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Our problem is to become acquainted with our own selves, letting our personalities loose upon the world for the sheer adventure of their full development and in the positive hope that they may in their own way lift the level of humanity.   --Norman Vincent Peale https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norman_Vincent_Peale