The Yeomanry Cavalry was the mounted component of the British Volunteer Corps, a military auxiliary established in the late 18th century. When the Volunteer Corps was disbanded after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the yeomanry – recruited from the middle and upper classes – was retained as a politically reliable institution that could act as a mounted police force. It became infamous after playing a leading part in the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, and its policing role declined as civilian police forces were established in the mid-19th century. The yeomanry struggled to find a place in the military establishment, and it survived largely because of its members' political influence and willingness to subsidise it financially. It found a new relevance when the Second Boer War revealed a need for mounted infantry. It was reorganised in 1901 as the Imperial Yeomanry, and in 1908 it ceased to be a discrete institution when all volunteer auxiliaries were amalgamated into the Territorial Force.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1968:

Following the deaths of two employees on the job, black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, agreed to begin a strike that would last more than two months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_sanitation_strike

1990:

Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, having been a political prisoner for 27 years, was released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, South Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

2001:

The Anna Kournikova computer worm, which went on to affect millions of users worldwide, was released by a 20-year-old Dutch student. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Kournikova_%28computer_virus%29

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

radium: 1. The chemical element (symbol Ra) with an atomic number of 88. It is a soft, shiny and silvery radioactive alkaline earth metal. 2. (textiles, dated) A type of cloth woven from silk or synthetic yarn, often with a shiny appearance. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/radium

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. … I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.   --Thomas Edison https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison