Upper and Lower Table Rock are two prominent volcanic plateaus just north of the Rogue River in Jackson County, Oregon, US. Created by a medium-grained lava flow around seven million years ago and shaped by erosion, they now stand about 800 feet (240 m) above the surrounding Rogue Valley. They are jointly owned by The Nature Conservancy and the Bureau of Land Management. The Takelma tribe of Native Americans inhabited the Table Rocks for at least 15,000 years before being forced into reservations during a mid-19th-century gold rush. A post office was established nearby in 1872, an airstrip was built atop Lower Table Rock in 1948, and an aviation beacon was constructed on Upper Table Rock in the 1960s. These plateaus, which were not protected until the 1970s, are home to over 70 species of animals and 340 species of plants, including the dwarf woolly meadowfoam. They are popular hiking locations in the Rogue Valley, with over 45,000 visitors annually.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1558:

Francis, Duke of Guise, retook Calais, England's last continental possession, for France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais

1610:

Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei made his first observation of the four Galilean moons through his telescope: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he was not able to distinguish the latter two until the following day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)

1797:

The first official Italian tricolour was adopted by the government of the Cispadane Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Italy

1948:

Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell fatally crashed his P-51 Mustang while in pursuit of a UFO near Fort Knox, Kentucky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantell_UFO_incident

1979:

The Vietnam People's Army captured Phnom Penh, deposing Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which marked the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_War

2010:

In Nag Hammadi, Egypt, Muslim gunmen opened fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians leaving church after celebrating a Christmas Mass, killing eight of them as well as one Muslim bystander. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi_massacre

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

spade: 1. To turn over soil with a spade to loosen the ground for planting. 2. (videogaming) To collect and statistically analyze data, for the purpose of determining the underlying random number generator structure or numeric formula. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spade

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

We now stand so aloof from nature that we think we are God. This has always been a dangerous supposition.   --Gerald Durrell https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gerald_Durrell