110px|Shackleton as a young man
Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) was an Anglo-Irish polar explorer, one
of the principal figures of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on
Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, from which
he was sent home early on health grounds. Determined to make amends for
this perceived personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as
leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909 he and three
companions made a southern march which established a record Farthest
South latitude at 88° 23′ S, 190 km from the South Pole. For this
achievement, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return
home. After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald
Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to what he said
was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying—the crossing
of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole. To this end he made
preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition,
1914–17. Disaster struck this expedition when its ship, Endurance,
became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed before the shore
parties could be landed. There followed a sequence of exploits, and an
ultimate escape with no lives lost, that would eventually assure
Shackleton's heroic status. (more...)
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1776:
American Revolutionary War: The British Army garrison in Boston,
Massachusetts, withdrew from the city, ending the 11-month Siege of
Boston.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Boston>
1950:
The synthesis of californium, a radioactive transuranium element, was
announced.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/californium>
1963:
The most recent eruption of Mount Agung on Bali, Indonesia, killed
approximately 1,500 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Agung>
1988:
Eritrean War of Independence: The Eritrean People's Liberation Front
encircled a Soviet–Ethiopian force and gained a decisive victory in the
Battle of Afabet.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Afabet>
2000:
Over 700 followers of the Ugandan sect Movement for the Restoration of
the Ten Commandments of God perished in a fire and a series of
poisonings and killings, considered either a cult suicide or an
orchestrated mass murder by its leaders.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_for_the_Restoration_of_the_Ten_Commandments_of_God>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
greenwash (n):
A false or misleading picture of environmental friendliness used to
conceal or obscure damaging activities
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/greenwash>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
42px
That truth-is-stranger-than-fiction factor keeps getting jacked up on
us on a fairly regular, maybe even exponential, basis. I think that's
something peculiar to our time. I don't think our grandparents had to
live with that.
--William Gibson
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Gibson>
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