The Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Edwardian England from 1903 until 1910, becoming a cause célèbre that reportedly divided the country. It involved the infiltration of London University medical lectures by Swedish women activists, pitched battles between medical students and the police, round-the-clock police protection for the statue of a dog, a libel trial at the Royal Courts of Justice, and the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the use of animals in experiments. The affair was triggered by allegations, vigorously denied, that Dr. William Bayliss of University College, London had performed an illegal dissection on a brown terrier dog — anaesthetized according to Bayliss, conscious according to the Swedish activists. A statue erected by antivivisectionists in memory of the dog led to violent protests by London's medical students, who saw the memorial as an assault on the entire medical profession. The unrest culminated in rioting in Trafalgar Square on December 10, 1907, when 1,000 students marched down the Strand, clashing with 400 police officers, in what became known as the Brown Dog riots.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affair

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1508: The Papal States, France, Aragon and the Holy Roman Empire formed the League of Cambrai, an alliance against the Republic of Venice. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_League_of_Cambrai)

1868: The first traffic lights were installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London, resembling railway signals with semaphore arms and red and green gas lamps for night use. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/traffic_light)

1901: The first Nobel Prizes were awarded, on the anniversary of the 1896 death of their founder, Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize)

1936: Edward VIII signed his instrument of abdication, becoming the only British monarch to voluntarily relinquish the throne. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII_abdication_crisis)

1948: The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights)

_____________________ Wiktionary's Word of the day:

thunderstruck: Astonished, amazed or so suddenly surprised as to be unable to speak. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thunderstruck)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. -- Desmond Tutu (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu)