Ankylosaurus was an armored dinosaur that lived roughly 67 million years
ago, at the very end of the Cretaceous Period. This genus was among the
last of the non-avian dinosaurs, living alongside Tyrannosaurus,
Triceratops, and Edmontosaurus. Its name means "fused lizard"; bones in
its skull and other parts of its body were fused, increasing their
strength. Ankylosaurus was up to 6.25 m (20.5 feet) long and 1.7 m
(5.6 feet) tall, weighing about 4.8–8 tonnes (11,000–18,000 lb). It
had a broad, robust body with a wide, low skull. The front parts of the
jaws were covered in a beak, with rows of small, leaf-shaped teeth
behind it, adapted for a herbivorous diet. It was covered in armor
plates for protection against predators, with bony half-rings covering
the neck, and had a large club on the end of its tail which may have
been used as a weapon. Fossils from a few specimens of Ankylosaurus have
been found in various geological formations in western North America,
but a complete skeleton has not been discovered.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankylosaurus>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1885:
American photographer Wilson Bentley took the first known
photograph of a snowflake by attaching a bellows camera to a microscope
(process pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bentley>
1934:
At least 10,700 people died when an 8.0 magnitude earthquake
struck Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_Nepal%E2%80%93Bihar_earthquake>
1951:
Ilse Koch, the wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald and
Majdanek concentration camps, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a
West German court.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilse_Koch>
1962:
The Derveni papyrus, which dates to 340 BC, making it the
oldest surviving manuscript in Europe, was discovered in Macedonia,
northern Greece.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derveni_papyrus>
1975:
Portugal signed the Alvor Agreement with UNITA, the MPLA, and
the FNLA, ending the Angolan War of Independence.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvor_Agreement>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
obtuse:
1. Intellectually dull or dim-witted.
2. Indirect or circuitous.
3. Of sound, etc.: deadened, muffled, muted.
4. (geometry) Of an angle: greater than 90 degrees but less than 180
degrees.
5. (geometry) Of a triangle: having one obtuse angle.
6. (now chiefly botany, zoology) Not sharp; blunt.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/obtuse>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
If everyone were clothed with integrity, If every heart were just,
frank, kindly, The other virtues would be well-nigh useless, Since their
chief purpose is to make us bear with patience The injustice of our
fellows.
--Molière
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Moli%C3%A8re>
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