The 1987 Giro d'Italia was the 70th event in the series, one of cycling's Grand Tour races. It began on 21 May with a 4 km (2.5 mi) prologue in San Remo, and concluded on 13 June with a 32 km (19.9 mi) individual time trial in Saint-Vincent. A total of 180 riders from 20 teams entered the 22-stage, 3,915 km (2,433 mi) race. Defending champion Roberto Visentini of the Carrera Jeans–Vagabond team led the first stage, and Dutchman Erik Breukink led the second. Irishman Stephen Roche, Visentini's teammate, took the overall lead after his team won the stage three team time trial. Visentini regained the lead for two days, but Roche rode ahead of him in the fifteenth stage, against orders from the team management, and held onto the lead for the win. Second place was taken by British rider Robert Millar, and Breukink took third. It was the second time in the history of the Giro that there were no Italian riders on the winners' podium. Roche was the second rider ever to win the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, and the World Championship road race in the same year, a feat commonly called the Triple Crown of Cycling.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Giro_d%27Italia

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1403:

King Henry III of Castile sent an embassy to the court of Timur (Tamerlane) to discuss the possibility of an alliance between Timur and Castile against the Ottoman Empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timurid_relations_with_Europe

1674:

John III Sobieski, elected by the szlachta, became the monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_III_Sobieski

1894:

The Manchester Ship Canal, linking Greater Manchester in North West England to the Irish Sea, officially opened, becoming the largest navigation canal in the world at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Ship_Canal

1946:

Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin accidentally triggered a fission reaction at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and gave himself a lethal dose of hard radiation, making him the second victim of a criticality accident in history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin

1991:

Former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Rajiv_Gandhi

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

scintillate: 1. (intransitive) To give off sparks; to shine as if emanating sparks; to twinkle or glow. 2. (transitive) To throw off like sparks. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scintillate

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.   --Alexander Pope https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Pope