Hurricane Grace was a short-lived Category 2 hurricane that contributed to the formation of the powerful 1991 "Perfect Storm". Forming on October 26, Grace initially had subtropical origins, meaning it was partially tropical and partially extratropical in nature. It became a tropical cyclone on October 27, and ultimately peaked with winds of 100 mph (155 km/h). The storm had minor effects on the island of Bermuda as it passed to the south. A developing extratropical storm to the north turned Grace eastward; the hurricane was eventually absorbed into the large circulation of the larger low pressure system. Fed by the contrast between cold air to the northwest and warm air from the remnants of Hurricane Grace, this storm became a large and powerful nor'easter that caused extremely high waves and resulted in severe coastal damage along the U.S. East Coast.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Grace_%281991%29

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1703:

English writer Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet politically satirising the High Church Tories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe

1777:

The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution allowing French nobleman Marquis de Lafayette to enter the American revolutionary forces as a Major General. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier%2C_marquis_de_La_Fayette

1941:

The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to settle "the final solution of the Jewish question". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution

1999:

NASA's Lunar Prospector was deliberately crashed into the Shoemaker crater near the moon's south pole in an unsuccessful attempt to detect the presence of water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Prospector

2006:

Following intestinal surgery, Fidel Castro provisionally transferred the duties of the Cuban presidency to his brother Raúl. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006%E2%80%932008_Cuban_transfer_of_presidential_duties

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

trimester (n): 1. A period of three months or about three months. 2. One term of an academic year in those learning institutions that divide their teaching into three roughly equal terms http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trimester

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I beg the reader not to go in search of messages. It is a term that I detest because it distresses me greatly, for it forces on me clothes that are not mine, which in fact belong to a human type that I distrust; the prophet, the soothsayer, the seer. I am none of these; I'm a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual. --Primo Levi http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Primo_Levi