Boroughitis was a political phenomenon in the American state of New Jersey in the 1890s, particularly in Bergen County. Attempts by the New Jersey Legislature to reform local government and the school systems led to the formation of dozens of low-population boroughs. In the late 19th century, much of New Jersey was divided into large townships, in which there might be several small communities, each with a local school that formed its own district. Political disputes arose between the growing number of commuters, who wanted more government services, and farmers, who feared higher taxes. In 1894, the legislature passed an act allowing boroughs that were formed from parts of two or more townships to elect a representative to the county Board of Chosen Freeholders. This law, in combination with a second one the same year that consolidated the school districts into one per township, made it easy and attractive for dissatisfied communities to break away and become boroughs. Forty new boroughs were formed in 1894 and 1895, with the bulk in Bergen County, where townships were broken up or greatly reduced in size; few townships remain in the county today.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughitis

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1805:

War of the Third Coalition: French forces led by Napoleon decisively defeated a Russo-Austrian army commanded by Tsar Alexander I in the Battle of Austerlitz (pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Austerlitz

1823:

US President James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

1852:

On the one-year anniversary of his dissolution of the Second French Republic, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte declared himself Emperor of the French and took the name Napoleon III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III

1942:

The Manhattan Project: Scientists led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the experimental nuclear reactor Chicago Pile-1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1

1980:

American missionaries Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel were murdered by a military death squad in El Salvador. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Kazel

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

discernible: Possible to discern; detectable or derivable by use of the senses or the intellect. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/discernible

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

That we shall probably never know the whole "truth" about the universe does not really matter very much; the fun comes in trying to find out. The natural pattern of current astronomy … is provided by the cryptic unity of nature itself (belief in which is the chief act of faith of the scientist)… the human brain is itself a part of nature, fanned into existence by billions of years of sunshine acting on the molecules of the Earth. It is not perfectible in the immediate future, even if biologists should wish to alter the brain — which is a questionable ambition. What men make of the universe at large is a product of what they can see of it and of their own human nature.   --Nigel Calder https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nigel_Calder