100px|Norwich Market, 2009

Norwich Market is an outdoor market consisting of around 200 stalls in central Norwich, England. Founded in the latter part of the 11th century to supply Norman merchants and settlers moving to the area following the Norman conquest of England, it replaced an earlier market a short distance away. It has been in operation on the present site for over 900 years. By the 14th century, Norwich was one of the largest and most prosperous cities in England, and Norwich Market was a major trading hub. In the Georgian era, Norwich became an increasingly popular destination with travellers, and developed into a fashionable shopping town. Following the First World War, the local authority began to systematically buy up all the stalls on the market, eventually bringing the entire market into public ownership, and the market was radically redesigned in the 1930s. Stalls were arranged into parallel rows, and a new City Hall was built along the entire western side of the marketplace to replace the by now inadequate Guildhall. This new arrangement survived with few significant changes for the rest of the 20th century. By the 1990s the market was becoming decrepit, and proposals were made for another radical rebuilding of the area. These proposals were abandoned in favour of a scheme which replaced the old stalls with steel units of four stalls each. The rebuilt market was completed in early 2006, and is one of the largest markets in Britain. (more...)

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1799:

France became the first country to adopt the metric system as its system for weights and measures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system

1884:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American author Mark Twain was first published in the United Kingdom and Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn

1911:

Calbraith Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight across the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calbraith_Perry_Rodgers

1948:

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, representing the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

1983:

Raúl Alfonsín became the first democratically elected President of Argentina to take office after the fall of the military dictatorship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Alfons%C3%ADn

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

gluck (v): To flow or cause to flow in a noisy series of spurts, as when liquid is emptied through the narrow neck of a bottle http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gluck

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The history of the human race has generated several papers articulating basic moral imperatives, or fundamental principles, of human coexistence that… substantially influenced the fate of humanity on this planet. Among these historic documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights … holds a very special, indeed, unique position. It is the first code of ethical conduct that was not a product of one culture, or one sphere of civilization only, but a universal creation, shaped and subscribed to by representatives of all humankind. Since its very inception, the Declaration has thus represented a planetary, or global commitment, a global intention, a global guideline. For this reason alone, this exceptional document — conceived as a result of a profound human self-reflection in the wake of the horrors of World War II, and retaining its relevance ever since — deserves to be remembered today. --Václav Havel http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel