The 1956 Winter Olympics was a multi-sport event celebrated in Cortina
d'Ampezzo, Italy, from 26 January to 5 February. Cortina, which had
originally been awarded the 1944 Winter Olympics, beat out Montreal,
Colorado Springs and Lake Placid for the right to host the 1956 Games.
The Cortina Games were the first to rely heavily on corporate
sponsorship for funding. Thirty-two nations—the largest number of
participating Winter Olympic countries to that point—competed in four
sports and twenty-four events. The Italian army transported large
amounts of snow to cover the alpine skiing courses. Toni Sailer of the
Austrian team became the first person to win all three alpine skiing
events in a single Olympics. The figure skating competition (pictured)
was held outdoors for the last time. These games were the first Winter
Olympics televised to a multi-national audience. For the first time at
an Olympic Games, the venues were built with television in mind.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Winter_Olympics>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1788:
Captain Arthur Phillip and the British First Fleet landed at
Sydney Cove on the shore of Port Jackson in present-day Sydney,
establishing the first permanent European settlement in Australia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fleet>
1905:
The Cullinan Diamond, the largest gem-quality rough diamond
ever found at 3,106.75 carats (621.350 g), was discovered at the
Premier Mine in Cullinan, Gauteng, South Africa.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cullinan_Diamond>
1949:
The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in California, the
largest aperture optical telescope in the world for 28 years, saw first
light.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hale_Telescope>
2009:
Rioting broke out in Antananarivo, Madagascar, sparking a
political crisis that led to the deposal of President Marc Ravalomanana.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Malagasy_political_crisis>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
emu:
1. (obsolete) A cassowary (genus Casuarius).
2. A large flightless bird native to Australia, Dromaius
novaehollandiae.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/emu>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I shall set my course to the end that no man need fear to speak
the truth. I could not do less, for the opportunities for service my
country has given me and the honors it has conferred upon me have
imposed an obligation which is not discharged by the termination of
public service. Much that I have seen since my return to my native land
after an absence of many years has filled me with immeasurable
satisfaction and pride. Our material progress has been little short of
phenomenal. It has established an eminence in material strength so far
in advance of any other nation or combination of nations that talk of
imminent threat to our national security through the application of
external force is pure nonsense. It is not of any external threat that
I concern myself but rather of insidious forces working from within
which have already so drastically altered the character of our free
institutions — those institutions which formerly we hailed as
something beyond question or challenge — those institutions we proudly
called the American way of life.
--Douglas MacArthur
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur>
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