The Rosetta Stone is part of an Ancient Egyptian granite stele with engraved text that provided the key to modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The inscription records a decree that was issued at Memphis in 196 BCE on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three texts: the upper one is in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle one in Egyptian demotic script, and the lower text in ancient Greek. Originally displayed within a temple, the stele was probably moved during the early Christian or medieval period, and eventually used as building material in the construction of a fort at the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile delta. It was rediscovered there in 1799 by a soldier of the French expedition to Egypt. As the first known bilingual text, the Rosetta Stone aroused wide public interest with its potential to decipher the hitherto untranslated ancient Egyptian languages. Lithographic copies and plaster casts began circulating amongst European museums and scholars. Meanwhile, British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, and the original stone came into British possession under the Capitulation of Alexandria. Transported to London, it has been on public display at the British Museum since 1802. It is the most-visited object in the British Museum.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

786:

Harun al-Rashid became the Abbasid caliph upon the death of his brother al-Hadi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harun_al-Rashid

1752:

In adopting the Gregorian calendar under the terms of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, the British Empire skipped eleven days (September 2 was followed directly by September 14). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar

1812:

The French invasion of Russia: Following the Battle of Borodino seven days earlier, Napoleon and his Grande Armée captured Moscow, only to find the city deserted and burning . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_of_Moscow_%281812%29

1901:

Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States at age 42, the youngest person ever to do so, eight days after William McKinley was fatally wounded in Buffalo, New York. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt

1960:

At a conference held in Baghdad, the governments of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela founded OPEC to help unify and coordinate their petroleum policies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

tepid (adj): 1. Lukewarm; neither warm nor cool. 2. Uninterested; exhibiting little passion or eagerness http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tepid

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The difference between faith and superstition is that the first uses reason to go as far as it can, and then makes the jump; the second shuns reason entirely — which is why superstition is not the ally, but the enemy, of true religion. --Sydney J. Harris http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sydney_J._Harris