The Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR) was a British railway company established in 1893 that bored an underground "tube" railway deep below the streets of London. Construction began in 1898, but was delayed by funding problems that included the collapse of its parent company through the massive fraud of its main shareholder Whitaker Wright. In 1902, the BS&WR came under the control of American financier Charles Yerkes who quickly raised the funds to enable the line to be completed. When opened on 10 March 1906, the BS&WR's line served nine stations and ran completely underground in a pair of tunnels for 5.81 kilometres (3.61 mi) between Baker Street and its southern terminus at Elephant and Castle. Extensions took the northern end of the line to the Great Western Railway's Paddington terminus by 1913 and to Watford by 1917, with services covering a total distance of 33.34 kilometres (20.72 mi). In 1933, the B&SWR and its parent company, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, were taken into public ownership and, today, the railway's tunnels and stations form the London Underground's Bakerloo line.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1607:

Susenyos defeated the combined armies of Yaqob and Abuna Petros II at the Battle of Gol in Gojjam, making him Emperor of Ethiopia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susenyos_of_Ethiopia

1876:

Alexander Graham Bell made his first successful bi-directional telephone call, saying, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_telephone

1975:

Ho Chi Minh Campaign: North Vietnam began its final push for victory over South Vietnam with an attack on Ban Me Thuot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ban_Me_Thuot

1977:

Astronomers using NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory, an observatory aboard a highly modified jet aircraft, discovered a faint planetary ring system around Uranus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Uranus

2005:

Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong, announced his resignation following widespread dissatisfaction with his leadership. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tung_Chee_Hwa

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

normothermic (adj): (medicine) Having a normal body temperature http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/normothermic

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Where storm-born shadows hide and hunt

I knew thee, in thy glorious youth, And loved thy vast face, white as truth;

I stood where thunderbolts were wont To smite thy Titan-fashioned front,

And heard dark mountains rock and roll; I saw the lightning's gleaming rod

Reach forth and write on heaven's scroll The awful autograph of God! --Joaquin Miller http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joaquin_Miller