The Boeing 757 is a mid-size, narrow-body twin-engine jet airliner. Boeing Commercial Airplanes designed and built 1,050 of them for 54 customers from 1981 to 2004. The twinjet has a two-crewmember glass cockpit, a conventional tail, a low-drag supercritical wing design, and turbofan engines that allow takeoffs from relatively short runways and at high altitudes. Intended for short and medium routes, variants of the 757 can carry 200 to 295 passengers for a maximum of 3,150 to 4,100 nautical miles (5,830 to 7,590 km). The 757 was designed concurrently with a wide-body twinjet, the 767, and pilots can obtain a common type rating that allows them to operate both aircraft. Passenger 757-200s (the most popular model) have been modified for cargo use; military derivatives include the C-32 transport, VIP carriers, and other multi- purpose aircraft. All 757s are powered by Rolls-Royce RB211 or Pratt & Whitney PW2000 series turbofans. Eastern Air Lines and British Airways were first to place the 757 in commercial service, in 1983. The airliner had recorded eight hull-loss accidents, including seven fatal crashes, as of April 2015.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_757

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1388:

During the Battle of Buyur Lake, General Lan Yu led a Chinese army forward to crush the Mongol hordes of Toghus Temur, the Khan of Northern Yuan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Buyur_Lake

1869:

One day after surrendering at the Battle of Hakodate, Enomoto Takeaki turned over Goryōkaku to Japanese forces, signaling the collapse of the Republic of Ezo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ezo

1896:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson, upholding the legality of racial segregation in public transportation under the "Separate but equal" doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson

1955:

Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the end of the First Indochina War, ended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Passage_to_Freedom

2005:

A second photo by the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the discovery of two new moons of Pluto: Nix and Hydra. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(moon)

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

upend: 1. (transitive) To end up; to set on end. 2. To tip or turn over. 3. To destroy, invalidate, overthrow, or defeat. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/upend

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.   --Bertrand Russell https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell