Argosy was an American magazine, founded by Frank Munsey in 1882 as a children's weekly. In 1896 it became the first pulp magazine, printing only fiction and using cheap pulp paper. Circulation rose and remained strong for decades, but fell to no more than 50,000 by 1942. Many famous writers appeared in Argosy, including O. Henry, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Robert E. Howard. It was sold in 1942 to Popular Publications and converted from pulp to slick format, and then to a men's magazine, carrying fiction and feature articles. Circulation soared to well over one million. From 1948 to 1958 it published a series by Gardner which examined the cases of dozens of convicts who maintained their innocence. It succeeded in overturning many of their convictions. In 1972 Popular sold the magazine to David Geller. He sold it to the Filipacchi Group in 1978, which closed it down at the end of the year. The title has been revived several times, most recently in 2016.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argosy_%28magazine%29

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1931:

Bhagat Singh, one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement, and two others were executed by the British authorities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagat_Singh

1989:

Two researchers announced the discovery of cold fusion, a claim which was later discredited. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion

1994:

Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a hillside in Russia's Kemerovo Oblast, killing all 75 people on board, after the pilot's 16 -year-old son had unknowingly disabled the autopilot while seated at the controls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593

2005:

A fire and explosion at the third-largest oil refinery in the United States killed 15 workers and kicked off process safety programs throughout the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_refinery_explosion

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

plum rains: Also occasionally in the singular form plum rain: the East Asian rainy season from early summer to midsummer in the fourth and fifth lunar months (early June to early or mid-July); also, the rain which falls during this season. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plum_rains

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Spinoza formulated the problem of the socially patterned defect very clearly. He says: "Many people are seized by one and the same affect with great consistency. All his senses are so affected by one object that he believes this object to be present even when it is not. If this happens while the person is awake, the person is believed to be insane. … but if the greedy person thinks only of money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not think of them as being insane, but only has annoying; generally one has contempt for them. But factually greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually one does not think of them as 'illness.'" These words were written a few hundred years ago; they still hold true, although the defects have been culturally patterned to such an extent now that they are not even generally thought any more to be annoying or contemptible.   --The Sane Society https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Sane_Society