[Wikipedia] February 4: Knut (polar bear)

[Faraaz Damji]

  Knut is a captive-born polar bear who was born at the Zoologischer
  Garten Berlin on 5 December 2006.  Rejected by his mother at birth, he
  was subsequently raised by zoo keepers.  He was the first polar bear
  cub to survive past infancy at the Berlin Zoo in over thirty years.  At
  one time the subject of international controversy, he became a popular
  tourist attraction and commercial success.  After the German tabloid
  magazine Bild ran a quote from an animal rights activist that
  seemingly called for the death of the young cub, a worldwide public
  outrage was caused as fans rallied in support of his being hand-raised
  by humans.  Children protested outside the zoo, and many emails and
  letters expressing sympathy for the cub's life were sent from around
  the world.  Knut became the center of a mass media phenomenon dubbed
  "Knutmania" that spanned the globe and quickly spawned numerous toys,
  media specials, DVDs, and books.  Because of this, the cub was largely
  responsible for a significant increase in revenue at the Berlin Zoo in
  2007.  Zoo attendance figures for the year increased by an estimated 30
  percent, making the zoo the most profitable it has been in its 163
  year history.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_%28polar_bear%29


_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:

1703:
  Forty-six of the Forty-Seven Ronin committed seppuku (ritual
  suicide) in Edo, present-day Tokyo, as recompense for avenging the
  death of their master, Daimyo of Akō Asano Naganori.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-Seven_Ronin)

1859:
  German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf rediscovered the Codex
  Sinaiticus, a 4th century uncial manuscript of the Greek Bible, in
  Saint Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus)

1899:
  An American soldier shot a Filipino soldier in Manila after a
  misunderstanding occurred between the two, igniting the
  Philippine-American War.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War)

1945:
  World War II: Winston Churchill, Franklin D.  Roosevelt and Joseph
  Stalin met at the Yalta Conference in Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference)

1957:
  USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, logged her
  60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional
  Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues
  Under the Sea.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nautilus_%28SSN-571%29)


_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:

  frog in one's throat: (idiomatic) Hoarseness or the need to cough.
  (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/frog_in_one's_throat)


_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:

  Mistakes are part of the game.  It's how well you recover from them,
  that's the mark of a great player.  -- Alice Cooper
  (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alice_Cooper)