On this day: August 20

August 20: Qixi Festival (Chinese calendar, 2015); Day of Restoration of Independence in Estonia (1991); St. Stephen's Day in Hungary

A bus on a track on the O-Bahn Busway

• 636 – Rashidun forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid took control of Syria and Palestine in the Battle of Yarmouk, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests after the death of Muhammad.
• 1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola came to an end with the British abandoning their attempt to capture Pensacola in Spanish Florida.
• 1882 – The 1812 Overture by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was first performed at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.
• 1940 – In the midst of the Battle of Britain, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a speech thanking the Royal Air Force, declaring, "Never was so much owed by so many to so few."
• 1989 – The final stage of the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, South Australia, was completed, becoming the world's longest and fastest guided busway with buses travelling a total of 12 km (7.5 mi) at maximum speeds up to 100 km/h (62 mph) (example pictured).

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On this day: August 19

August 19: Feast of the Transfiguration (Julian calendar)

Ho Chi Minh

• 295 BC – The oldest known temple to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility, was dedicated.
• 1895 – American outlaw and folk hero John Wesley Hardin was shot dead by an off-duty lawman in El Paso, Texas.
• 1945 – During the August Revolution against French colonial rule, the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh (pictured) took control of Hanoi in northern Vietnam.
• 1989 – Hungary opened its border with Austria as part of the Pan-European Picnic, allowing several hundred East Germans to defect to the West.
• 2005 – Thunderstorms in southern Ontario, Canada, spawned at least three tornadoes that caused over C$500 million in damage.

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August 19 Wikipedia featured article

Apuleius

The hermeneutic style of Latin, a style with many unusual and arcane words, especially from Greek, became the nearly universal preference in tenth-century England. It was first found in the work of Apuleius in the second century and then in Europe in the later Roman period. In the early medieval period some leading Continental scholars were exponents, including Johannes Scotus Eriugena and Odo of Cluny; the most influential hermeneutic writer was the English seventh-century bishop Aldhelm. In England the hermeneutic style became increasingly influential in the tenth century when Latin scholarship was reviving; in continental Europe, the style was only ever used by a minority of writers. It was the house style of the English Benedictine Reform, the most important intellectual movement in later Anglo-Saxon England. The style fell out of favour after the Norman Conquest, and the twelfth-century chronicler William of Malmesbury described it as disgusting and bombastic. Historians were equally dismissive until the late twentieth century, when scholars such as Michael Lapidge argued that it should be taken seriously as an important aspect of late Anglo-Saxon culture. (Full article...)

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On this day: August 18

August 18: Long Tan Day in Australia (1966)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

• 1590 – On the third birthday of his granddaughter Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas, John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony in present-day North Carolina, US, returned from England only to find the settlement deserted.
• 1612 – The trials of the Pendle and Samlesbury witches, among the most famous of England's witch trials, began at the assizes in Lancaster.
• 1868 – Astronomer Pierre Janssen discovered helium while analyzing the chromosphere of the sun during a total solar eclipse in Guntur, India.
• 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (authors Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pictured) was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in America.
• 1976 – North Korean soldiers killed two American soldiers in the Joint Security Area of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, heightening tensions over a 100-foot (30 m) poplar tree that blocked the line of sight between a United Nations Command checkpoint and an observation post.

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August 18 Wikipedia featured article

Ruby Laffoon (1869–1941) was an American politician and the 43rd governor of Kentucky, from 1931 to 1935. At age 17, Laffoon moved to Washington, D.C. to live with his uncle, U.S. Representative Polk Laffoon. In 1931, he defeated Republican William B. Harrison by what was then the largest margin of victory ever in a Kentucky gubernatorial election. To make up for a revenue shortfall during the Great Depression, Laffoon advocated the enactment of the state's first sales tax. This issue dominated most of his term in office and split the state Democratic Party and his own administration; the tax was defeated three times before he forged a bipartisan alliance to get it passed in a special legislative session in 1934. Term-limited by the state constitution, Laffoon supported political boss Tom Rhea to succeed him as governor, but Rhea was beaten by Lieutenant Governor Happy Chandler in the primary. Laffoon appointed a record number of Kentucky colonels, including Harland Sanders, who used the title "Colonel" when he opened his chain of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. (Full article...)

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On this day: August 17

August 17: Independence Day in Gabon (1960) and Indonesia (1945)

Sukarno proclaiming Indonesian independence

• 1560 – The Scottish Parliament adopted a Protestant confession of faith to initiate the Scottish Reformation and disestablishing Catholicism as the national religion.
• 1676 – The Battle of Halmstad was fought at Fyllebro and was the last battle in Halland between Denmark and Sweden.
• 1915 – American Jew Leo Frank was lynched by a mob of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia, for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl.
• 1945 – Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
• 1998 – U.S. President Bill Clinton admitted in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

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August 17 Wikipedia featured article

Alison Goldfrapp

Supernature is the third studio album by English electronic music duo Goldfrapp, released on 17 August 2005 by Mute Records. It was their first to incorporate pop and electronic dance music, a blend that was complimented by most critics. Supernature debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart, selling 52,976 copies in its first week. It was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in January 2006, and had sold one million copies worldwide as of February 2008. The album spawned four singles: "Number 1", "Ride a White Horse", "Fly Me Away", and its lead single, "Ooh La La", which reached number four on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the duo's highest-peaking single to date. In North America, where "Number 1" was promoted as the first single, the album was released in 2006 and did not perform well on the charts. Supernature received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album in 2007. (Full article...)

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On this day: August 16

August 16: Children's Day in Paraguay

Joseph Kittinger making his record-breaking jump

• 1819 – Fifteen people were killed and 400–700 others were injured when cavalry charged into a crowd gathered at St Peter's Field, Manchester, England, to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
• 1863 – After Spain had annexed the Dominican Republic, rebels raised the Dominican flag in Santiago de los Caballeros to begin the War of Restoration.
• 1927 – The Dole Air Race began; eight fixed-wing aircraft competed to fly from Oakland, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, but only two successfully completed the flight.
• 1960 – Joseph Kittinger parachuted from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,300 m), setting records for high-altitude jump, free-fall height, and fastest speed by a human without an aircraft.
• 2009 – Y. E. Yang won the 2009 PGA Championship to become the first Asian-born golfer to win a men's major golf championship.

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August 16 Wikipedia featured article

Corona Australis Molecular Cloud

Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, and Corona Australis, the Southern Crown, are two small constellations among the 48 listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy. Corona Borealis, which generally represented the crown given by the god Dionysus to the Cretan princess Ariadne, is in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, while Corona Australis, associated with Sagittarius or Centaurus, is in the Southern. Corona Borealis boasts the highly variable stars R and T Coronae Borealis and the huge Corona Borealis Supercluster. Corona Australis, lying alongside the plane of the Milky Way, hosts Epsilon Coronae Australis, the brightest example of a W Ursae Majoris variable in the southern sky. It also contains one of the closest star-forming regions to our Solar System, about 430 light years away—a dusty dark nebula known as the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud, with stars at the earliest stages of their lifespan. (Full article...)

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On this day: August 15

August 15: Victory over Japan Day; Feast of the Assumption (Christianity); Independence Day in the Congo (1960) and India (1947); Liberation Day in North and South Korea (1945)

Afonso de Albuquerque

• 718 – Forces of the Umayyad Caliphate abandoned their year-long siege of Constantinople, causing the caliphate to give up its goal of conquering the Byzantine Empire.
• 1511 – Afonso de Albuquerque (pictured) captured the city of Malacca, giving Portugal control over the Strait of Malacca, through which all sea-going trade between China and India was concentrated.
• 1812 – War of 1812: Potawatomi warriors destroyed the United States Army's Fort Dearborn in what is now Chicago, Illinois, and captured the survivors.
• 1915 – The New York World revealed that Germany had purchased excess phenol from Thomas Edison that could be used to make explosives for the war effort and diverted it to Bayer for aspirin production.
• 1945 – The Gyokuon-hōsō was broadcast in Japan, announcing the unconditional surrender of the Japanese army and naval forces.

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August 15 Wikipedia featured article

Set for Departures

Departures is a Japanese drama film directed by Yōjirō Takita and starring Masahiro Motoki, Ryōko Hirosue, and Tsutomu Yamazaki. Loosely based on Shinmon Aoki's memoir Coffinman, the film follows a young man who becomes a nōkanshi—a traditional Japanese ritual mortician—and overcomes the prejudices of those around him. The story was conceived after Motoki, affected by a funeral ceremony he had seen along the Ganges, read Coffinman and felt that the story would adapt well to film. Departures took a decade to complete, and distributors only released it after the film won the grand prize at the Montreal World Film Festival in August 2008. It became Japan's highest-grossing domestic film that year and won numerous awards, including the first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Japan. It was praised for its humour and the beauty of the encoffining ceremony (set pictured), but critics took issue with the film's predictability and overt sentimentality. The film's success spurred the development of tourist attractions at its shooting sites, increased interest in encoffining ceremonies, and the adaptation of the story for various media. (Full article...)

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Vous avez un logement et vous n’utilisez pas Airbnb? Non mais allo quoi!

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Vous êtes propriétaires et vous n'utilisez pas Airbnb, le leader de la location entre particuliers. Avec cet interview, vous changerez d'avis.

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August 14 Wikipedia featured article

Black-bellied tern

Terns are seabirds in the family Sternidae that are found worldwide, generally near the sea, rivers or wetlands. They are slender, lightly built birds with long forked tails, narrow wings, long bills and relatively short legs. Most species are pale grey above and white below, with a contrasting black cap, but the marsh terns, the Inca tern and some noddies have dark plumage for at least part of the year. The sexes are identical in appearance. They are birds of open habitats that typically breed in noisy colonies and lay their eggs on bare ground with little or no nest material. Many terns are long-distance migrants, and the Arctic tern, migrating each year between the Arctic and Antarctic, may see more daylight in a year than any other animal. They are long-lived birds and are relatively free from natural predators and parasites, but most species are declining in numbers through habitat loss, polluted waters, human encroachment and predation by introduced mammals. Three tern species are classed as endangered, and the Chinese crested tern is critically endangered. International agreements provide a measure of protection, but adults and eggs of some species are still used for food in the tropics. (Full article...)

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August 13 Wikipedia featured article

Castell Coch is a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle built above the village of Tongwynlais in South Wales. The first castle on the site was built by the Normans after 1081 to protect the newly conquered town of Cardiff. The castle's earth motte was reused by Gilbert de Clare as the basis for a new stone fortification, built between 1267 and 1277. John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, inherited the castle ruins in 1848. One of Britain's wealthiest men, he employed the architect William Burges to reconstruct the castle as a summer residence. Burges rebuilt the outside before his death in 1881, and the interior work was finished by his team in 1891; it featured elaborate decorations including extensive use of symbolism drawing on classical mythology and legendary themes. Crichton-Stuart planted a vineyard just below the castle, where wine production continued until the First World War. In 1950 his grandson, the 5th Marquess of Bute, placed the property into the care of the state. Castell Coch is considered to be one of the best surviving examples of Victorian architecture. (Full article...)

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On this day: August 13

August 13

Cardinal Armand de Richelieu

• 1624 – Cardinal Richelieu (pictured) became the chief minister to King Louis XIII, and under his supervision, France's feudal political structure transformed into one with a powerful central government.
• 1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: The Duke of Marlborough led Allied forces to a crucial victory in the Battle of Blenheim.
• 1898 – Spanish–American War: After a mock battle for Manila, the Spanish commander surrendered to the U.S. in order to keep the city out of Filipino rebel hands.
• 1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorized the construction of facilities that would house the Manhattan Project.
• 1996 – Belgian man Marc Dutroux was arrested for the kidnapping of 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez, revealing a number of other victims and one of Belgium's biggest child molestation cases.

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On this day: August 12

August 12: Queen Sirikit's Birthday and Mother's Day in Thailand

Sue the Tyrannosaurus

• 30 BC – Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, committed suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.
• 1676 – Puritans and their Native American allies killed Wampanoag sachem Metacomet (known as "King Philip"), essentially ending King Philip's War.
• 1883 – The last known quagga, a subspecies of the plains zebra, died at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
• 1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed into the ridge of Mount Takamagahara in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520 of 524 on board in the world's worst single-aircraft aviation disaster.
• 1990 – American paleontologist Sue Hendrickson found the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus ever discovered (pictured) near Faith, South Dakota, US.

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August 12 Wikipedia featured article

The Smyth Report is the common name of an administrative history written by physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth about the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to develop atomic bombs during World War II. It was released to the public on August 12, 1945, just days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Smyth was commissioned to write the report by Major General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project. The Smyth Report was the first official account of the development of the atomic bombs and the basic physical processes behind them. Since anything in the declassified Smyth Report could be discussed openly, it focused heavily on basic nuclear physics and other information which was either already widely known in the scientific community or easily deducible by a competent scientist. It omitted details about chemistry, metallurgy, and ordnance, ultimately giving a false impression that the Manhattan Project was all about physics. The Smyth Report sold almost 127,000 copies in its first eight printings, and was on the New York Times best-seller list from mid-October 1945 until late January 1946. It has been translated into over 40 languages. (Full article...)

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On this day: August 11

August 11: Independence Day in Chad (1960)

Penang City Hall

• 3114 BC – The epoch of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, a non-repeating, vigesimal calendar used by the Maya civilization and several other Mesoamerican cultures, occurred.
• 106 – The region of Dacia, comprising regions of modern Romania, became a province of the Roman Empire.
• 1786 – Captain Francis Light founded the British colony of Penang (City Hall pictured), beginning more than a century of British involvement in Malaya.
• 1828 – William Corder was hanged at Bury St Edmunds, England, for the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn.
• 1945 – Amid rumors of kidnappings of children by Jews in Kraków, a crowd of Poles engaged in a pogrom, which resulted in one dead and five wounded victims.

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August 11 Wikipedia featured article

Keith David

The Arbiter is a playable character from the Halo science fiction universe, first voiced by Keith David in the 2004 video game Halo 2. A different Arbiter appears in the 2009 real-time strategy game Halo Wars, voiced by David Sobolov. Although the Arbiter is intended to die serving the High Prophets, he survives his missions and the Prophets' subsequent betrayal of his kind. When he learns that the Prophets' plans would doom all sentient life in the galaxy to extinction, he allies with the Covenant's enemies—humanity—to stop the Halo from being activated. The entertainment website IGN lamented the loss of the Arbiter's storyline in Halo 3, but the Arbiter character was not evenly received by critics and fans, nor was the humanization of the Covenant in general. The character's name was changed from "Dervish" to avoid reinforcing a perceived US-versus-Islam allegory in the game's plot. (Full article...)

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