St Helena to recover. He resumes his journey, but his ship is attacked by a British fleet off the coast of Tenerife. He uses a flying machine he has devised to escape, but once safely landed he is approached by hostile natives and is forced to take off again. This time the birds powering his machine fly higher and higher, ultimately reaching the Moon. There Gonsales encounters the Lunars, a tall Christian people inhabiting what appears to be a utopian paradise. Some critics consider The Man in the Moone to be one of the first works of science fiction. (Full article...
The barn owl (Tyto alba) is the most widely distributed species of owl, and one of the most widespread of all birds. It is found in most parts of the world, with one major lineage in the New World, one in Australasia, and another in Eurasia and Africa. The 28 subspecies, between 33 and 39 cm (13 and 15 in) in length, have wingspans ranging from 80 to 95 cm (31 to 37 in). Their colours vary, but most have mottled grey or brown plumage and paler underparts, with a white, heart-shaped face. The barn owl relies on acute hearing to detect small mammals and other prey, hunting almost exclusively at night. It does not hoot, but utters an eerie, drawn-out shriek. It mates for life unless one of a pair dies, when a new pair bond may be formed. The nest is in a hollow tree, old building or cliff; the female does all the incubation, and she and the young chicks rely on the male for food. When large numbers of small prey are available, barn owl populations can expand rapidly. Globally, the species is not threatened, except for some subspecies with restricted ranges. (Full article...)
Battle of Berlin from November 1943 to March 1944. In April he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the following month promoted to temporary group captain. Days later, on the night of 11 May, Balmer's last scheduled operation as the squadron's commanding officer, he and his crew were killed when their plane was shot down. He was buried outside Brussels. (Full article...
The United States Sesquicentennial coins, a commemorative half dollar and quarter eagle (gold $2.50 piece) for the 150th anniversary of American independence, were struck in 1926 at the Philadelphia Mint. The half dollar depicts George Washington and then-president Calvin Coolidge, making Coolidge the only president to appear on a U.S. coin while living. The National Sesquicentennial Exhibition Commission was chartered by Congress in 1925, and was allowed to purchase and resell for profit 1,000,000 specially designed half dollars and 200,000 quarter eagles. The Commission had trouble agreeing on designs with Mint Chief Engraver John R. Sinnock, and asked artist John Frederick Lewis to submit sketches. These were adapted by Sinnock for the half dollar, without giving credit to Lewis, whose involvement would not be generally known for forty years. The maximum number of each coin was struck, with many melted when they failed to sell at a premium. The Liberty Bellreverse for the half dollar was reused by Sinnock, again without giving Lewis credit, on his Franklin half dollar, first minted in 1948. (Full article...)
The history of the New York YankeesMajor League Baseball team spans more than a century. Frank J. Farrell and William Stephen Devery bought the rights to an American League (AL) club in New York City after the 1902 season. The team, which became the Yankees in 1913, won their first AL title in 1921, followed by their first World Series championship in 1923. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were part of the team's Murderers' Row lineup; under Miller Huggins, they led the Yankees to a Series championship and a 110-win season, a league record in 1927. The Yankees won the World Series every year from 1936 to 1939 with a team that featured Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. New York set a major league record by winning five consecutive championships from 1949 to 1953, and appeared in the World Series nine times during the next 11 years. Despite management disputes, the team reached the World Series four times between 1976 and 1981, claiming the championship in 1977 and 1978. Their 1998–2000 teams were the last to win three straight World Series titles. In 2009, they won the title for a record 27th time. (Full article...)
Aaliyah's death in a plane crash on August 25, 2001, seven weeks after the album's release, sales skyrocketed, and the album reentered the Billboard 200 at number one. Aaliyah was released during a period of peak activity in contemporary R&B; since its initial reception, it has been cited by critics as one of the best R&B records of its time. (Full article...
gastroliths to grind food. The large claws may have been used for digging and gathering plants. Bite marks on Deinocheirus bones have been attributed to the tyrannosauridTarbosaurus. (Full article...
wing that operated during the early years of the Malayan Emergency. Its purpose was to serve as an overarching organisation for the RAAF units deployed in the conflict, No. 1 (Bomber) Squadron, flying Avro Lincolns, and No. 38 (Transport) Squadron, flying Douglas C-47 Dakotas. The wing was established on 10 July 1950 and headquartered at Changi, on the east coast of Singapore. No. 1 Squadron operated from Tengah, in Singapore's west. No. 38 Squadron was based at Changi and, from April 1951 to February 1952, at Kuala Lumpur in central Malaya. The Lincolns generally conducted area bombing missions, as well as precision strikes, to harass communist insurgents. The Dakotas were tasked with airlifting cargo, VIPs, troops and casualties, as well as courier flights and supply drops. Following No. 38 Squadron's departure in December 1952, No. 90 Wing was disbanded, leaving No. 1 Squadron to carry on as the sole RAAF unit in the campaign until its withdrawal to Australia in July 1958. (Full article...
game programmer and businessman who became the fourth president and chief executive officer of Nintendo in 2002. Born in Sapporo, Japan, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and later majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He joined the game developerHAL Laboratory in 1980 and became its president in 1993. Joining Nintendo as the head of its corporate-planning division in 2000, he brought growth to the company. A self-declared gamer, he focused on expanding the appeal of video games across all demographics and increasing the market space. He also built a strong relationship with Nintendo fans through social media and his regular appearances in Iwata Asks and Nintendo Direct, becoming the public face of the company. Under his direction, Nintendo developed the profitable Nintendo DS and Wiivideo game consoles, but the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U dropped net sales by two-thirds from 2009 to 2012, leaving the company with its first operating losses in 30 years. Iwata voluntarily halved his salary as an apology in 2011 and 2014. (Full article...
Katsudō Shashin is a filmstrip speculated to be the oldest work of animation in Japan. Three seconds long, it depicts a boy who writes "moving picture" in Japanese script, removes his hat, and waves. Discovered in a collection of films and projectors in Kyoto, its creator is unknown. Natsuki Matsumoto, an expert in iconography at the Osaka University of Arts, determined that it was most likely made before 1912. It may have been influenced by animated filmstrips for German cinematographs, devices that first appeared in Japan in 1904. Evidence suggests Katsudō Shashin was mass-produced to be sold to wealthy owners of home projectors. To Matsumoto, the relatively poor quality and low-tech printing technique indicate it was likely from a smaller film company. Unlike in traditional animation, the frames were not produced by photographing the images, but were impressed directly onto film. They were stencilled in red and black using a device for making magic lantern slides, and the filmstrip was fastened in a loop for continuous play. (Full article...)
witch trials of Early Modern Christendom were an attempt to extinguish a surviving pre-Christian religion devoted to a Horned God. Although later academically discredited, the theory gained widespread attention and provided the basis for Wicca. (Full article...
Yucatan Peninsula and later the United States, causing about $970 million in damage and killing a total of seven. Several other storms directly affected land during August and September, including the longest lived of the season, Hurricane Kyle. In early October, Lili made landfall in Louisiana, where it caused $860 million in damage and 15 deaths. (Full article...
male chorus, set to the same poem, and in 1914 an unfinished setting of the Latin Requiem, in memory of victims of the war. The 1915 Requiem, Reger's last completed work for chorus and orchestra, was published by N. Simrock in 1916, after the composer's death. It was paired with another choral composition, Der Einsiedler (The Hermit), set to a poem by Joseph von Eichendorff, titled Zwei Gesänge für gemischten Chor mit Orchester (Two songs for mixed chorus with orchestra), Op. 144. Both works were first performed in Heidelberg on 16July 1916 as part of a memorial concert for Reger, conducted by Philipp Wolfrum. Reger thought that The Hermit and the Requiem were "among the most beautiful things" he had ever written. (Full article...
A Royal Navy aircraft taking off during the operation
Operation Mascot was an unsuccessful British air raid on the German battleship Tirpitz which took place during the early hours of 17 July 1944. One of a series of aircraft carrier strikes between April and August 1944 against the battleship at anchor in Kaafjord, Norway, the raid was conducted by 44 British dive bombers and 40 fighters from three carriers. They were detected en route by German radar stations, and Tirpitz was protected by a smoke screen by the time they arrived. Few of the British airmen were able to spot the battleship, and their attacks did not inflict any significant damage. German losses were limited to a patrol craft; three British aircraft were destroyed or damaged beyond repair by Kaafjord's defenders. Two U-boats from a group attempting to intercept the carrier force were sunk by British patrol aircraft, and several others were damaged. Despite the failure of Operation Mascot, the Royal Navy attempted four further carrier raids against Tirpitz during August 1944. These attacks were also unsuccessful, and the task of sinking the battleship was transferred to the Royal Air Force. (Full article...)
north San Diego County, several miles away, and SR 52 near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. SR 56 was added to the state highway system in 1959 as Legislative Route 278, and was renumbered SR 56 in the 1964 state highway renumbering. A plan in 1964 to connect SR 56 to the north end of SR 125 and continue east to SR 67 did not come to fruition. The eastern end from Black Mountain Road to I-15 was opened in 1993; the western end from I-5 to Carmel Creek Road was delayed until 1995 by several lawsuits. The two ends were not connected until the freeway was completed in 2004; the delay was largely due to funding issues and environmental concerns. (Full article...
Pedro Afonso (1848–1850) was the Prince Imperial and heir apparent to the throne of the Empire of Brazil. Born at the Palace of São Cristóvão in Rio de Janeiro, he was the second son and youngest child of Emperor Pedro II and Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, and thus a member of the Brazilian branch of the House of Braganza. His aunt was the reigning Queen of Portugal, Dona Maria II. Pedro Afonso was seen as vital to the future viability of the monarchy, which had been put in jeopardy by the death of his older brother Afonso almost three years earlier. Pedro Afonso's early death from fever at the age of one devastated the Emperor, and the imperial couple had no further children. Pedro Afonso's older sister Isabel became heiress, but Pedro II was unconvinced that a woman could ever be accepted as monarch by the ruling elite. He excluded Isabel from matters of state, and failed to provide training for her possible role as empress. With no surviving male children, the Emperor started to believe that the imperial line was destined to end with his own death. (Full article...)
Barney and Friends and Blue's Clues. The popular fifteen-minute segment "Elmo's World", hosted by the Muppet Elmo, was added the same year to make the show more accessible to a younger audience. The new format was expanded to the entire show in 2002. (Full article...
boss fights, but criticized its brevity, low difficulty, low replay value, sound, and harsh introductory learning curve. Retrospective reviewers disagreed with the originally poor reception, and several highlighted Marina's signature "Shake, shake!" sound bite. In 2009, GamesRadar called it "possibly the most underrated and widely ignored game on the N64". (Full article...
air vice marshal, he returned to Australia in 1957 as Air Officer Commanding Training Command, carrying out major reviews on the RAAF's educational and command systems. He was Deputy Chief of the Air Staff in 1959–61, and then Head of the Australian Joint Services Staff in Washington, DC, until 1963. McLachlan's final post before retiring in 1968 was as Air Member for Supply and Equipment. He was a consultant to Northrop
myrtle beech trees. A small bolete, it has a 1.6–9 cm (0.6–3.5 in) orange-fawn cap with cinnamon or brown pores underneath, and a 4–9.5 cm (1.6–3.7 in) stalk. The rare varietyhypochryseus, found only in Europe, has yellow pores and tubes. Described by Pierre Bulliard in 1790 as Boletus piperatus, it is only distantly related to other members of the genus Boletus and was reclassified as Chalciporus piperatus by Frédéric Bataille in 1908. Chalciporus was an early branching lineage in its family and appears to be related to boletes with parasitic properties. Previously thought to be symbiotic with tree roots, C. piperatus is now suspected of being parasitic on the mushroom Amanita muscaria. The flesh of C. piperatus has a very peppery taste, and can be used as a condiment or flavouring. (Full article...
the 1880 campaign, but his intentions were unclear. The first round of balloting was inconclusive. After learning of Tilden's withdrawal before the second round of balloting, the delegates flocked to Hancock, a career soldier and Civil War hero, who was nominated. English, a conservative from a swing state, was nominated for vice president. Hancock and English were narrowly defeated by Republicans James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur that autumn. (Full article...
chartered by the Department of the Navy for service as a refrigerated supply ship for the U.S. fleet stationed off the Mexican coast. In January 1915, after a little more than one year of service, Washingtonian collided with the schoonerElizabeth Palmer off the Delaware coast after the cargo ship's captain misjudged the schooner's rapid pace. Washingtonian sank in ten minutes with the loss of a $1,000,000 cargo of raw Hawaiian sugar. In the days after the sinking, the price of sugar in the United States increased almost 9%, partly attributed to the loss of this cargo. Lying under approximately 100 feet (30 m) of water, the wreck is one of the most popular recreational dive sites on the eastern seaboard. (Full article...
Ulysses Grant, whose administration he deemed corrupt, but lost in a landslide. Devastated at the defeat, he died three weeks after Election Day. (Full article...
Bockscar on August 9, 1945, the day of its atomic bombing mission
atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945. A total of 65 Silverplate B-29s were made. The use of the Silverplate codename was discontinued after the war; modifications to an additional 80 aircraft continued under a new codename, Saddletree. (Full article...
crustaceans—in sandy or muddy sediment. Often an unwanted catch by anglers, the smooth toadfish's flesh contains the poison tetrodotoxin, and eating it may result in death. (Full article...
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