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Faraaz Damji | 7 Jan 2008 00:58
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[Wikipedia] January 6: G. Ledyard Stebbins

  G.  Ledyard Stebbins was an American botanist and geneticist who is
  widely regarded as one of the leading evolutionary biologists and
  botanists of the 20th century.  His work with E.  B.  Babcock on the
  genetic evolution of plant species, and his association with a group
  of evolutionary biologists known as the Bay Area Biosystematists, led
  him to develop a comprehensive synthesis of plant evolution
  incorporating genetics.  His most important publication was Variation
  and Evolution in Plants, which combined genetics and Darwin's theory
  of natural selection to describe plant speciation.  It is regarded as
  one of the main publications which formed the core of the modern
  evolutionary synthesis and still provides the conceptual framework for
  research in plant evolutionary biology; according to Ernst Mayr, "Few
  later works dealing with the evolutionary systematics of plants have
  not been very deeply affected by Stebbins' work." He also researched
  and wrote widely on the role of hybridization and polyploidy in
  speciation and plant evolution; his work in this area has had a
  lasting influence on research in the field.  From 1950, Stebbins was
  instrumental in the establishment of the Department of Genetics at the
  University of California, Davis, and was active in numerous
  organizations involved in the promotion of evolution, and of science
  in general.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Ledyard_Stebbins

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1661:
  Thomas Venner and the Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempted to
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Faraaz Damji | 7 Jan 2008 03:43
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[Wikipedia] January 7: Ælle of Sussex

  Ælle is recorded in early sources as the first king of the South
  Saxons, reigning in what is now Sussex, England from 477 to perhaps as
  late as 514.  The information about him is so limited that it cannot be
  said with certainty that Ælle even existed.  Ælle and three of his sons
  are reported to have landed near what is now Selsey Bill—the exact
  location is under the sea, and is probably what is now a sandbank
  known as the Owers—and fought with the British.  A victory in 491 at
  what is now Pevensey is reported to have ended with the Saxons
  slaughtering their opponents to the last man.  Although the details of
  these traditions cannot be verified, evidence from the place names of
  Sussex does make it clear that it was an area with extensive and early
  settlement by the Saxons, supporting the idea that this was one of
  their early conquests.  Ælle was the first king recorded by the eighth
  century chronicler Bede to have held "imperium", or overlordship, over
  other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.  In the late ninth century Anglo-Saxon
  Chronicle (around four hundred years after his time) Ælle is recorded
  as being the first bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler", though there is no
  evidence that this was a contemporary title.  Ælle's death is not
  recorded, and it is not known who succeeded him as king of the South
  Saxons.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86lle_of_Sussex

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1558:
  Francis, Duke of Guise retook Calais, England's last continental
  possession, for France.
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Faraaz Damji | 8 Jan 2008 03:41
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[Wikipedia] January 8: Chicxulub Crater

  The Chicxulub Crater is an ancient impact crater buried underneath the
  Yucatán Peninsula, with its center located near the town of Chicxulub,
  Yucatán, Mexico.  The crater is over 180 kilometers (110 mi) in
  diameter, making the feature one of the largest confirmed impact
  structures in the world; the asteroid or comet whose impact formed the
  crater was at least 10 km (6 mi) in diameter.  The crater was named for
  the nearby town, as well as for the literal Maya translation of the
  name: "tail of the devil." The crater was discovered by Glen Penfield,
  a geophysicist who had been working in the Yucatán while looking for
  oil during the late 1970s.  The presence of tektites, shocked quartz
  and gravity anomalies, as well as the age of the rocks and isotope
  analysis, show that this impact structure dates from the late
  Cretaceous Period, roughly 65 million years ago.  The impact associated
  with the crater is implicated in causing the extinction of the
  dinosaurs as suggested by the K–T boundary, although some critics
  disagree that the impact was the sole reason and also debate whether
  there was a single impact or whether the Chicxulub impactor was one of
  several that may have struck the Earth at around the same time.  Recent
  evidence suggests that the impactor was a piece of a much larger
  asteroid which broke up in a collision more than 160 million years
  ago.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_Crater

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1815:
  War of 1812: American forces led by General Andrew Jackson defeated
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Faraaz Damji | 9 Jan 2008 06:35
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[Wikipedia] January 9: Swedish emigration to the United States

  During the Swedish emigration to the United States in the 19th and
  early 20th centuries, about 1.3 million Swedes left Sweden for the
  United States of America.  While the virgin land of the U.S. frontier
  was a magnet for the rural poor all over Europe, some factors
  encouraged Swedish emigration in particular.  The religious repression
  practiced by the Swedish Lutheran State Church was widely resented, as
  was the social conservatism and class snobbery of the Swedish
  monarchy.  Population growth and crop failures made conditions in the
  Swedish countryside increasingly bleak.  By contrast, reports from
  early Swedish emigrants painted the American Midwest as an earthly
  paradise, and praised American religious and political freedom and
  undreamed-of opportunities to better one's condition.  Swedish
  migration to the United States peaked in the decades after the
  American Civil War (1861–65).  Most immigrants became classic pioneers,
  clearing and cultivating the prairie, while others remained in the
  cities, particularly Chicago.  Many established Swedish Americans
  visited the old country in the later 19th century, their narratives
  illustrating the difference in customs and manners.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_United_States

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1839:
  The French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype
  photographic process, named after its inventor, French artist and
  chemist Louis Daguerre.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype)
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Faraaz Damji | 11 Jan 2008 06:08
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[Wikipedia] January 11: Boshin War

  The Boshin War was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869
  between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to
  return political power to the imperial court.  The war found its
  origins in dissatisfaction among many nobles and young samurai with
  the Shogunate's handling of foreigners following the opening of Japan
  the prior decade.  An alliance of southern samurai and court officials
  secured the cooperation of the young Emperor Meiji, who declared the
  abolition of the two-hundred-year-old Shogunate.  Military movements by
  imperial forces and partisan violence in Edo led Tokugawa Yoshinobu,
  the sitting shogun, to launch a military campaign to seize the
  emperor's court at Kyoto.  The military tide rapidly turned in favor of
  the smaller but relatively modernized imperial faction, and after a
  series of battles culminating in the surrender of Edo, Yoshinobu
  personally surrendered.  The Tokugawa remnant retreated to northern
  Honshū and later to Hokkaidō, where they founded the Ezo republic.
  Defeat at the Battle of Hakodate broke this last holdout and left the
  imperial rule supreme throughout the whole of Japan, completing the
  military phase of the Meiji Restoration.  Around 120,000 men were
  mobilized during the conflict, and of these about 3,500 were killed.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boshin_War

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1787:
  German-born British astronomer and composer William Herschel
  discovered the Uranian moons Oberon and Titania.  They were later named
  by his son John after the King and the Queen of the Faeries from
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Faraaz Damji | 14 Jan 2008 08:28
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[Wikipedia] January 14: British anti-invasion preparations of World War II

  British anti-invasion preparations of World War II entailed a large
  scale programme of military and civilian mobilisation in response to
  the threat of invasion by German armed forces in 1940 and 1941.  The
  army needed to recover from the defeat of the British Expeditionary
  Force in France and one and a half million men were enrolled as
  part-time soldiers in the Home Guard.  The rapid construction of field
  fortifications transformed much of Britain, especially southern
  England, into a prepared battlefield.  Short of heavy weapons and
  equipment, the British had to make the best use of whatever was
  available.  The German invasion plan, known to English speakers as
  Operation Sealion, was never taken beyond the preliminary assembly of
  forces stage.  Today, very little remains of Britain's anti-invasion
  preparations.  Only reinforced concrete structures such as pillboxes
  are common and even these have, until very recently, been
  unappreciated as historical monuments.

Read the rest of this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_anti-invasion_preparations_of_World_War_II

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1301:
  The Árpád dynasty, who ruled in Hungary since the late 9th century,
  ended with the death of King Andrew III.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81rp%C3%A1d_dynasty)

1724:
  Philip V, the first Bourbon ruler of Spain, abdicated the throne to
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Faraaz Damji | 18 Jan 2008 07:03
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[Wikipedia] January 18: SR Merchant Navy Class

  The SR Merchant Navy Class was a class of air-smoothed 4-6-2 Pacific
  steam locomotive designed for the Southern Railway by Oliver Bulleid.
  The Pacific design was chosen in preference to several others proposed
  by Bulleid.  The first members of the class were constructed during the
  Second World War, and the last of the 30 locomotives in 1949.
  Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive
  technology, the design of the Packets was among the first to use
  welding in the construction process; this enabled easier fabrication
  of components during the austerity of the war and post-war economies.
  The locomotives featured thermic syphons and Bulleid's controversial,
  innovative chain-driven valve gear.  The class members were named after
  the Merchant Navy shipping lines involved in the Battle of the
  Atlantic, and latterly those which used Southampton Docks, an astute
  publicity masterstroke by the Southern Railway, which operated
  Southampton Docks during the period.  Due to problems with some of the
  more novel features of Bulleid's design, all members of the class were
  rebuilt by British Railways during the late 1950s, losing their
  air-smoothed casings in the process.  The Packets operated until the
  end of Southern steam in July 1967.  A third of the class have survived
  and can be seen on heritage railways throughout Great Britain.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR_Merchant_Navy_Class

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1535:
  Conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes,
  present-day Lima, Peru, as the capital of the lands he conquered for
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Faraaz Damji | 16 Jan 2008 03:21
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[Wikipedia] January 16: Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act

  The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 was an Act of Congress
  passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of
  Alaska.  Introduced in the House of Representatives by Alaska
  Congressional Delegate Bob Bartlett in January 1956, it became the
  focus of a major political controversy.  The legislation was opposed by
  a variety of far-right, anti-Communist and fringe religious groups,
  prompting what was said to have been the biggest political controversy
  seen on Capitol Hill since the early 1940s.  Prominent opponents
  nicknamed it the "Siberia Bill" and asserted that it was part of an
  international Jewish, Roman Catholic or psychiatric conspiracy
  intended to establish United Nations-run concentration camps in the
  United States.  With the sponsorship of the conservative Republican
  senator Barry Goldwater, a modified version of the Act was approved
  unanimously by the United States Senate in July 1956 after only ten
  minutes of debate.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act

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Today's selected anniversaries:

929:
  Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III of Cordoba declared himself caliph, thereby
  establishing the Caliphate of Córdoba.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba)

1909:
  The Nimrod Expedition led by Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton
  reached the approximate location of the South Magnetic Pole.
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Faraaz Damji | 19 Jan 2008 06:49
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[Wikipedia] January 19: Tuck School of Business

  The Tuck School of Business is the graduate business school of
  Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States.  Founded in
  1900, Tuck is the oldest graduate school of business in the world, and
  was the first institution to offer master's degrees in business
  administration.  It is one of six Ivy League business schools, and it
  consistently ranks in the top ten of national business school
  rankings.  Tuck grants only one degree, the Master of Business
  Administration, alongside shorter programs for executives and recent
  college graduates, as well as opportunities for dual degrees with
  other institutions.  The school places a heavy emphasis on its
  tight-knit and residential character, and has a student population
  that hovers near 500 students and a full-time faculty of 46.  Tuck
  claims over 8,400 living alumni in a variety of fields, and currently
  enjoys the highest rate of alumni donation of any business school in
  the United States.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuck_School_of_Business

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1764:
  English radical and politician John Wilkes was expelled from the
  British Parliament and declared an outlaw for seditious libel.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes)

1817:
  An army of over 5,400 soldiers led by General José de San Martín
  crossed the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru from
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Faraaz Damji | 20 Jan 2008 06:43
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[Wikipedia] January 20: Jack Sheppard

  Jack Sheppard was a notorious English robber, burglar and thief of
  early 18th-century London.  Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed
  as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little
  more than a year of his training to complete.  He was arrested and
  imprisoned five times in 1724 but escaped four times, making him a
  notorious public figure, and wildly popular with the poorer classes.
  Ultimately, he was caught, convicted, and hanged at Tyburn, ending his
  brief criminal career after less than two years.  The inability of the
  noted "Thief-Taker General" (and thief) Jonathan Wild to control
  Sheppard, and injuries suffered by Wild at the hands of Sheppard's
  colleague, Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, led to Wild's downfall.  Sheppard
  was as renowned for his attempts to escape justice as for his crimes.
  He returned to the public consciousness in around 1840, when William
  Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel entitled Jack Sheppard, with
  illustrations by George Cruikshank.  The popularity of his tale, and
  the fear that others would be drawn to emulate his behaviour, led the
  authorities to refuse to license any plays in London with "Jack
  Sheppard" in the title for forty years.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sheppard

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1320:
  After reuniting Poland, Władysław the Short (sarcophagus figure
  pictured) was crowned king in Kraków.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_%28966%E2%80%931385%29)
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