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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 1 Sep 2010 02:06
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[Daily article] September 1: Fountain of Time

Fountain of Time is a sculpture by Lorado Taft, measuring 126 feet 
10 inches (38.66 m) in length, at the western edge of the Midway 
Plaisance within Washington Park in Chicago's South Side. Inspired by 
Henry Austin Dobson's "Paradox of Time" and with its 100 figures 
passing before Father Time, Time is a monument to the first 100 years 
of peace between the United States and Great Britain, resulting from 
the Treaty of Ghent in 1814. The fountain began running in 1920 and was 
dedicated in 1922. It contributes to the National Register of Historic 
Places Washington Park Historic District. Part of a larger 
beautification plan for the Midway Plaisance, Time was constructed from 
a new type of molded, steel-reinforced concrete that was claimed to be 
more durable and cheaper than alternatives, making it the first of any 
kind of finished works of art made of concrete. Before Millennium Park, 
it was considered the most important installation in the Chicago Park 
District. Time is one of several Chicago works funded by Benjamin 
Ferguson's trust fund. During the late 1990s and early 21st century it 
underwent repairs that corrected many of the problems caused by earlier 
restorations.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_of_Time>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1763:

Catherine II of Russia endorsed educator Ivan Betskoy's plans for the 
Moscow Orphanage , an ambitious, state-run, experimental Russian 
Enlightenment project to educate orphans into ideal citizens.
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 2 Sep 2010 02:05
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[Daily article] September 2: 2005 Texas Longhorns football team

The 2005 Texas Longhorns football team represented The University of 
Texas at Austin during the college football season of 2005–2006, 
winning the Big 12 Conference Championship and the national 
championship. The team was coached by Mack Brown, led on offense by 
quarterback Vince Young, and played its home games at Darrell K Royal – 
Texas Memorial Stadium. The team's penultimate game, the 2005 Big 12 
Championship Game, was won by the largest margin of victory in Big 12 
Championship Game history. Texas finished the season by winning the 
2006 Rose Bowl against the University of Southern California Trojans 
for the national championship. Numerous publications have cited this 
victory and this team's season as standing among the greatest 
performances in college football history. The Longhorns finished as the 
only unbeaten team in NCAA Division I-A football that year, with 
thirteen wins and zero losses.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Texas_Longhorns_football_team>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

31 BC:

Final War of the Roman Republic: Troops supporting Octavian defeated 
the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the naval Battle of Actium 
on the Ionian Sea near Actium in Greece.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Actium>

1666:
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 3 Sep 2010 02:05
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[Daily article] September 3: Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men

The Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men were five 
volumes of Dionysius Lardner’s 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopaedia 
(1829–46). Aimed at the self-educating middle class, this encyclopedia 
was written during the 19th-century literary revolution in Britain that 
encouraged more people to read. The Lives formed part of the Cabinet of 
Biography in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia. The three-volume Lives of the 
Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal 
(1835–37) and the two-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and 
Scientific Men of France (1838–39) consist of biographies of important 
writers and thinkers of the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries. Most of 
them were authored by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley. Shelley's 
biographies reveal her as a professional woman of letters, contracted 
to produce several volumes of works and paid well to do so. Her 
extensive knowledge of history and languages, her ability to tell a 
gripping biographical narrative, and her interest in the burgeoning 
field of feminist historiography are reflected in these works. At times 
Shelley had trouble finding sufficient research materials and had to 
make do with fewer resources than she would have liked, particularly 
for the Spanish and Portuguese Lives. She wrote in a style that 
combined secondary sources, memoir, anecdote, and her own opinions. The 
Lives did not attract enough critical attention to become a bestseller. 
Not reprinted until 2002, Mary Shelley's biographies have only recently 
been appreciated.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Most_Eminent_Literary_and_Scientific_Men>

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Today's selected anniversaries:
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 4 Sep 2010 02:06
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[Daily article] September 4: Mozart in Italy

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart toured Italy with his father Leopold three 
times between 1769 and 1773. The first, an extended tour of 15 months, 
was financed by performances for the nobility and by public concerts, 
and took in the most important Italian cities. The second and third 
journeys were to Milan, for Wolfgang to complete operas that had been 
commissioned there on the first visit. From the perspective of 
Wolfgang's musical development the journeys were a considerable 
success, and his talents were recognised by honours which included a 
papal knighthood and memberships in leading philharmonic societies. 
Each of Wolfgang's operas written for Milan's celebrated Teatro Regio 
Ducal was a critical and popular triumph. In the course of the three 
visits he met many of Italy's leading musicians, including the renowned 
theorist Giovanni Battista Martini, under whom he studied in Bologna. 
Leopold also hoped that Wolfgang, and possibly he himself, would obtain 
a prestigious appointment at one of the Italian Habsburg courts. This 
objective became more important as Leopold's advancement in Salzburg 
became less likely; but his persistent efforts to secure employment 
displeased the imperial court, which precluded any chance of success. 
The journeys thus ended not with a triumphant return, but on a note of 
disappointment and frustration.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_in_Italy>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1260:

Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines: The Siena Ghibellines defeated the
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 5 Sep 2010 02:05
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[Daily article] September 5: Stephens City, Virginia

Stephens City, Virginia, the second-oldest municipality in the 
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, is located in southern Frederick County, 
with an estimated population of 1,503 in 2009. The town was founded in 
the early 1730s by German immigrant Peter Stephens and was chartered by 
Peter's son, Lewis, on September 1, 1758. In the late 1850s, free 
blacks began a settlement about a mile east of town which became known 
as Crossroads which lasted until the Civil War began, when some fled 
but others were forced to fight for the South. In June 1864, Union 
Major Joseph K. Stearns of the 1st New York Cavalry arrived under 
orders to burn it down, but spared it after seeing the remaining 
population consisted mostly of women, children and the elderly. Over 
the course of its existence, it has been renamed five times, almost 
winding up as "Pantops". The construction of Interstate 81 passed just 
to the east of the town in the early 1960s. In 1992, a large section of 
the town, called the Newtown-Stephensburg Historic District, was listed 
on the National Register of Historic Places. Stephens City celebrated 
its 250th anniversary on September 1, 2008.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephens_City%2C_Virginia>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1774:

In response to the British Parliament enacting the Intolerable Acts, 
representatives from twelve of Britain's North American colonies 
convened the First Continental Congress at Carpenters' Hall in 
Philadelphia.
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 6 Sep 2010 02:05
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[Daily article] September 6: Night (book)

Night is a work by Elie Wiesel (pictured) about his experience with his 
father in the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 
1944–1945. In just over 100 pages of a narrative described as 
devastating in its simplicity, Weisel writes about the death of God and 
his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of 
the father-child relationship as his father declines to a helpless 
state and Wiesel becomes his resentful caregiver. He was 16 years old 
when Buchenwald was liberated by the U.S. Army in April 1945, too late 
for his father who died in the camp after a beating. After some 
difficulty finding a publisher, Wiesel's work appeared in Yiddish in 
1955 and French in 1958, and in September 1960 was published in English 
by Hill and Wang. Fifty years later it is regarded as one of the 
bedrocks of Holocaust literature. It is the first book in a 
trilogy—Night, Dawn, Day—marking Wiesel's transition from darkness to 
light, according to the Jewish tradition of beginning a new day at 
nightfall. "In Night," he said, "I wanted to show the end, the finality 
of the event. Everything came to an end—man, history, literature, 
religion, God. There was nothing left. And yet we begin again with 
night."

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_%28book%29>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

394:

Forces of the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeated Eugenius, 
the usurper of the Western Roman Empire, at the Battle of the Frigidus
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 7 Sep 2010 02:05
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[Daily article] September 7: Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay

Hastings Ismay (1887–1965) was a British soldier and diplomat, 
remembered primarily for his role as Winston Churchill's chief military 
assistant during World War II and his service as the head of the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the 1950s. After serving with 
the Camel Corps during World War I, Ismay became an Assistant Secretary 
of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Shortly before the outbreak of 
World War II, he became the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial 
Defence and began planning for the impending war. In May 1940, when 
Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he selected 
Ismay as his chief military assistant and staff officer. In that 
capacity, Ismay served as the principal link between Churchill and the 
Chiefs of Staff Committee. He also accompanied Churchill to many of the 
Allied war conferences. After the war, Ismay remained in the British 
Armed Forces and helped reorganise the Ministry of Defence. When 
Churchill again became Prime Minister in 1951, he appointed Ismay 
Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. Six months later, Ismay 
resigned to become the first Secretary General of NATO. He served as 
Secretary General from 1952 to 1957. After retiring from NATO, Ismay 
wrote his memoirs, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay%2C_1st_Baron_Ismay>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1191:

Third Crusade: Forces under Richard I of England defeated Ayyubid 
troops under Saladin in Arsuf, present-day Israel.
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 8 Sep 2010 02:05
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[Daily article] September 8: Canadian federal election, 1957

The Canadian federal election of 1957 was held on June 10, 1957, to 
select the 265 members of the House of Commons of Canada. The Liberal 
Party had won five consecutive elections since 1935. Under Prime 
Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent, the 
government gradually built a welfare state. During the Liberals' fifth 
term in office, the opposition parties depicted them as arrogant and 
unresponsive to Canadians' needs. Controversial events, such as the 
1956 "Pipeline Debate" over the construction of the Trans-Canada 
Pipeline, had hurt the government. The Progressive Conservative Party 
ran a campaign centered on their new leader, John Diefenbaker 
(pictured), who attracted large crowds to rallies and made a strong 
impression on television. The Liberals ran a lackluster campaign, and 
St. Laurent made few television appearances. Abandoning their usual 
strategy of trying to make inroads in Liberal-dominated Quebec, the 
Conservatives focused on other provinces. They were successful; though 
they gained few seats in Quebec, they won 112 seats overall to the 
Liberals' 105, with the remaining seats won by other parties. In one of 
the great upsets in Canadian political history, the Conservatives' 
plurality in the House of Commons made Diefenbaker Prime Minister and 
ended 22 years of Liberal rule in Canada.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election%2C_1957>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1331:

Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of the House of Nemanjić was crowned King of
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 9 Sep 2010 02:05
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[Daily article] September 9: Tokyo Mew Mew

Tokyo Mew Mew is a Japanese shōjo manga series written by Reiko Yoshida 
and illustrated by Mia Ikumi. It was originally serialized in Nakayoshi 
from September 2000 to February 2003, and later published in seven 
tankōbon volumes by Kodansha from February 2001 to April 2003. It 
focuses on five girls infused with the DNA of rare animals that gives 
them special powers and allows them to transform into "Mew Mews". Led 
by Ichigo Momomiya, the girls protect the earth from aliens who wish to 
"reclaim" it. The series was quickly adapted into a fifty-two episode 
anime series by Studio Pierrot. It debuted in Japan on April 6, 2002, 
on both TV Aichi and TV Tokyo; the final episode aired on March 29, 
2003. A two-volume sequel to the manga, Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode, was 
serialized in Nakayoshi from April 2003 to February 2004. The sequel 
introduces a new Mew Mew, Berry Shirayuki, who becomes the temporary 
leader of the Mew Mews whilst Ichigo is on a trip to England. Two video 
games were also created for the series.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Mew_Mew>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

9:

Germanic Wars: An alliance of Germanic tribes led by Arminius engaged 
Roman forces led by Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the 
Teutoburg Forest, defeating three of the legions within the next few 
days.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 10 Sep 2010 02:05
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[Daily article] September 10: 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack

The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the food poisoning of more 
than 750 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon, United States through the 
deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with 
salmonella. A leading group of followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (now 
known as Osho) had hoped to incapacitate the voting population of the 
city so that their own candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County 
elections. The incident was the first bioterrorism attack in the United 
States, and the single largest bioterrorist attack in United States 
history. The attack is one of only two confirmed terrorist uses of 
biological weapons to harm humans. Having previously gained political 
control of Antelope, Oregon, Rajneesh's followers based in nearby 
Rajneeshpuram sought election to two of the three seats on the Wasco 
County Circuit Court which were up for election in November 1984. 
Fearing they would not gain enough votes, Rajneeshpuram officials 
decided to incapacitate voters in The Dalles, the largest population 
center in Wasco County.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1798:

At the Battle of St. George's Caye, a small force of British settlers 
called Baymen defeated an invading force from Mexico who were 
attempting to claim what is now Belize for Spain.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_St._George%27s_Caye>
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