Aug 31, 2014

On This Day - Aug. 31

Passin' Me By
Artist - The Pharcyde
Album - Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde




Film of the Day
The Battle of Algiers
Director - Gillo Pontecorvo
Starring - Jean Martin, Saadi Yacef




Wiki of the Day
The European Space Agency (ESA) (French: Agence spatiale européenne - ASE) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to the exploration of space, with 20 member states. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a staff of more than 2,000 with an annual budget of about €4.28 billion / US$5.51 billion (2013).[1]
ESA's space flight program includes human spaceflight, mainly through the participation in the International Space Station program, the launch and operations of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon, Earth observation, science, telecommunication as well as maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Center at Kourou, French Guiana, and designing launch vehicles. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching and further developing this launch vehicle.
ESA science missions are based at ESTEC in Noordwijk, Netherlands, Earth Observation missions at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, ESA Mission Control (ESOC) is in Darmstadt, Germany, the European Astronaut Center (EAC) that trains astronauts for future missions is situated in Cologne, Germany, and the European Space Astronomy Center is located in Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain.


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Aug 30, 2014

On This Day - Aug. 30

1363 CE - The forces of two Chinese rebel leaders -- Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang -- are pitted against one another at the Battle of Lake Poyang in what will be one of the largest naval engagements in history, during the last decade of the ailing, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty.




Photo of the Day
Nor'west arch over Canterbury, New Zealand.




In the News
Obama, in Estonia and at NATO Summit, to Send Strong Message to Putin
Ukraine Seeks to Join NATO; Defiant Putin Compares Kiev to Nazis
Ebola Outbreak Reaches Senegal, Riots Break Out in Guinea
Islamist Gains in Syria Alarm Some Assad Allies
Bitcoin Promoter to Plead Guilty to Unlicensed Money Transmission




Quote of the Day
"Envy of the male role can come as much from an undervaluation of the role of wife and mother as from an overvaluation of the public aspects of achievement that have been reserved for men". --Margaret Mead




Song of the Day 
Back in the Saddle
Artist - Aerosmith
Album - Rocks




Film of the Day
Pan's Labyrinth
Director - Guillermo del Toro
Starring - Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi López




Wiki of the Day
The 1900 Summer Olympics, today officially known as the Games of the II Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1900 in Paris, France. No opening or closing ceremonies were held; competitions began on May 14 and ended on October 28. The Games were held as part of the 1900 World's Fair. 997 competitors took part in 19 different sports. Women took part in the games for the first time and sailor Hélène de Pourtalès became the first female Olympic champion. The decision to hold competitions on a Sunday brought protests from many American athletes, who travelled as representatives of their colleges and were expected to withdraw rather than compete on their religious day of rest.
At the Sorbonne conference of 1895, Pierre de Coubertin proposed that the Olympic Games should take place in 1900 in Paris. The delegates to the conference were unwilling to wait five years and lobbied to hold the first games in 1896. A decision was made to hold the first Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens and that Paris would host the second celebration.
Most of the winners in 1900 did not receive medals, but were given cups or trophies. Professionals competed in fencing and Albert Robert Ayat (France), who won the épée for amateurs and masters, was awarded a prize of 3000 francs.
Some unusual events were contested for the only time in the history of the Games including automobile and motorcycle racing,[2] ballooning,[3] cricket,[4] croquet,[5] Basque pelota,[6] and 200m swimming obstacle race and underwater swimming.[7] This was also the only Olympic Games in history to use live animals (pigeons) as targets during the shooting event.[8]


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Aug 29, 2014

On This Day - Aug. 29

1756 CE - Frederick the Great sends Prussian troops across his borders into Saxony, thus igniting the Seven Years' War with the Habsburg Empire. The conflict will ultimately involve all of the major European powers.




Photo of the Day
A pachinko parlor in Tokyo, Japan. 




In the News



Quote of the Day
"What office is there which involves more responsibility, which requires more qualifications, and which ought, therefore, to be more honourable, than that of teaching?" --Harriet Martineau




Song of the Day
Artist - BT




Film of the Day
Director - Stephen Herek




Wiki of the Day
Mycobacterium leprae, also known as Hansen’s coccus spirilly, mostly found in warm tropical countries, is a gram-positive bacterium that causes leprosy (Hansen's disease).[1] It is an intracellular, pleomorphic, acid-fast bacterium.[2] M. leprae is an aerobic bacillus (rod-shaped) surrounded by the characteristic waxy coating unique to mycobacteria. In size and shape, it closely resembles Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Due to its thick waxy coating, M. leprae stains with a carbol fuchsin rather than with the traditional Gram stain. The culture takes several weeks to mature.
Optical microscopy shows M. leprae in clumps, rounded masses, or in groups of bacilli side by side, and ranging from 1–8 μm in length and 0.2–0.5 μm in diameter.[3]
It was discovered in 1873 by the Norwegian physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, who was searching for the bacteria in the skin nodules of patients with leprosy. It was the first bacterium to be identified as causing disease in humans.[4][5] The organism has never been successfully grown on an artificial cell culture medium.[2] Instead, it has been grown in mouse foot pads and more recently in nine-banded armadillos because they, like humans, are susceptible to leprosy. This can be used as a diagnostic test for the presence of bacilli in body lesions of suspected leprosy patients. The difficulty in culturing the organism appears to be because it is an obligate intracellular parasite that lacks many necessary genes for independent survival. The complex and unique cell wall that makes members of the Mycobacterium genus difficult to destroy is apparently also the reason for the extremely slow replication rate.


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Aug 28, 2014

On This Day - Aug. 28

1879 CE - Cetshwayo kaMpande, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British.




Photo of the Day




In the News




Quote of the Day
"To whom thy secret thou dost tell, to him thy freedom thou dost sell". --James Howell




Song of the Day
Artist - Dion 
Album - Runaround Sue




Film of the Day
Director - Rowdy Herrington




Wiki of the Day
In Chinese history, the treasure voyages were the seven Ming-era maritime voyages of the treasure fleet between 1405 and 1433. The Yongle Emperor initiated the construction of the treasure fleet in 1403. The grand project resulted in seven far-reaching ocean voyages to the coastal territories and islands in and around the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, and beyond. Admiral Zheng He was commissioned to command the treasure fleet for the expeditions. Six of the voyages occurred during the Yongle reign (r. 1402–24), while the seventh voyage occurred under the Xuande reign (r. 1425–1435). The first three voyages reached up to Calicut on India's southwestern coast, while the fourth voyage went as far as Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. Afterwards, the fleet made voyages farther away to the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.
The Chinese expeditionary fleet was heavily militarized and carried great amounts of treasures, which served to project Chinese power and wealth to the known world. They brought back many foreign ambassadors whose kings and rulers were willing to declare themselves tributaries of China. During the course of the voyages, they destroyed Chen Zuyi's pirate fleet at Palembang, conquered the Sinhalese Kotte kingdom of King Alekeshvara, and defeated the forces of the Semudera pretender Sekandar in northern Sumatra. The Chinese maritime exploits had brought many foreign countries into the nation's tributary system and sphere of influence through both military and political supremacy, thus incorporating the states into the greater Chinese world order under Ming suzerainty.


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Aug 27, 2014

On This Day - Aug. 27

1918 CE - Forces of the US Army skirmish with Mexican Carrancistas and their German advisors at the Battle of Ambos Nogales in the only engagement of World War I fought on American soil. 




Photo of the Day
Philippine tarsiers climbing a tree.




In the News




Quote of the Day
"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize". --Robert Hughes




Song of the Day
Artist - Miles Davis
Album - Bitches Brew




Film of the Day 
Director - Eugenio Martín
Starring - Tomás Milián




Wiki of the Day
A mantle plume is a posited thermal abnormality where hot rock nucleates at the core-mantle boundary and rises through the Earth's mantle becoming a diapir in the Earth's crust.[2] Such plumes were invoked in 1971[3] to explain volcanic regions that were not thought to be explicable by the then-new theory of plate tectonics. Some of these volcanoes lie far from tectonic plate boundaries, e.g., Hawaii. Others represent unusually large-volume volcanism whether on plate boundaries, e.g., Iceland or basalt floods like the Deccan or Siberian traps. The currently active volcanic centers are known as "hot spots". In particular, the concept that mantle plumes are fixed relative to one another, and anchored at the core-mantle boundary, was thought to provide a natural explanation for the time-progressive chains of older volcanoes seen extending out from some "hot spots".
The hypothesis of mantle plumes is not universally accepted because many of its predictions have not been confirmed by geophysical or petrological observation. As a result, it has become less popular with many groups in the geological sciences. It has also required progressive hypothesis-elaboration leading to many variant propositions; such as mini-plumes and pulsing plumes. Another hypothesis for unusual volcanic regions is the "Plate model". This attributes volcanoes to passive leakage of magma from the mantle onto the Earth's surface where extension of the lithosphere permits it. This model attributes essentially all volcanism to plate tectonic processes, with volcanoes far from plate boundaries resulting from intraplate extension.[4]


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Aug 26, 2014

On This Day - Aug. 26





Photo of the Day




In the News




Quote of the Day
"Children's lies are signs of great talent". --Gabriel García Márquez




Song of the Day
Artist - Kino
Album - Gruppa Krovi




Film of the Day
Director - Morten Tyldum




Wiki of the Day
Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB OM GCVO SGM (5 December 1859 – 20 November 1935) was a Royal Navy officer. He fought in the Egyptian war and the Boxer Rebellion and commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 during World War I. His handling of the fleet at that battle was controversial: he made no serious mistakes and the German High Seas Fleet retreated to port – at a time when defeat would have been catastrophic for Britain – but at the time the British public were disappointed that the Royal Navy had not won a victory on the scale of the Battle of Trafalgar. Jellicoe later served as First Sea Lord but was removed at the end of 1917 as a result of his pessimistic view, declaring that nothing could be done to defeat the U-boats. He also served as the Governor-General of New Zealand in the early 1920s.


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Aug 25, 2014

On This Day - Aug. 25

1944 CE - Paris is liberated by Allied Forces during the Second World War. 




Photo of the Day
A mounted Corythosaurus, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada.




In the News




Quote of the Day
"I think we must be careful about too easily accepting, or being too easily grateful for, sacrifices made by others, especially if we have made none ourselves". --Wendell Berry




Song of the Day
Tear Ya Down
Artist - Motörhead
Album - Overkill




Film of the Day
City of God
Directors - Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund
Starring - Alexandre Rodrigues, Alice Braga




Wiki of the Day
The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a Songhai state located in western Africa. From the mid-15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest Islamic empires in history.[4] This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city of Gao. A Songhai state had existed since the 11th century. Its base of power was on the bend of the Niger River in present day Niger and Burkina Faso.
The Songhai state has existed in one form or another for over a thousand years, if one traces its rulers from the settlement of Gao to Songhai's vassal status under the Mali Empire to its continuation in Niger as the Dendi Kingdom.
The Songhai are thought to have settled at Gao as early as 800 CE, but did not establish the city as their capital until the 11th century, during the reign of Dia Kossoi. During the second half of the 13th century Gao was conquered by the Mali Empire, and remained under its control until the 15th century, when Songhai reclaimed it as its capital.


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Aug 24, 2014

On This Day - Aug. 24

410 CE - For the first time in almost 800 years, the city of Rome is sacked by the Visigoths.




Photo of the Day
Whirling Dervishes perform in Istanbul, Turkey. 




In the News



Quote of the Day
"One individual may die for an idea, but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives". --Subhas Chandra Bose




Song of the Day
Artist - Seasick Steve




Film of the Day
Director - Penelope Spheeris
Starring - Mike Myers, Dana Carvey




Wiki of the Day
Alpha Centauri (α Centauri, α Cen; also known as Rigil Kent /ˈraɪdʒəl ˈkɛnt/—see Names) or Toliman is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus and the third brightest star in the night sky.[10][11] The Alpha Centauri system is located 1.34 parsecs or 4.37 light years from the Sun, making it the closest star system to our Solar System.[5]Although it appears to the unaided eye as a single object, Alpha Centauri is actually a binary star system (designated Alpha Centauri AB or α Cen AB) whose combined visual magnitude of −0.27 makes it the third brightest star (other than the Sun) seen from Earth after the −1.46 magnitude Sirius and the −0.72 magnitude Canopus.
Its component stars are named Alpha Centauri A (α Cen A), with 110% of the mass and 151.9% the luminosity of the Sun, and Alpha Centauri B (α Cen B), at 90.7% of the Sun's mass and 44.5% of its luminosity. During the pair's 79.91-year orbit about a common center, the distance between them varies from about that between Pluto and the Sun to that between Saturn and the Sun.


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