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December 23

Cranial remains of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog

The Bonn–Oberkassel dog was a Late Paleolithic (c. 12,000 BCE) dog whose partial skeletal remains were found buried alongside two humans in Bonn, Germany. Initially identified as a wolf upon its discovery in 1914, its remains were separated and lost within the University of Bonn's collections. These were reunited in the late 1970s, and the animal was re-identified as an early domestic dog and dated to the Late Glacial Interstadial. It likely suffered and survived canine distemper as a puppy, a disease with an almost 100-percent fatality rate in wild dogs and wolves. The puppy's survival likely required intensive care from humans, including food, water, and regular cleaning. This may show a close emotional bond between the humans and the dog, and possibly that it was regarded as a pet – perhaps by the humans it was buried alongside. The dog died aged around 7.5 months for unclear reasons; it may have died from natural causes, or have been sacrificed to be buried alongside the humans. (Full article...)

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April 23

The Canadian Pacific Railway is a Canadian Class I railway operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited. Its rail network stretches from Vancouver to Montreal, and also serves major cities in the United States, such as Minneapolis, Chicago, and New York City. Its headquarters are in Calgary, Alberta. The railway was originally built between eastern Canada and British Columbia between 1881 and 1885, fulfilling a promise extended to British Columbia when it entered Confederation in 1871. It was Canada's first transcontinental railway. Now primarily a freight railway, the CPR was for many decades the only practical means of long distance passenger transportation in many regions of Canada, and was instrumental in the settlement and development of western Canada. Its primary passenger services were eliminated in 1978 after being assumed by VIA Rail Canada. The railway's logo, a beaver, was chosen because it is one of the national symbols of Canada and represents the hardworking character of the company. The object of both praise and damnation for over 120 years, the CPR remains an indisputable icon of Canadian nationalism. (more...)

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March 23

The Pioneer Zephyr is a diesel-powered railroad trainset built by the Budd Company in 1934 for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The train, which featured extensive use of stainless steel, was originally named Zephyr and meant as a promotional tool to advertise passenger rail service in the United States. The train's construction included innovations such as shotwelding to join the stainless steel and articulation to reduce the train's weight. The trainset entered regular revenue service November 11 1934 between Kansas City, Missouri, Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. It was operated on this route until its retirement in 1960 when it was donated to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry where it remains on public display. The train is generally regarded as the first successful streamliner on American railroads. (more...)

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February 23

In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific theory that concerns the early development and shape of the universe. The central idea is that the theory of general relativity can be combined with the observations on the largest scales of galaxies receding from each other to extrapolate the conditions of the universe back or forward in time. A natural consequence of the Big Bang is that in the past the universe had a higher temperature and a higher density. The term "Big Bang" is used both in a narrow sense to refer to a point in time when the observed expansion of the universe (Hubble's law) began, and in a more general sense to refer to the prevailing cosmological paradigm explaining the origin and evolution of the universe. The term "Big Bang" was coined in 1949 by Fred Hoyle during a BBC radio program, The Nature of Things. Hoyle did not subscribe to the theory and intended to mock the concept. In current physical models, the universe 13.7 billion years ago would have had the form of a gravitational singularity, at which all time and distance measurements become meaningless and temperatures and pressures become infinite. (more...)

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January 23

The 1983 English edition cover

"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a short story by the 20th century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in May 1940, in Spanish, in the Argentine journal Sur. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, set seven years in the future. The first English-language translation of the story was published in 1961. Relatively long for Borges (approximately 5600 words), it is a work of speculative fiction and is most noted as a parabolic discussion of Berkeleian idealism. In the story, an encyclopedia article about a mysterious country called Uqbar is the first indication of Orbis Tertius, a massive conspiracy of intellectuals to imagine (and thereby create) a world - Tlön. In the course of the story, the narrator encounters increasingly substantive artifacts of Orbis Tertius and of Tlön; by the end of the story, Earth is becoming Tlön. (more...)

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December 23

Duran Duran is a pop music group, notable for a long series of catchy, synthesizer-driven hit singles and vivid music videos. They were part of the new wave music explosion in the early 1980s, as well as a leading band in the MTV-driven Second British Invasion of the United States. They are still often identified as an Eighties band despite continuous recording and evolution over their twenty-five year history. The band has sold over 70 million records, and has had eighteen singles in the Billboard Hot 100 chart and twenty-nine in the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart. (more...)

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November 23

William I of Orange was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the Netherlands in 1648. A wealthy nobleman, William originally served at the court of the Spanish regent. Unhappy with the lack of political power for the local nobility and the Spanish persecution of Dutch Protestants, William joined the Dutch uprising and turned against his former masters. The most influential and politically capable of the rebels, William led the Dutch to several military successes in the fight against the Spanish. Declared an outlaw by the Spanish king in 1580, he was assassinated by Balthasar Gérard in Delft at a time when his popularity was waning. In the Netherlands, he is also known as the Vader des vaderlands ("Father of the Fatherland") and the Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus, is named for him and commemorates his life. (more...)

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October 23

Crime fiction is a genre of fiction that deals with crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. As such, it is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction. It should be noted, however, that boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred. It has several sub-genres, including detective fiction, mystery fiction, legal thriller, courtroom drama, and hard-boiled fiction. Crime fiction began to be considered as a serious genre only as late as 1900. The earliest inspiration for books and novels from this genre came from earlier dark works of Edgar Allan Poe. The evolution of locked room mysteries was one of the landmarks in the history of crime fiction, as it helped involve the reader to a major extent. Sherlock Holmes mysteries are said to have been singularly responsible for the huge popularity in this genre. Later a set of stereotypic formulae began to appear to cater to various tastes. (more...)

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September 23

A black hole is a theoretical concentration of mass with a gravitational field so strong that its escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. This implies that nothing, not even light, can escape its gravity, hence the word "black". The term "black hole" is widespread, even though the theory does not refer to any hole in the usual sense. According to classical general relativity, no matter or information can flow from the interior of a black hole to an outside observer, although quantum mechanics may allow deviations from this strict rule. The existence of black holes in the universe is well-supported both theoretically and by astronomical observation; however, a minority of physicists dissent. (more...)

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September 6

The Warsaw Uprising was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1, 1944 as a part of a nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the German-led forces until October 2. An estimated 85% of the city was destroyed during the urban guerrilla war and after the end of hostilities. The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw. Although the Soviet army was within a few hundred metres of the city from September 16 onward, the link between the uprising and the advancing army was never made. This failure and the reasons behind it have been a matter of controversy ever since. (more...)

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August 23

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart was an iconic American film actor during his life and remains a legend decades after his death. Bogart typically played smart, playful, courageous, tough, occasionally reckless characters who lived in a corrupt world, anchored by a hidden moral code. Outside of the U.S., Bogart is seen as a cult figure; French actors such as Jean-Paul Belmondo were deeply influenced by his work and image. Bogart appeared in 75 feature films, including Casablanca, the The Maltese Falcon and The African Queen, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. (more...)

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July 23

The Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 began in earnest on September 21, when Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the country's parliament and ordered a referendum on a new constitution. The parliament then deemed Yeltsin's presidency unconstitutional and appointed its own acting president. Tensions built quickly, and the representatives barricaded themselves in the parliament building, the "Russian White House." After ten days, Yeltsin, bolstered by support from the military, was able to seize the White House by force. (more...)

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June 23

Computing hardware has been an essential component of calculation and data storage since it became necessary for data to be processed and shared. Humanity has used devices to aid in computation for millennia. The Phoenicians stored clay shapes representing such things as livestock and grains in containers, which were used not only by merchants but by accountants and government officials of the time. Even today, an experienced abacus user using a device several thousand years old can complete basic calculations more quickly than the average person using a standard four-function hand calculator. (more...)

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May 23

An enclave is, in human geography, a piece of land which is totally enclosed within a foreign territory. Enclaves may be created for a variety of historical, political or even geological reasons. Since living in an enclave can be very inconvenient and many agreements have to be found by both countries over mail addresses, power supply or passage rights, enclaves tend to be eliminated; many cases that existed in the past have now been resolved. (more...)

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April 23

DOOM is a first-person shooter computer game, developed by id Software and first released for the PC on December 10, 1993, later ported to various platforms and followed by two sequels and numerous expansions. DOOM was remarkable for its, by the standards of 1993, realistic 3D graphics. An important evolutionary step from Wolfenstein 3D (id Software's previous game and the first major first-person shooter), DOOM became a genre-defining title. In the light of its popularity, a surge of similar games followed during the mid-1990s. (more...)

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March 23

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched the Attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a surprise assault on the United States Navy base and Army air fields at Oahu, Hawaii Territory. The Japanese planes bombed all the U.S. military air bases on the island and the ships anchored at Pearl, including "Battleship Row". The next day, the U.S. Congress declared war on Japan with only Jeannette Rankin dissenting. (more...)

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