Word of the day

Aestival – of, belonging to or appearing or occurring in summer.

Too Easy

Ready to ride as soon as they decide whether they want to go in the direction they’re all facing or whether that’d be too easy.

Too Easy ©2015 Brian Andreas – posted with permission.

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Sunday soapbox

Sunday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse, but not abuse.

I am grateful.

December 6 in history

1060 – Béla I of Hungary was crowned king of Hungary.

1240 – Mongol invasion of Rus: Kiev under Danylo of Halych and Voivode Dmytro fell to the Mongols under Batu Khan.

1534 The city of Quito in Ecuador was founded by Spanish settlers led bySebastián de Belalcázar.

1648 Colonel Pride of the New Model Army purged the Long Parliament of MPs sympathetic to King Charles I  in order for the King’s trial to go ahead; –  “Pride’s Purge“.

1704 – Battle of Chamkaur.

1721 – James Elphinston, Scottish philologist and educator, was born (d. 1809).

1745 – Charles Edward Stewart’s army began retreat during the second Jacobite Rising.

1768 The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published.

1792 – William II of the Netherlands was born (d. 1849).

1849 American abolitionist Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery.

1865 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery.

1872 – Arthur Henry Adams, Australian journalist and author, was born (d. 1936).

1877  The first edition of the Washington Post was published.

1877 – Thomas Edison created the first recording of a human voice, reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.

1884 The Washington Monument in Washington D.C. was completed.

1896 – Ira Gershwin, American songwriter, was born (d. 1983).

1897  London became the world’s first city to host licenced taxicabs.

1900  Agnes Moorehead, American actress, was born (d. 1974).

1907 –  A coal mine explosion at Monongah, West Virginia killed 362 workers.

1917 Finland declared independence from Russia.

1917  Halifax Explosion: A munitions explosion killed more than 1900 people and destroyed part of the City of Halifax.

1921 The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in London by British and Irish representatives.

1922 The Irish Free State came into existence

1933 U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey ruled that the James Joyce‘s novel Ulysses was not obscene.

1935 New Zealand’s first Labour government took office with Michael Joseph Savage as Prime Minister.

1947 The Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated.

1952  – Charles Bronson, English criminal, was born.

1956 – Aged 14, swimmer Sandra Morgan became the youngest Australian to win an Olympic gold medal.

1957 –  A launchpad explosion of Vanguard TV3 thwarted the first United States’ attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit.

1965 – Pakistan’s Islamic Ideology Advisory Committee recommended that Islamic Studies be made a compulsory subject for Muslim students from primary to graduate level.

1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performed the first human heart transplant in the United States.

1975 – Balcombe Street Siege: An IRA Active Service Unit took a couple hostage in Balcombe Street, London.

1977 – South Africa granted independence to Bophuthatswana, although it was not recognized by any other country.

1978 – Spain approved its latest constitution in a referendum.

1982 – Droppin Well bombing: The Irish National Liberation Army detonated a bomb in Ballykelly, killing eleven British soldiers and six civilians.

1988 – The Australian Capital Territory was granted self-government.

1989 The École Polytechnique Massacre (or Montreal Massacre): an anti-feminist gunman murdered 14 young women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.

1992 – Extremist Hindu activists demolished Babri Masjid – a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya, India which had been used as a temple since 1949.

1997 – A Russian Antonov An-124 cargo plane crashed into an apartment complex near Irkutsk, Siberia, killing 67.

1998 – Hugo Chávez Frías, Venezuelan military officer and politician, was elected President of Venezuela.

2005 – Several villagers were shot dead during protests in Dongzhou,China.

2006 – NASA revealed photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyorsuggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.

2008 – The 2008 Greek riots broke out upon the murder of a 15-year-old boy, Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.