Tuesday, 8 November 2011

8 November

Aren't old stories great? I was reading the parable of the Old man, the boy and the donkey.

Today is Tuesday 8 November. Did you know today is World Urbanism Day? I didn't until now. On this day:
1519-Hernan Cortes enters Tenochtitlan and Aztec ruler Montezuma welcomes him with great celebration, believing him to be the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl.
1602-The Bodleian library at Oxford University is opened to the public.
1895-William Roentgen discovered X-rays. He called them x-rays because x is the mathematical symbol for unknown. William Roentgen won the first Nobel Prize for Physics. He was born in Prussia, 1845, and died in Munich in 1923.
1865- The death penalty is officially abolished in the UK.
1656-Edmund Halley, best known for the comet named after him, was born. he was the English Astronomer Royal and first observed the comet in 1682. He accurately predicted its return in 1758. It won't come again until 2061.
1958-The Hope Diamond was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Originally it was a 112 carat steel-blue diamond embedded in a Hindu statue. After passing through many owners, including Marie Antoinette and the British banking firm that the diamond is named after, it is now a 44 carat diamond worth US$1.5 million.

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

John F. Kennedy (elected President 8 Nov)

It is magnificent, but it is not war; it is madness.
Pierre Bosquet (born 8 Nov)

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