| 1527 | German troops begin sacking Rome. Libraries are destroyed, the Pope is captured and thousands are killed. | |
| 1529 | Babur defeats the Afghan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghaghra, India. | |
| 1682 | King Louis XIV moves his court to Versailles, France. | |
| 1856 | U.S. Army troops from Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepare to ride out to protect Keyesville, California, from Yokut Indian attack. | |
| 1861 | Arkansas becomes the ninth state to secede from the Union. | |
| 1862 | Henry David Thoreau dies of tuberculosis at age 44. | |
| 1864 | In the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet is wounded by his own men. | |
| 1877 | Chief Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops in Nebraska. Crazy Horse brought General George Custer to his end. | |
| 1937 | The dirigible Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey. | |
| 1941 | Bob Hope gives his first USO show at California’s March Field. | |
| 1942 | General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders Corregidor to the Japanese. | |
| 1944 | The Red Army besieges and captures Sevastopol in the Crimea. | |
| 1945 | Axis Sally makes her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops. | |
| 1954 | British runner Roger Bannister breaks the four minute mile. | |
| 1960 | President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960. | |
| 1962 | The first nuclear warhead is fired from a Polaris submarine. | |
| 1994 | The Channel Tunnel linking England to France is officially opened. |
She called me every name under the bookEach example has the story of who said it and where. Check out more at Malaphors. This may keep me busy for a while.
I haven’t heard hide nor hair of that guy
He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the basket
Put your best face forward
For a study published in 2015, an international group of researchers looked at the number of “source countries” that have fed into various nations since the year 1500. Places like Canada and the United States are very diverse, with 63 and 83 source countries, respectively, while countries like China and Zimbabwe are fairly homogenous, with just a few nationalities represented in their populations.That makes plenty of sense, especially since so many non-immigrant Americans only speak one language. It may also be because we spend so much money on our teeth, we want to show them off. Other reasons for the American smile are explored in an article at the Atlantic.
After polling people from 32 countries to learn how much they felt various feelings should be expressed openly, the authors found that emotional expressiveness was correlated with diversity. In other words, when there are a lot of immigrants around, you might have to smile more to build trust and cooperation, since you don’t all speak the same language.
In case you need a little more nightmare fuel, scientists have been studying a fish eyeball parasite. Diplostomum pseudospathaceum
infects a fish's eye as a larva. While the larva grows, it causes the
fish to swim slower than usual, which protects both the fish and the
parasite from predators. But when the larva is mature, it makes the fish
swim faster and closer to the water's surface. That's so the fish will
be eaten by a bird!The eye fluke Diplostomum pseudospathaceum has a life cycle that takes place in three different types of animal. First, parasites mate in a bird’s digestive tract, shedding their eggs in its faeces. The eggs hatch in the water into larvae that seek out freshwater snails to infect. They grow and multiply inside the snails before being released into the water, ready to track down their next host, fish. The parasites then penetrate the skin of fish, and travel to the lens of the eye to hide out and grow. The fish then get eaten by a bird – and the cycle starts again.The current research is about fish eyes that contain both mature and immature parasites. How do those fish act? Read about Diplostomum pseudospathaceum at New Scientist.
