Cors Caron

# ... that Cors Caron (pictured) represents the most intact surviving example of a raised bog landscape in the United Kingdom?
# ... that Canadian martial artist Tomasz Kucharzewski, who fought in an estimated 300 fights, was described as "happy-go-lucky" by his trainer due to his friendly demeanor?
# ... that in the early 20th century, growers in the Champagne region rioted and burned down the city of Aÿ over producers using grapes from the Loire Valley, Germany and Spain to make champagne?
# ... that South African ANC activist Kate Molale organised a pioneer movement in the struggle against the 1953 Bantu Education Act?
# ... that William Cowper Alexander lost the 1856 election for the Governor of New Jersey by less than 3,000 votes?
# ... that the Gray-handed Night Monkey is nocturnal and monogamous?
# ... that Sports Illustrated described high school player Kevin Laue as "the most exciting player in basketball" because of his playing skill with only one hand?
# ... that Robert Brandon, goldsmith to Queen Elizabeth I and later Chamberlain of London, was the father-in-law of the artist Nicholas Hilliard and of Captain John Martin of the Jamestown Colony?
# ... that James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railway built the Great Northern Depot in Wayzata, Minnesota, in 1906 after moving the former stop a mile east of town 12 years earlier in a dispute with town residents?

cross-border passport checks

# Ruins of an ancient Wari city are discovered in northern Peru.
# ASEAN meets in Jakarta, Indonesia, to launch the ASEAN Charter, which groups its 10 member states into a legal entity.
# The House of Representatives of Thailand selects Abhisit Vejjajiva of the Democrat Party as the country's new Prime Minister.
# Bernard Madoff is arrested by the FBI in the United States, and charged with defrauding investors in a US$50 billion Ponzi scheme.
# Switzerland becomes the 25th European country to join the Schengen Agreement, whereby cross-border passport checks (pictured) will be abolished.
# The Channel Island of Sark, a British crown dependency, holds its first fully democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement, becoming the last European territory to abolish feudalism.
# Anti-police riots break out in Athens and spread to several cities across Greece.
# Ireland issues an international recall of its pork products following the discovery of contaminated pig feed.

River New South Wales

The Riverina is an agricultural region of south-western New South Wales, Australia. The Riverina is distinguished from other Australian regions due to the combination of flat plains, warm to hot climate and an ample supply of water for irrigation. This combination has allowed the Riverina to develop into one of the most productive and agriculturally diverse areas of Australia. Bordered on the south by the state of Victoria and on the east by the Great Dividing Range, the Riverina covers those areas of New South Wales in the Murray and Murrumbidgee drainage zones to their confluence in the west. Home to Aboriginal groups for over 40,000 years, the Riverina was originally settled by Europeans in the mid-19th century as a pastoral region providing beef and wool to markets in Australia and beyond. In the 20th century, the development of major irrigation areas in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys has led to the introduction of crops such as rice and wine grapes. Major population and service centres in the Riverina include the cities of Wagga Wagga, Albury and Griffith. Albury and Wagga Wagga are home to campuses of Charles Sturt University, the only local provider of higher education for the region.

Anti-police riots

# Anti-police riots (pictured) continue in Athens and several cities across Greece.
# Ireland issues an international recall of its pork products following the discovery of contaminated pig feed.
# Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, dies of heart failure in Peredelkino, Russia.
# A bombing kills 29 people and injures more than 100 in Peshawar, Pakistan.
# A cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe spreads, with hundreds dead and over 10,000 people infected since August 2008.
# At the request of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Governor General of Canada Michaëlle Jean prorogues the parliament until January 26, 2009, to avoid a confidence motion by a newly-formed coalition of opposition parties.

Amateur radio in India

Amateur radio in India is practised by more than 16,000 licensed users. The first amateur radio operator was licensed in 1921, and by the mid-1930s, there were around 20 amateur radio operators in India. Amateur radio operators have played an important part in the Indian independence movement with the establishment of pro-independence radio stations in the 1940s, which were illegal. The three decades after India's independence saw only slow growth in the numbers of operators until the then Prime Minister of India, and ham operator Rajiv Gandhi waived the import duty on wireless equipment in 1984. Since then, numbers have picked up, and as of 2007[update], there were more than 16,000 operators in the country. Amateur radio operators have played a vital role during disasters and national emergencies such as earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, floods, and bomb blasts, by providing voluntary emergency communications in the affected areas. The Wireless and Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC)—a division of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology—regulates amateur radio in India. The WPC assigns call signs, issues amateur radio licences, conducts exams, allots frequency spectrum, and monitors the radio waves. In India, the Amateur Radio Society of India (ARSI) represents amateur radio interests at various forums, and represents India at the International Amateur Radio Union.

St Kilda

St Kilda is an isolated archipelago 64 kilometres (40 mi) west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The largest island is Hirta, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom. The Gaelic-speaking population probably never exceeded 180 and was never more than 100 after 1851. Although St Kilda was permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, and despite the inhabitants' unique way of life, the entire population was evacuated in 1930. The only residents are now military personnel. The islands are administratively a part of the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar local authority area. The islands' human heritage includes numerous unique architectural features from the historic and prehistoric periods, although the earliest written records of island life date from the Late Middle Ages. The medieval village on Hirta was rebuilt in the 19th century, but the influences of religion, tourism and the First World War contributed to the island's evacuation in 1930. The story of St Kilda has attracted artistic interpretations, including a recent opera. The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It became one of Scotland's four World Heritage Sites in 1986 and is one of the few in the world to hold joint status for its natural, marine and cultural qualities.

Taj Mahal Palace Hotel at Night

A series of terrorist attacks (one of the locations pictured) in Mumbai, India, kills at least 160 people and injures hundreds.
The Thai political crisis worsens as protesters seize two Bangkok airports.
The people of Greenland pass a referendum regarding greater autonomy from Denmark.
Brazilian officials declare a state of emergency as flooding in the Southern state of Santa Catarina causes at least 99 deaths and forces the evacuation of over 78,000 people.
The PAIGC wins a majority of seats in the National People's Assembly after legislative elections in Guinea-Bissau.
The eruption of Nevado del Huila, a volcano in southern Colombia, causes at least 10 deaths and the evacuation of 12,000 people.
Ibrahim Nasir, the first President of the Second Republic of the Maldives, dies of an unknown cause in Singapore

Santa Catarina

The people of Greenland pass a referendum regarding greater autonomy from Denmark.
A series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, kills at least 125 and injures hundreds.
Brazilian officials declare a state of emergency as flooding (pictured) in the Southern state of Santa Catarina causes at least 99 deaths and forces the evacuation of over 78,000 people.
The PAIGC wins a majority of seats in the National People's Assembly after legislative elections in Guinea-Bissau.
The eruption of Nevado del Huila, a volcano in southern Colombia, causes at least 10 deaths and the evacuation of 12,000 people.
Ibrahim Nasir, the first President of the Second Republic of the Maldives, dies of an unknown cause in Singapore.
The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously to reinforce MONUC, the largest peacekeeping force in the world, stationed in Nord-Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Wembley Stadium

The 1956 FA Cup Final was the final match of the 1955–56 staging of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, better known as the FA Cup. The showpiece event was contested between Manchester City and Birmingham City at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday 5 May 1956. Manchester City's victories were close affairs, each settled by the odd goal, and they needed a replay to defeat fifth-round opponents Liverpool. Birmingham City made more comfortable progress: they scored eighteen goals while conceding only two, and won each match at the first attempt despite being drawn to play on their opponents' ground in every round. They became the first team to reach an FA Cup final without playing at home. Birmingham entered the match as favourites, in a contest billed as a contrast of styles. Watched by a crowd of 100,000 and a television audience of five million, Manchester City took an early lead through Joe Hayes, but Noel Kinsey equalised midway through the first half. Second half goals from Jack Dyson and Bobby Johnstone gave Manchester City a 3–1 victory. The match is best remembered for the heroics of Manchester City goalkeeper, Bert Trautmann, who continued playing despite breaking a bone in his neck in a collision with Birmingham's Peter Murphy

The Sea of Ice

... that Caspar David Friedrich's 1824 painting The Sea of Ice (pictured) was seen as too radical in composition, and went unsold until after his death in 1840?
... that during the Great Bombay Textile Strike of 1982, nearly 250,000 workers and more than 50 textile mills went on strike in Mumbai, India?
... that Mieczysław Jagielski negotiated the agreement which recognized Solidarity as the first independent trade union within the Eastern Bloc?
... that Emperor Dezong of Tang ordered the former chancellor Dou Can to commit suicide as Dou was heading to his exile in Vietnam?
... that when it was completed in 1976, the 32-storey Allendale Square in Perth, Western Australia, was one of the largest fully aluminium-clad skyscrapers in the world?
... that the 1996 Orange Bowl had the lowest attendance of any Orange Bowl since 1947?
... that when Wales national rugby union team beat Scotland in the 1952 Five Nations Championship, Rex Willis played a large proportion of the match with a broken jaw bone?
... that at least one song written by Sonny Throckmorton was on the country music charts for almost every week between 1976 and 1980?

Yttrium

Yttrium is a chemical element with atomic number 39. It is a silvery-metallic transition metal chemically similar to the lanthanoids and has historically been classified as a rare-earth element. Yttrium is almost always found combined with the lanthanoids in rare-earth minerals and is never found in nature as a free element. Its only stable isotope, 89Y, is also its only naturally occurring isotope. In 1787, Carl Axel Arrhenius found a new mineral near Ytterby in Sweden and named it ytterbite, after the village. Johan Gadolin discovered yttrium's oxide in Arrhenius' sample in 1789, and Anders Gustaf Ekeberg named the new oxide yttria. Elemental yttrium was first isolated in 1828 by Friedrich Wöhler. The most important use of yttrium compounds is in making phosphors, such as the red ones used in television cathode ray tube displays and in LEDs. Other uses include the production of electrodes, electrolytes, electronic filters, lasers and superconductors; various medical applications; and as traces in various materials to enhance their properties. Yttrium has no known biological role. Exposure to yttrium compounds can cause lung disease in humans

Doctor Who missing episodes

The Doctor Who missing episodes are the many instalments of the long-running British science fiction television programme Doctor Who that are missing, with no known film or videotape copies existing. They were wiped by the BBC during the 1960s and 1970s for a variety of economic and space-saving reasons. In all, there are 27 serials that do not exist in complete form in the BBC's archives, because 108 of 253 episodes produced during the first six years of the programme are missing. Many more were thought to have been so in the past before episodes were recovered from a variety of sources, most notably overseas broadcasters. Doctor Who is not unique in this respect, as thousands of hours of programming from across all genres were destroyed up until 1978, when the BBC's archiving policies were changed. Unlike other series, Doctor Who is unique in having all of its missing episodes surviving in audio form, recorded off-air by fans at home. Additionally, every 1970s episode exists in some form, which is not the case for several other series. Efforts to locate missing episodes continue, both by the BBC and by fans of the series. Extensive restoration has been carried out on many surviving and recovered 1960s and 1970s episodes for release on VHS and more recently on DVD. (more...)

MV Sirius Star

The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously to reinforce MONUC, the largest peacekeeping force in the world, stationed in Nord-Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The first successful tracheal transplantation using a tissue-engineered organ created from the patient's own stem cells is performed in Spain.
New Zealand and Australian researchers identify a new species of penguin, the Waitaha penguin, which lived in New Zealand until its extinction 500 years ago.
Somali pirates capture the oil tanker MV Sirius Star (pictured), the largest vessel to date to be hijacked, off the coast of the Horn of Africa.
G-20 leaders meet at a summit in Washington, D.C. to discuss the current financial crisis.
Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 successfully lands the Moon Impact Probe on the lunar south pole

lunar rover

Astronaut Eugene Cernan makes a short test drive of the lunar rover (officially, Lunar Roving Vehicle or LRV) during the early part of the first Apollo 17 extravehicular activity. The LRV was only used in the last three Apollo missions, but it performed without any problems and allowed the astronauts to cover far more ground than in previous missions. All three LRVs were abandoned on the Moon

The Rokeby Venus

The Rokeby Venus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in the National Gallery, London. Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in an erotic pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by the god of sensual love, her son Cupid. Numerous works, from the ancient to the baroque, have been cited as sources of inspiration for Velázquez. The nude Venuses of the Italian painters, such as Giorgione's Sleeping Venus (c. 1510) and Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538), were the main precedents. In this work, Velázquez combined two established poses for Venus: recumbent on a couch or a bed, and gazing at her reflection in a mirror. In a number of ways the painting represents a pictorial departure; through its central use of a mirror, and because it shows the body of Venus turned away from the picture's viewer. The Rokeby Venus is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez. The painting adorned the houses of Spanish courtiers until 1813 when it was brought to England to hang in Rokeby Park, Yorkshire. In 1906, the painting was purchased by National Art Collections Fund for the National Gallery, London. Although it was attacked and badly damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson, it was soon fully restored and returned to display. (more...)

Horn of Africa region

War crimes are reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a ceasefire in the Kivu conflict is broken and fighting resumes, with at least 100 civilians dead.
Somali pirates capture the oil tanker MV Sirius Star, the largest vessel to date to be hijacked, near the Horn of Africa region (pictured).
G-20 leaders meet at a summit in Washington, D.C. to discuss the current financial crisis.
Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 successfully lands the Moon Impact Probe on the lunar south pole.
Three planets orbiting the star HR 8799 and one planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut are optically verified, making them the first extrasolar planets whose existences have been confirmed via direct imaging.
Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, announces the discovery of a 4,300-year-old pyramid belonging to Queen Sesheshet, mother of King Teti.

earthfill dam in India

... that Maharana Pratap Sagar or Pong Dam Lake, created by the highest earthfill dam in India on the Beas River (pictured), intercepts migratory birds on their trans-Himalayan fly path during each migration season?
... that ancient Greek klismos chairs became fashionable again in the late 18th century?
... that other than visits to other institutions as a guest lecturer, James Feast lectured at the University of Durham for over 35 years?
... that Greenville Presbyterian Church was the first non-Dutch church established in New York's Catskill region?
... that species from the underground-dwelling mushroom genus Gautieria are the preferred food source of the Northern flying squirrel?
... that after testing the biological Brucella cluster bomb on 11,000 guinea pigs, a U.S. general remarked "Now we know what to do if we ever go to war against guinea pigs"?
... that the Flekkefjord Line was built to be part of the main line from Stavanger to Oslo, but a change of plans made it only a branch line?
... that the National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey has on display the Intelligent Whale, an experimental Civil War-era submarine propelled by a hand crank operated by its four-man crew?

Templo Mayor

... that at the inauguration of the sixth Aztec Templo Mayor in 1487 (scale model pictured), thousands of prisoners of war were ritually sacrificed, bathing the steps of the pyramid in blood?
... that Operation Steel Box moved 100,000 American chemical weapons from Clausen, West Germany, to Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific Ocean?
... that Hedley Howarth helped lead New Zealand to its first ever test cricket win on the Indian subcontinent with a five-wicket bag against India in 1969?
... that in a baseball match held at the Capitoline Grounds on June 14, 1870, the Brooklyn Atlantics defeated the Cincinnati Red Stockings, ending their 84 game winning streak?
... that the acquisition of the Corus Group in October 2006 has made Tata Steel India's second largest company in the private sector?
... that the Confederate Memorial in Nicholasville, Kentucky, took sixteen years to fund, and was originally a statue of a Union soldier?
... that German entrepreneur, race driver and yacht skipper Udo Schütz won the 1000 km Nürburgring in 1967, the Targa Florio in 1969, and the Admiral's Cup in 1993?
... that Louis Dicken Wilson left Edgecombe County US$40,000 upon his death in 1847, but US$28,000 of it was wasted?

Fomalhaut with Disk Ring and extrasolar planet b cropped

Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 successfully lands the Moon Impact Probe on the lunar south pole.
Three planets orbiting star HR 8799 and one planet (pictured) orbiting star Fomalhaut are visually verified by telescopes, the first extrasolar planets whose existence have been confirmed via direct imaging.
Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, announces the discovery of a 4,300-year-old pyramid belonging to Queen Sesheshet, mother of King Teti.
China announces a stimulus package involving 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) to finance programs in 10 major domestic areas in the next two years.
An accident aboard Russian submarine K-152 Nerpa kills 20, the worst Russian submarine disaster since Kursk.
A shipment of cocaine, worth €750 million, is seized off the coast of Ireland in the largest such seizure in the country's history.

Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal

The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal is a disused canal in Greater Manchester, North West England, built to link Bolton and Bury with Manchester. The canal, when fully opened, was 15 miles 1 furlong (24.3 km) long. It was accessed via a junction with the River Irwell in Salford. Seventeen locks were required to climb to the summit as it passed through Pendleton, heading northwest to Prestolee before it split northwest to Bolton and northeast to Bury. The canal was commissioned in 1791 by local landowners and businessmen and built between 1791 and 1808, during the Golden Age of canal building, at a cost of £127,700. Originally designed for narrow gauge boats, the canal was altered during its construction into a broad gauge canal to allow an ultimately unrealised connection with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The majority of the freight carried was coal from local collieries but, as the mines reached the end of their working lives, sections of the canal fell into disuse and disrepair and it was officially abandoned in 1961. In 1987, a society was formed with the aim of restoring the canal for leisure use and, in 2006, restoration began in the area around the junction with the River Irwell in Salford. The canal is currently navigable as far as East Ordsall Lane, in Salford. (more...)