On This Day
1909 – Burgess Shale fossils are discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott.
The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada.[2] It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At 508 million years (middle Cambrian) old,[3] it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints.
The rock unit is a black shale and crops out at a number of localities near the town of Field in Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. Another outcrop is in Kootenay National Park 42 km to the south.
Born On This Day
1912 – Nancy Wake, New Zealand-English captain (d. 2011)[10]
Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, AC, GM (30 August 1912 – 7 August 2011) was a secret agent during the Second World War. Living in Marseille with her French industrialist husband when the war broke out, Wake slowly became enmeshed with French efforts against the Germans, and worked to get people out of France. Later she became a leading figure in the maquis groups of the French Resistance and was one of the Allies’ most decorated servicewomen.
After the fall of France in 1940, she became a courier for the French Resistance and later joined the escape network of Captain Ian Garrow.[1] By 1943, Wake was the Gestapo’s most wanted person with a 5-million-franc price on her head. Therefore, it became necessary for her to leave France.
After reaching Britain, Wake joined the Special Operations Executive. On March 1, 1944,[2] she parachuted into occupied France near Auvergne, becoming a liaison between London and the local maquis group headed by Captain Henri Tardivat in the Forest of Tronçais. From April 1944 until the liberation of France, her 7,000+ maquisards fought the Germans in many different ways. At one point, being aware of this large group of Maquis, the Germans sent in 22,000 soldiers to wipe them out. However, due to Wake’s extraordinary organizing abilities, her Maquisards were able to defeat them causing 1,400 German deaths, while suffering only 100 among themselves.[3][4] Wake’s Maquisards thus accounted for about 70% of the about 2,000 Germans killed by the French resistance during the liberation of France, while their fatalities made up only 1% of the about 8,000 French resistance fighters killed in action. A comparison with other contemporary engagements (e.g. the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, in which the Allies suffered 10,000+ casualties including 4,414 confirmed dead vs. 4,000 – 9,000 casualties on the German side, or the Battle of Arnhem, in which there were 1,984 British vs. 1,300 – 1,725 German battle deaths) makes Wake’s achievement look even more outstanding. However, there are several sources about Nancy Wake in which this exploit is not mentioned.[5][6][7][8]
FYI
James Robert Leavelle (August 23, 1920 – August 29, 2019) was a Dallas Police Department homicide detective who, on November 24, 1963, was escorting John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald through the basement of Dallas Police headquarters when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby. Several photographs—including one that won a Pulitzer Prize—were taken of Oswald just before and as Ruby pulled the trigger. The photos show Leavelle wearing a tan suit, in sharp contrast to the other detective (L. C. Graves), who was wearing a black suit.
Read more ->
The Passive Voice: Is the political novel dead? Where The Wild Things Are; The Final Knoedler Forgery Lawsuit, Over a $5.5 Million Fake Rothko, Has Been Settled, Closing the Book on a Sordid Drama and more ->
By Alexander Mallin, ABC News: ‘I am talking directly to you’: US attorney delivers powerful rebuke to white nationalists
By Mihir Zaveri, The New York Times: Curtis Flowers’s Conviction Tossed by Mississippi Supreme Court Mr. Flowers, a black man, has been tried by a white prosecutor six times over the killings of four people in a furniture store in 1996. His case was featured in the podcast “In the Dark.”
By Kelly Tyko, USA Today: Walmart and Target hosting car seat recycling events in September. What you need to know.
By CNN News Source: The northern lights will be visible as far south as Wisconsin and Michigan over Labor Day weekend
By Louise Matsakis, WIRED: Unlicensed Signal Boosters Get a Boost From Amazon Cell phone signal boosters can disrupt entire networks, which is why they’re tightly regulated by the FCC. But it’s all too easy to find unauthorized devices online.
The Rural Blog: Save the date: Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery, a workshop for journalists, will be held in Ashland, Ky., Nov. 15; Package explores how immigrant poultry plant workers have transformed a West Virginia town; Lack of unions hurt teacher recruitment in rural Wisconsin and more ->
Open Culture: How Marion Stokes, an Activist Librarian, Recorded 30 Years of TV News on 70,000 Video Tapes: It’s All Now Being Digitized and Put Online; The Scandalous Painting That Helped Create Modern Art: An Introduction to Édouard Manet’s Olympia and more ->
https://youtu.be/D6IeDpdtrmw
https://youtu.be/V9J-KSGu_Sw
Recipes
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for October 13 October 13, 2024Picture of the day In 1909, US Navy engineer Robert Peary completed an expedition that he claimed was to the North Pole. Although this is heavily disputed by modern historians, he was credited for the achievement at the time.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for October 12 October 12, 2024Picture of the day View of the Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida with the walkway called "Passarela da Fé", connecting the old and the new church, in the foreground. Today is the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida and public holiday in Brazil.