| The Daily Delicious for July 23, 2008 Against the Odds: Vijender KumarOlympian boxer Vijender Kumar hails from Bhiwani District in Haryana, which is called India’s “Little Cuba” if the BBC is to be believed. (That last clause was sponsored by the letter B.) — Nalini(tags: handsomes sports india(n) boxing olympics)No Tags niralimagazine.com |
Ancient Greek Eclipse Calculator Marked Olympics [News] An ancient Greek astronomical calculator that showed the positions of the sun, Earth and the moon, and outshined any known device for 1,000 years after it, also kept track of something more mundane: when the next Olympics would take place.And its design just might have sprung from the skull of the brilliant scientist Archimedes. [More] feeds.feedburner.com |
Are Old-Growth Forests Protected in the U.S.? Dear EarthTalk: How much "old growth" forest is left in the United States and is it all protected from logging at this point? -- John Foye, via e-mail [More] rss.sciam.com |
Israeli athletes killed at Munich Olympics On this day in 1972, at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, a group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists, known as Black September, demanded that Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli jails and two German terrorists. In an ensuing shootout at the Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were killed along with five terrorists and one West German policeman. Olympic competition was suspended for 24 hours to hold memorial services for the slain athletes.After being founded in 776 B.C. in ancient Greece, the first modern Olympics were held in Athens in 1896, with 13 countries and 311 athletes competing. The games were meant to foster peace and bring people together. Germany had hoped that the 1972 Olympics would be a celebration of peace, as it was the first time it had hosted the games since 1936, when Adolf Hitler, who used the games to promote his Aryan master race theory, was in power.The Munich Olympics opened on August 26, 1972, with 195 events and 7,173 athletes representing 121 countries. On the morning of September 5, Palestinian terrorists in ski masks ambushed the Israeli team. After negotiations to free the nine Israelis broke down, the terrorists took the hostages to the Munich airport. Once there, German police opened fire from rooftops and killed three of the terrorists. A gun battle erupted and left the hostages, two more Palestinians and a policeman dead.After a memorial service was held for the athletes at the main Olympic stadium, International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage ordered that the games continue, to show that the terrorists hadn't won. Although the tragedy deeply marred the games, there were numerous moments of spectacular athletic achievement, including American swimmer Mark Spitz's seven gold medals and teenage Russian gymnast Olga Korbut's two dramatic gold-medal victories.In the aftermath of the murders at the '72 Olympics, the Israeli government, headed by Golda Meir, hired a group of Mossad agents to track down and kill the Black September assassins. In 2005, Steven Spielberg made a movie, Munich, about these events. history.com |
President's child born in White House Frances Folsom Cleveland, the wife of President Grover Cleveland, gives birth to a daughter, Esther, in the White House.On June 2, 1886, in an intimate ceremony held in the Blue Room of the White House, President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom, the daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom. Fewer than 40 people were present to witness the 49-year-old president exchange vows with Frances, who at 21 years of age became the youngest first lady in U.S. history.As a devoted family friend, Cleveland allegedly bought "Frank" her first baby carriage. After her father's death, he administered her estate. When Frances entered Wells College, Cleveland, then the governor of New York, asked Mrs. Folsom's permission to correspond with the young lady. After his inauguration as president in 1885, Frances visited Cleveland at the executive mansion. Despite a 27-year difference in age, their affection turned to romance, and in 1886 the couple were married in the White House.Mrs. Cleveland, who replaced Cleveland's sister Rose Elizabeth as White House hostess, won immediate popularity for her good looks and unaffected charm. After the president's defeat in his 1888 reelection bid, the Clevelands lived in New York City, where their first child, Ruth, was born in 1891. In 1892, in an event unprecedented in U.S. political history, the out-of-office Cleveland was elected president again. Frances Cleveland returned to Washington and resumed her duties as first lady as if she had been gone but a day. On September 9, 1893, the first family saw the addition of a second child. Esther was the first child of a president to be born in the White House but not the first child ever to be born there. In 1806, James Madison Randolph was born to Martha Randolph, the daughter of President Thomas Jefferson.When Grover Cleveland left the presidency in 1897, his wife had become one of the most popular first ladies in history. In 1908, she was at his side when he died at their home in Princeton, New Jersey. Five years later, she married Thomas J. Preston, Jr., a professor of archeology at Princeton University. history.com |