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Did you know...
From Wikipedia's
newest content :
... that the
Easter egg tree (pictured) in
Saalfeld ,
Thuringia , was decorated with 10,000
Easter eggs in 2012?
... that
Anthony Alexander Forrest played two senior games of
Australian rules football for the
Perth Football Club before dying at age 16 in the
Second Boer War ?
... that the center of
Santa Barbara ,
California , is built in a
homogeneous style because of
a 1925 earthquake ?
... that two
guide dogs ,
Salty and Roselle , were awarded the
Dickin Medal for gallantry after leading their blind owners out of the
World Trade Center during the
September 11 attacks ?
... that, as of 2010, 85 percent of the readers of the Indonesian daily
Bernas are male?
... that Bach created an "operatic scene" in
his cantata
Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ, BWV 67 , with Jesus serenely repeating "Peace be with you" against the raging of the enemies?
... that
John Merton Aldrich donated 45,000
flies to the
United States National Museum ?
In the news
On this day...
April 19 :
Feast of Saint Alphege (Western Christianity);
Yom HaShoah (Israel, 2012); 100th anniversary of the birth of
Glenn T. Seaborg , discoverer of ten atomic elements
1713 – With no living male heirs,
Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI (pictured) issued the
Pragmatic Sanction to ensure one of his daughters would inherit the
Habsburg lands.
1810 – An expanded municipal government of
Caracas deposed Captain General
Vicente Emparán and established the
First Republic of Venezuela .
1861 –
American Civil War : The first bloodshed of the war took place when
Confederate sympathizers in
Baltimore ,
Maryland ,
attacked members of the Massachusetts militia en route to
Washington, D.C.
1971 – The first
space station ,
Salyut 1 , was launched from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome near
Tyuratam ,
Kazakh SSR , USSR.
1984 – Scottish-born composer
Peter Dodds McCormick 's "
Advance Australia Fair ", a
patriotic song that was first performed in 1878, officially replaced "
God Save the Queen " as Australia's
national anthem .
More anniversaries:
April 18 –
April 19 –
April 20
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