The Norfolk, Virginia, Bicentennial half dollar is a half dollar
commemorative coin struck by the United States Mint in 1937, though it
bears the date 1936. Designed by William Marks Simpson and Marjory Emory
Simpson, the coin commemorates the 200th anniversary of Norfolk being
designated as a royal borough, and the 100th anniversary of it becoming
a city. Virginia Senator Carter Glass sponsored a bill for a Norfolk
half dollar, but it was amended in committee to provide for
commemorative medals instead. Unaware of the change, Glass and other
advocates shepherded it through Congress. A bill calling for coins was
passed in 1937, but by then, the anniversaries had passed, and sales
were poorer than hoped; almost a third of the coins could not be sold.
The Norfolk half dollar is the only U.S. coin to depict the British
crown, shown on the reverse on the city's ceremonial mace.
Read more:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk,_Virginia,_Bicentennial_half_dollar>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1914:
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of
Hohenberg, were assassinated by a Yugoslav nationalist named Gavrilo
Princip in Sarajevo, sparking the outbreak of World War I.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip>
1969:
In response to a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York
City, groups of gay and transgender people began to riot, a watershed
event for the worldwide gay rights movement.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots>
1989:
President Slobodan Milošević gave a speech in which he
described the possibility of "armed battles" in the future of Serbia's
national development.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazimestan_speech>
2009:
Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was ousted by a local military
coup following his attempt to hold a referendum to rewrite the
constitution.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
onager:
1. The Asiatic wild ass or hemione (Equus hemionus), an animal of the
horse family native to Asia; specifically, the Persian onager, Persian
wild ass, or Persian zebra (Equus hemionus onager).
2. (military, historical) A military engine acting like a sling which
threw stones from a bag or wooden bucket powered by the torsion from a
bundle of ropes or sinews operated by machinery; a torsion catapult.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/onager>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Let's not be dazzled by the sententious glitter with which error
and lying often cover themselves. Society is not created by the crowd,
and bodies come together in vain when hearts reject each other. The
truly sociable man is more difficult in his relationships than others;
those which consist only in false appearances cannot suit him. He
prefers to live far from wicked men without thinking about them, than to
see them and hate them. He prefers to flee his enemy rather than seek
him out to harm him. A person who knows no other society than that of
the heart will not seek his society in your circles.
--Jean-Jacques Rousseau
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau>