The Old Head coinage were British coins struck and dated between 1893
and 1901, with a portrait by Thomas Brock of an aged Queen Victoria
(example shown). It replaced the Jubilee coinage, struck since 1887,
which had been widely criticised. In 1891, a committee was appointed to
consider the matter, and recommended replacements. Some coins continued
with their old reverse designs, with Benedetto Pistrucci's design for
the sovereign extended to the half sovereign, and others gained new
ones, created either by Brock or by Edward Poynter. The issue became the
first to bear, as part of the monarch's royal titles, IND IMP,
abbreviated Latin for 'Empress of India'. The issue originally consisted
only of gold and silver coins, but in 1895, the Brock head of Victoria
was placed on the bronze coinage (the penny and its fractions) as well.
They continued to be struck until Victoria's death in 1901 caused a
change in the obverse design; starting in 1902, the coinage bore the
head of her successor, Edward VII.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Head_coinage>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1346:
Hundred Years' War: English forces established the military
supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow
and armoured knights at the Battle of Crécy (depicted).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy>
1928:
At a cafe in Paisley, Scotland, a woman found the remains of a
snail in her bottle of ginger beer, giving rise to the landmark civil
action case Donoghue v Stevenson.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson>
1955:
Pather Panchali, the first film in The Apu Trilogy by Satyajit
Ray, was released and went on to win many Indian and international film
awards.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pather_Panchali>
1966:
The South African Defence Force launched an attack against
SWAPO guerrilla fighters at Omugulugwombashe, starting the South African
Border War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Border_War>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
stockpile:
1. A supply (especially a large one) of something kept for future use,
specifically in case the cost of the item increases or if there a
shortage.
2. (specifically, military, weaponry) A supply of nuclear weapons kept
by a country.
3. (mining) A pile of coal or ore heaped up on the ground after it has
been mined.
4. (transitive)
5. To accumulate or build up a supply of (something).
6. (specifically, military, weaponry) To build up a stock of (nuclear
weapons).
7. (mining) To heap up piles of (coal or ore) on the ground after it has
been mined.
8. (intransitive) To build up a supply; to accumulate.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stockpile>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Christopher would find himself able to believe — as a
possibility, at least — that an eternal impersonal presence (call it
"the soul" if you like) exists within all creatures and is other than
the mutable non-eternal "person." He would then feel that all his
earlier difficulties had been merely semantic; that he could have been
converted to this belief at any time in his life, if only someone had
used the right words to explain it to him. Now, I doubt this. I doubt if
one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.
--Christopher Isherwood
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Isherwood>