Ernest Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) led three
British expeditions to the Antarctic during the Heroic Age of Antarctic
Exploration. He and three companions established a new record Farthest
South latitude, 112 miles (180 km) from the South Pole, as part of the
Nimrod Expedition of 1907–1909, and Shackleton was knighted on his
return home. He planned the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of
1914–1917 but his ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and then
sank on 21 November 1915. The crew escaped and used the lifeboats to
reach Elephant Island and ultimately the island of South Georgia in a
stormy ocean voyage of more than 700 nautical miles (800 mi;
1,300 km), Shackleton's most famous exploit. He returned to the
Antarctic in 1921 with the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition, but died of a
heart attack on South Georgia; at his wife's request, he was buried
there. In the latter part of the 20th century, Shackleton became a role
model for leadership in extreme circumstances.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1763:
Prussia, Saxony and the Habsburg monarchy signed the Treaty of
Hubertusburg, ending the Third Silesian War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Silesian_War>
1949:
Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux began excavations
at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves in the West Bank, the location of the
first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qumran_Caves>
1979:
Don Dunstan resigned as Premier of South Australia, ending a
decade of sweeping social liberalisation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Dunstan>
1999:
Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the militant
organization the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was arrested by Turkish
security forces in Nairobi, Kenya.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_%C3%96calan>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
at daggers drawn:
(idiomatic, chiefly Britain) In a state of open hostility.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/at_daggers_drawn>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no
university has had any justification for existence since the
popularization of printing in the fifteenth century. Yet the chief
impetus to the foundation of universities came after that date, and in
more recent times has even increased. The justification for a university
is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of
life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration
of learning.
--Alfred North Whitehead
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead>
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