Argosy was an American magazine, founded by Frank Munsey in 1882 as a
children's weekly. In 1896 it became the first pulp magazine, printing
only fiction and using cheap pulp paper. Circulation rose and remained
strong for decades, but fell to no more than 50,000 by 1942. Many famous
writers appeared in Argosy, including O. Henry, Edgar Rice Burroughs,
Erle Stanley Gardner, and Robert E. Howard. It was sold in 1942 to
Popular Publications and converted from pulp to slick format, and then
to a men's magazine, carrying fiction and feature articles. Circulation
soared to well over one million. From 1948 to 1958 it published a series
by Gardner which examined the cases of dozens of convicts who maintained
their innocence. It succeeded in overturning many of their convictions.
In 1972 Popular sold the magazine to David Geller. He sold it to the
Filipacchi Group in 1978, which closed it down at the end of the year.
The title has been revived several times, most recently in 2016.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argosy_%28magazine%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1931:
Bhagat Singh, one of the most influential revolutionaries of
the Indian independence movement, and two others were executed by the
British authorities.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagat_Singh>
1989:
Two researchers announced the discovery of cold fusion, a claim
which was later discredited.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion>
1994:
Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a hillside in Russia's
Kemerovo Oblast, killing all 75 people on board, after the pilot's 16
-year-old son had unknowingly disabled the autopilot while seated at the
controls.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593>
2005:
A fire and explosion at the third-largest oil refinery in the
United States killed 15 workers and kicked off process safety programs
throughout the world.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_refinery_explosion>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
plum rains:
Also occasionally in the singular form plum rain: the East Asian rainy
season from early summer to midsummer in the fourth and fifth lunar
months (early June to early or mid-July); also, the rain which falls
during this season.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plum_rains>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Spinoza formulated the problem of the socially patterned defect
very clearly. He says: "Many people are seized by one and the same
affect with great consistency. All his senses are so affected by one
object that he believes this object to be present even when it is not.
If this happens while the person is awake, the person is believed to be
insane. … but if the greedy person thinks only of money and
possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not think of them
as being insane, but only has annoying; generally one has contempt for
them. But factually greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of
insanity, although usually one does not think of them as 'illness.'"
These words were written a few hundred years ago; they still hold true,
although the defects have been culturally patterned to such an extent
now that they are not even generally thought any more to be annoying or
contemptible.
--The Sane Society
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Sane_Society>
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