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On this day
- 1597 – Imjin War: About twelve Korean ships commanded by Admiral Yi Sun-sin defeated a large Japanese invasion fleet of at least 300 at the Battle of Myeongnyang in the Myeongnyang Strait. against waves of Japanese attackers during the Battle of Shanghai.
- 2001 – U.S. President George W. Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act into law, significantly expanding the authority of U.S. law enforcement agencies in fighting terrorism in the United States and abroad.
- 2002 – Approximately 40 Chechen rebels and 130 hostages died when Russian forces stormed a theater building in Moscow to end a four-day hostage siege.
In the news
- Severe flooding in Yemen caused by Deep Depression ARB 02 (pictured) kills 58 and displaces 20,000.
- A bomb attack in Zagreb, Croatia kills Ivo Pukanić, the owner of the newspaper Nacional.
- The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launches Chandrayaan-1, an unmanned lunar exploration mission.
- Several additional amino acids are found in vials from the 1953 Miller–Urey experiment that probed the origin of life.
- The United Nations General Assembly elects Turkey, Austria, Japan, Uganda, and Mexico to two-year terms on the Security Council.
Did you know...?
- ... that AMiBA (pictured) is a radio telescope located on Mauna Loa in Hawaii that is being used to observe the Cosmic Microwave Background and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in clusters of galaxies?
- ...that although the official government death toll of the 1997 Ardabil earthquake was given as 965 deaths, rescue workers at the scene claimed it was as much as three times higher?
- ... that Tang Dynasty general Li Na was, at one point, reduced to tears when he was under siege by another general, Liu Qia?
- ... that four of the candidates for either Governor or Lt. Governor in the 2008 American Samoa gubernatorial elections have ancestral ties to the Manu'a Islands?
Today's featured picture
The Giechburg is a partly reconstructed hilltop castle located in the town of Scheßlitz in Bavaria, Germany. There was a hilltop fort at the site from at least Neolithic times, and the castle enters written history in 1125. In 1390, it entered the possession of the prince-bishops of Bamberg, and its history thereafter is closely allied to the bishopric and the city of Bamberg. The castle was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the subsequent centuries before undergoing extensive redevelopment between 1599 and 1609. It became less useful to the prince-bishops over the subsequent centuries however, and eventually fell into ruin. After a period in the 19th and 20th centuries in the hands of the von Giech family, the castle was eventually acquired by the district of Bamberg in 1971 and reconstructed as a conference and hospitality centre. This 2021 aerial photograph shows the Giechburg viewed from the north, with the village of Peulendorf in the background.
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