Someone who practices alchemy (the attempt to turn base metals into gold and to gain spiritual awareness and immortality).
Alchemist
Fact of the Day
Sir Charles Isham introduced garden gnomes to England in 1847 hoping to attract real gnomes to his garden.
Quote of the Day
"I have beaten the Russian and Austrian army commanded by two emperors. I am a little tired.
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~ Napoleon after Austerlitz
On This Day
1687 Isaac Newton published his laws on motion and gravity in his landmark book Principia.
1811 Venezuela became the first South American country to declare its independence from Spain.
1841 The first ever Thomas Cook tour took 500 teetotallers 12 miles by train to a temperance meeting.
1946 The bikini, named after the Bikini Atoll where atomic tests had been carried out just four days earlier, was first introduced to the press. Prototypes had been round since the reign of Diocletian (244-311), but the bikini didn't catch on until the 1960s.
1948 Britain's National Health Service came into operation.
1954 The BBC aired its first daily television news broadcast, despite the fact that the Director General thought that 'News is not at all an easy thing to do on television.'
