A scheme of classification.
Taxonomy
Fact of the Day
Paris society was rocked by scandal in 1787, when Madame Vigée Le Brun painted herself with a wide smile on her face.
Quote of the Day
"Oh dear. I think I'm becoming a god.
"
~ Vespasian's last words
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.'
