Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector and palaeontologist. She made discoveries of Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis, which changed the scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth. Her discoveries included the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton, the first two nearly complete plesiosaur skeletons, and the first pterosaur skeleton outside Germany. Her observations helped prove that coprolites were fossilised faeces and that belemnite fossils contained ink sacs. As a woman, Anning could not join the Geological Society of London and struggled to receive credit for her contributions. Henry De la Beche painted Duria Antiquior based on fossils Anning had found and sold its prints for her benefit. After her death, an article about her life was published in Charles Dickens's literary magazine All the Year Round. A statue of Anning was erected in 2022, and she has been depicted in film and in manga.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anning> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1864: American Civil War: The inconclusive Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia ended with combined Union and Confederate casualties totaling around 31,000. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Spotsylvania_Court_House> 1894: The Manchester Ship Canal, linking Manchester in North West England to the Irish Sea, officially opened, becoming the world's largest navigation canal at the time. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Ship_Canal> 1924: University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb (both pictured) murdered a 14-year-old boy in a thrill killing out of a desire to commit a "perfect crime". <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb> 2014: A Taiwanese man carried out a stabbing spree on a Taipei Metro train, killing four people and injuring 24 others. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Taipei_Metro_attack> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: Eurafrican: 1. A person of mixed European and African descent. 2. An African person with European ancestors. 3. (South Africa) Synonym of colored (“a person having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian)”) 4. Of or relating to the continents of, or countries in, both Europe and Africa; having both European and African characteristics. 5. Of a person: of mixed European and African descent; (specifically, South Africa) synonym of colored (“belonging to a multiracial ethnic group or category, having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian)”) 6. (anthropology, archaic) Of a person: from the parts of Europe and North Africa surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Eurafrican> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. ... It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check on their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few. --Learned Hand <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Learned_Hand> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe write to: [email protected] Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
