A self-immolation incident took place in Tiananmen Square (pictured) in central Beijing on the eve of Chinese New Year on 23 January 2001. The official Chinese press agency, Xinhua News Agency, stated that five members of Falun Gong, a banned spiritual movement, had set themselves on fire to protest the unfair treatment of Falun Gong by the Chinese government. The Falun Dafa Information Center stated that the incident was a hoax staged by the Chinese government to turn public opinion against the group and to justify the torture and imprisonment of its practitioners. The incident received international news coverage, and video footage was broadcast later in the People's Republic of China by China Central Television. The campaign of state propaganda that followed the event eroded public sympathy for Falun Gong, and the government began sanctioning the "systematic use of violence" against the group. (Full article...).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Tiananmen_Square_self-immolation_incident> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1556: One of the deadliest earthquakes in history struck Shaanxi, China, resulting in at least 100,000 direct deaths. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1556_Shaanxi_earthquake> 1793: The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for the second time. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Partition_of_Poland> 1968: USS Pueblo was seized by North Korean forces, who claimed that it had violated their territorial waters while spying. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_%28AGER-2%29> 1993: The first version of Mosaic, created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, was released, becoming the first popular web browser. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCSA_Mosaic> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: perturb: 1. (transitive) 2. To cause (something) to be physically disordered or disturbed; to cause confusion. 3. To disturb (someone, their mind, etc.) mentally; to bother, trouble, upset. 4. (astronomy) Of a celestial body: to modify the motion or orbit of (another celestial body) by exerting a gravitational force; hence (physics), to slightly modify (the motion of an object). 5. (mathematics) To slightly modify (a set of equations or their solutions), producing deviations from a simple, easily solvable problem, in order to find an approximate solution to a problem that is more difficult to solve or otherwise unsolvable. 6. (sciences) To influence (a process or system) so that it deviates from its normal state. 7. (intransitive) To bother, to disturb, to trouble. 8. About Word of the Day 9. Nominate a word 10. Leave feedback <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perturb> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example. --William Pitt the Younger <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Pitt_the_Younger> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe write to: [email protected] Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
