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🔗 Biography 🔗 China 🔗 Biography/science and academia

Yuan Longping (Chinese: 袁隆平; September 7, 1930 – May 22, 2021) was a Chinese agronomist, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, known for developing the first hybrid rice varieties in the 1970s.

Hybrid rice has since been grown in dozens of countries in Africa, America, and Asia—providing a robust food source in areas with a high risk of famine. For his contributions, Yuan is always called the "Father of Hybrid Rice" by the Chinese media. On May 22, 2021, Yuan Longping died of multiple organ failure at the age of 90.

🔗 United States 🔗 Library of Congress 🔗 Geography 🔗 Maps 🔗 Libraries

The Waldseemüller map or Universalis Cosmographia ("Universal Cosmography") is a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name "America". The name America is placed on what is now called South America on the main map. As explained in Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian Amerigo Vespucci.

The map is drafted on a modification of Ptolemy's second projection, expanded to accommodate the Americas and the high latitudes. A single copy of the map survives, presently housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Waldseemüller also created globe gores, printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto spheres to form globes of the Earth. The wall map, and his globe gores of the same date, depict the American continents in two pieces. These depictions differ from the small inset map in the top border of the wall map, which shows the two American continents joined by an isthmus.

🔗 Astronomy 🔗 Astronomy/Eclipses

A total solar eclipse will occur at the Moon's descending node of the orbit on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, 2 days past perigee (Perigee on Monday, August 10, 2026), in North America and Europe. The total eclipse will pass over the Arctic, Greenland, Iceland, Atlantic Ocean and northern Spain. The points of greatest duration and greatest eclipse will be just 45 km off the western coast of Iceland by 65°10.3' N and 25°12.3' W, where the totality will last 2m 18.21s. It will be the first total eclipse visible in Iceland since June 30, 1954, also Solar Saros series 126 (descending node), and the only one to occur in the 21st century as the next one will be in 2196.

Occurring only 2.3 days after perigee (Perigee on August 10, 2026), the Moon's apparent diameter will be larger. Lunar Perigee will occur on Monday, August 10, 2026, two days before the total solar eclipse.

The total eclipse will pass over northern Spain from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean coast as well as the Balearic Islands. The total eclipse will be visible from the cities of Valencia, Zaragoza, Palma and Bilbao but both Madrid and Barcelona will be just outside the path of totality.

The last total eclipse in continental Europe occurred on March 29, 2006 and in continental part of European Union it occurred on August 11, 1999. The last total solar eclipse happened in Spain on August 30, 1905 and followed a similar path across the country. The next total eclipse visible in Spain will happen less than a year later on 2 August 2027. A partial eclipse will cover more than 90% of the area of the sun in Ireland, Great Britain, Portugal, France, Italy, the Balkans and North Africa and to a lesser extent in most of Europe, North Africa and North America.

🔗 United States 🔗 United States/Arizona 🔗 Chicago 🔗 Mining 🔗 Organized Labour 🔗 United States/U.S. history 🔗 Project-independent assessment 🔗 Latino and Hispanic heritage 🔗 Latino and Hispanic heritage/Mexican-American

The Bisbee Deportation was the illegal kidnapping and deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers, their supporters, and citizen bystanders by 2,000 members of a deputized posse, who arrested them beginning on July 12, 1917, in Bisbee, Arizona. The action was orchestrated by Phelps Dodge, the major mining company in the area, which provided lists of workers and others who were to be arrested to the Cochise County sheriff, Harry C. Wheeler. Those arrested were taken to a local baseball park before being loaded onto cattle cars and deported 200 miles (320 km) to Tres Hermanas in New Mexico. The 16-hour journey was through desert without food and with little water. Once unloaded, the deportees, most without money or transportation, were warned against returning to Bisbee. The US government soon brought in members of the US Army to assist with relocating the deportees to Columbus, New Mexico.

As Phelps Dodge, in collusion with the sheriff, had closed down access to outside communications, it was some time before the story was reported. The company presented their action as reducing threats to United States interests in World War I in Europe, largely because the wartime demand for copper was heavy. The Governor of New Mexico, in consultation with President Woodrow Wilson, provided temporary housing for the deportees. A presidential mediation commission investigated the actions in November 1917, and in its final report, described the deportation as "wholly illegal and without authority in law, either State or Federal (Page 6)." Nevertheless, no individual, company, or agency was ever convicted in connection with the deportations. Arizona and Cochise County never prosecuted the case, and in United States v. Wheeler (1920), the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution by itself does not give the federal government the power to stop kidnappings, even ones involving moving abductees across state lines on federally-regulated railroads.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Star Trek

Alto Trek is a computer game, developed by Gene Ball and Rick Rashid for the Xerox Alto while they were graduate students at the University of Rochester during the late 1970s. It is one of the first networked multiplayer games.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Computer hardware 🔗 Computing/Early computers

The IBM System/360 Model 67 (S/360-67) was an important IBM mainframe model in the late 1960s. Unlike the rest of the S/360 series, it included features to facilitate time-sharing applications, notably a Dynamic Address Translation unit, the "DAT box", to support virtual memory, 32-bit addressing and the 2846 Channel Controller to allow sharing channels between processors. The S/360-67 was otherwise compatible with the rest of the S/360 series.

🔗 Books 🔗 Writing systems

Codex Seraphinianus, originally published in 1981, is an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world, created by Italian artist, architect and industrial designer Luigi Serafini between 1976 to 1978. It is approximately 360 pages (depending on edition) and written in an imaginary language.

Originally published in Italy, it has been released in several countries.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Children's literature 🔗 New York (state) 🔗 Chicago 🔗 Illinois 🔗 Biography/Actors and Filmmakers 🔗 New York (state)/Columbia University 🔗 Screenwriters 🔗 Musical Theatre

William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. He won Academy Awards for his screenplays Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President's Men (1976). His other works include his thriller novel Marathon Man and comedy/fantasy novel The Princess Bride, both of which he adapted for the film versions.

Author Sean Egan has described Goldman as "one of the late twentieth century's most popular storytellers."

🔗 Economics 🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Politics 🔗 Philosophy/Social and political philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophy of religion 🔗 Cooperatives 🔗 Catholicism

Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated.

Developed in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon the principles of Catholic social teaching, especially the teachings of Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) and Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno (1931). It views both capitalism and socialism as equally flawed and exploitative, and it favors economic mechanisms such as cooperatives and member-owned mutual organizations as well as small businesses, and large-scale antitrust regulations.

Some Christian democratic political parties have advocated distributism in their economic policies.

🔗 Amateur radio 🔗 Michigan

Heathkit is the brand name of kits and other electronic products produced and marketed by the Heath Company. The products over the decades have included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, robots, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and the influential Heath H-8, H-89, and H-11 hobbyist computers, which were sold in kit form for assembly by the purchaser.

Heathkit manufactured electronic kits from 1947 until 1992. After closing that business, the Heath Company continued with its products for education, and motion-sensor lighting controls. The lighting control business was sold around 2000. The company announced in 2011 that they were reentering the kit business after a 20-year hiatus but then filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and under new ownership began restructuring in 2013. As of 2019, the company has a live website with newly-designed products, services, vintage kits, and replacement parts for sale.