adjacent to the site of the former head office of the General Post
Office and a short distance north of St Paul's Cathedral. Opened in 1880
on the site of the former churchyard and burial ground of St Botolph's
Aldersgate church, it expanded over the next 20 years to incorporate
some adjacent burial grounds and nearby land previously occupied by
housing. A shortage of space for burials in London meant that corpses
were often laid above existing graves and covered over with soil instead
of being buried, and thus Postman's Park, as an interment site for over
800 years, is significantly elevated above the streets which surround
it. Since 1900 it has been the location of the Memorial to Heroic Self
Sacrifice, a monument erected by George Frederic Watts to ordinary
people who died saving the lives of others, and who might otherwise have
been forgotten. In 1972, key elements of the park, including the
Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, were grade II listed to preserve
their character. Following the 2004 film Closer, Postman's Park
experienced a resurgence of interest, as key scenes were filmed in the
park.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postman%27s_Park>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
762:
Al-Mansur, the Caliph of Islam, founded the city of Baghdad to
be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Baghdad>
1865:
Off the coast of Crescent City, California, US, the steamship
Brother Jonathan (pictured), carrying a large shipment of gold coins
that would not be retrieved until 1996, struck an uncharted rock and
sank, killing 225 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jonathan_(steamer)>
1916:
German agents caused a major explosion when they sabotaged
American ammunition supplies to prevent the materiel from being used by
the Allies of World War I.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tom_explosion>
1930:
Uruguay defeated Argentina, 4–2, in front of their home crowd
at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo to win the first Football World Cup.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_FIFA_World_Cup>
2012:
The largest power outage in history occurred across 22 Indian
states, affecting over 620 million people, or about 9% of the world's
population.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_India_blackouts>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
chiropterologist:
Someone who studies bats (the flying mammal).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chiropterologist>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts: unutterably
vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idle froth amid the boundless
main, To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by Thine infinity; So surely
anchored on The stedfast rock of immortality.
--Emily Brontë
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emily_Bront%C3%AB>
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