PlayStation in 1999 and Windows in 2000. It was developed and published
by Square as the Final Fantasy series' eighth title, the first title to
consistently use realistically proportioned characters. The game follows
a group who have joined the "SeeD" mercenaries and are trying to stop
Ultimecia, a sorceress from the future, from casting a spell that
compresses time. Playable characters include the duty-bound loner
Squall, the outspoken and passionate young woman Rinoa, the patient
instructor Quistis, the martial artist Zell, the cheerful airship pilot
Selphie, and Irvine, a marksman looking for love. The music was scored
by Nobuo Uematsu, a series regular, and in a first for the series, the
theme music is a vocal piece, "Eyes on Me", performed by Faye Wong. The
game was a commercial success and positively received by critics.
Thirteen weeks after its release, it had earned more than US$50 million
in sales, making it the fastest-selling Final Fantasy title before Final
Fantasy XIII, a multi-platform release. The game had shipped
8.15 million copies worldwide by the second quarter of 2003.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VIII>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1826:
Swaminarayan wrote the Shikshapatri, a book of 212 verses that
serves as the basis of Swaminarayan Hinduism.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaminarayan>
1858:
Fourteen-year-old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous reported
the first of eighteen Marian apparitions in Lourdes, France, resulting
in the town becoming a major site for pilgrimages by Catholics.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes_apparitions>
1919:
Friedrich Ebert was elected the first President of the German
Weimar Republic by the Weimar National Assembly.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ebert>
1990:
Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner
for 27 years, was released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, South
Africa.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela>
2008:
Rebel East Timorese soldiers invaded the homes of President
José Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, seriously wounding
the former.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_East_Timorese_assassination_attempts>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
table:
1. (UK, Canada) To propose for discussion; to put on the table: the
legislature tabled the amendment and will start discussing it now.
2. (US) To hold back to a later time; to postpone; to take off the table:
the motion was tabled and parties agreed not to raise it again until
next year.
3. To tabulate; to put into a table.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/table>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for
such do always see that every cloud is an angel's face. Every man
deems that he has precisely the trials and temptations which are the
hardest of all others for him to bear; but they are so, simply because
they are the very ones he most needs.
--Lydia Maria Child
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lydia_Maria_Child>
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