on the north bank to Battersea. The first bridge on the site, Victoria
Bridge, was proposed in the 1840s as part of the Battersea Park
development of marshlands on the south bank. Work on the nearby Chelsea
Embankment delayed the opening of this suspension bridge until 1857.
Although well received architecturally, as a toll bridge it was
unpopular and faced competition from the newly built Albert Bridge. It
was acquired in 1877 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, which abolished
the tolls. Victoria Bridge, narrow and structurally unsound, was renamed
Chelsea Bridge to avoid embarrassment to the Royal Family if it
collapsed. After population growth and the introduction of the
automobile, the bridge was demolished, and replaced in 1937 by the
current structure, the first self-anchored suspension bridge in Britain.
During the early 1950s it became popular with motorcyclists, who staged
regular races across it. The bridge is floodlit from below at night,
when the towers and cables are illuminated by 936 feet (285 m) of
light-emitting diodes. In 2008 it achieved Grade II listed status.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Bridge>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1460:
War of the Roses: King Henry VI of England was captured by
Yorkists at the Battle of Northampton.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Northampton_(1460)>
1800:
Lord Wellesley, Governor-General of the British Raj, founded
Fort William College in Fort William, India, to promote Bengali, Hindi
and other vernaculars of the subcontinent.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_William_College>
1925:
Indian mystic and spiritual master Meher Baba began his silence
until his death in 1969, only communicating by means of an alphabet
board or by unique hand gestures.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meher_Baba>
1941:
The Holocaust: A group of non-Jewish ethnic Poles from around
the nearby area murdered hundreds of Jewish residents of Jedwabne in
occupied Poland.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedwabne_pogrom>
1962:
Telstar, the world's first active, direct relay communications
satellite, was launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape
Canaveral.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
badinage:
Playful raillery; banter.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/badinage>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye
of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may
have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of
the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in
Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur
of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the
conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a
perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine
the motion of a universe.
--Nikola Tesla
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla>
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