On this day:
48 BC
Caesar’s civil war: Battle of Pharsalus – Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus and Pompey flees to Egypt.
1942
Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement.
1942
World War II: Battle of Savo Island – Allied naval forces protecting their amphibious forces during the initial stages of the Battle of Guadalcanal are surprised and defeated by an Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser force.
1944
Continuation war: The Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive, the largest offensive launched by Soviet Union against Finland during the Second World War, ends to a strategic stalemate. Both Finnish and Soviet troops at the Finnish front dug to defensive positions, and the front remains stable until the end of the war.
1945
World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. 39,000 people are killed outright.
1965
Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly.
1969
Members of a cult led by Charles Manson brutally murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men’s hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.
1971
The Troubles: The British security forces in Northern Ireland launch Operation Demetrius. Hundreds of people are arrested and interned, thousands are displaced, and twenty are killed in the violence that followed.
1974
As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.
48 BC
Caesar’s civil war: Battle of Pharsalus – Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus and Pompey flees to Egypt.
1942
Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement.
1942
World War II: Battle of Savo Island – Allied naval forces protecting their amphibious forces during the initial stages of the Battle of Guadalcanal are surprised and defeated by an Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser force.
1944
Continuation war: The Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive, the largest offensive launched by Soviet Union against Finland during the Second World War, ends to a strategic stalemate. Both Finnish and Soviet troops at the Finnish front dug to defensive positions, and the front remains stable until the end of the war.
1945
World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. 39,000 people are killed outright.
1965
Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly.
1969
Members of a cult led by Charles Manson brutally murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men’s hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.
1971
The Troubles: The British security forces in Northern Ireland launch Operation Demetrius. Hundreds of people are arrested and interned, thousands are displaced, and twenty are killed in the violence that followed.
1974
As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.
***
Brian Sanchez, one of the players acquired for David Bednar, one of the game's top closers, was recently placed on the 60-day IL. He has been hurt for about half the year. How, on any level, does that make any sense?
***
Portmanteau: a noun formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. It is a marriage of fragments, to merge their meanings. Famous examples include smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, and motel, from motor (motorist) and hotel. Also, brunch, breakfast plus lunch.
Starfish is not a portmanteau; it is a compound, not a blend, of star and fish, as it includes both words in full.
Gerrymander, the practice of drawing electoral district lines to benefit one political party over another, is the hot portmanteau of the moment. It has generated remarkable fury on the internet, as if it were evidence of the corruption of one party rather than what it is: the sacrifice of the concepts of the sacredness of the vote and the principles of the democratic republic for the petty, personal, and arrogant advancement of a particular, self-absorbed, political group.
***
Today is the August full moon, so called the Salmon Moon by Great Lakes American Indians because of the successful salmon fishing the period brought. Also called the Harvest Moon by the Chinese and the Dispute Moon by, of course, the Celts.
Jim Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, died yesterday. He was 97. It was barely noticed.
***
SatStats
It took until 1918 for the federal government to spend its first trillion dollars, and up until 1900, government spending as a percentage of GDP was around 7%; today it is around 33%.
*
There are 18 veteran suicides every day in the U.S.
*
China's biggest solar firms shed nearly one-third of their workforces last year, company filings show,
*
Microsoft became the world’s second $4 trillion company, behind Nvidia.
*
Jeffrey Epstein has been discussed in 3,123 conservative podcast episodes recently, a WSJ analysis found. Those conversations grew more than eightfold in the last three weeks despite the president’s telling MAGA to drop the issue.
*
The homeownership rate in the second quarter is 65% according to the Census Bureau, the lowest level since 2019 and signals an ongoing slide to long-term renting
*
The earthquake that hit just off Russia’s eastern coast measured at 8.8, one of the highest on record.
*
The original estimate for the number of jobs in the month of June was 159,724,000. Then, after the revision with better data, it was 159,466,000. That’s a 0.161 percent correction, based on higher-quality information that didn’t exist at the time of the original estimate.
*
Young people now make up just 10% of Germany’s population — the lowest share on record. The figure was buoyed only slightly by young immigrants arriving since the Ukraine war.
*
” Overall, the study found that 63% of organizations either don’t have an AI governance policy or are still developing one.” --the independent Ponemon Institute
*
A record-breaking baby has been born from an embryo that’s over 30 years old.
*
Mexico, Canada, and the U.K. are the top three sources of U.S. visitors. It's down 7% over the last year.
*
It is reported that 70,000 people are already on the wait list for the Trump $5 million citizenship scheme.
*
The “Magnificent Seven” stocks alone make up about one-third of the S&P 500's value; the top 10 stocks are 38%.
SatStats
It took until 1918 for the federal government to spend its first trillion dollars, and up until 1900, government spending as a percentage of GDP was around 7%; today it is around 33%.
*
There are 18 veteran suicides every day in the U.S.
*
China's biggest solar firms shed nearly one-third of their workforces last year, company filings show,
*
Microsoft became the world’s second $4 trillion company, behind Nvidia.
*
Jeffrey Epstein has been discussed in 3,123 conservative podcast episodes recently, a WSJ analysis found. Those conversations grew more than eightfold in the last three weeks despite the president’s telling MAGA to drop the issue.
*
The homeownership rate in the second quarter is 65% according to the Census Bureau, the lowest level since 2019 and signals an ongoing slide to long-term renting
*
The earthquake that hit just off Russia’s eastern coast measured at 8.8, one of the highest on record.
*
The original estimate for the number of jobs in the month of June was 159,724,000. Then, after the revision with better data, it was 159,466,000. That’s a 0.161 percent correction, based on higher-quality information that didn’t exist at the time of the original estimate.
*
Young people now make up just 10% of Germany’s population — the lowest share on record. The figure was buoyed only slightly by young immigrants arriving since the Ukraine war.
*
” Overall, the study found that 63% of organizations either don’t have an AI governance policy or are still developing one.” --the independent Ponemon Institute
*
A record-breaking baby has been born from an embryo that’s over 30 years old.
*
Mexico, Canada, and the U.K. are the top three sources of U.S. visitors. It's down 7% over the last year.
*
It is reported that 70,000 people are already on the wait list for the Trump $5 million citizenship scheme.
*
The “Magnificent Seven” stocks alone make up about one-third of the S&P 500's value; the top 10 stocks are 38%.
*
Republicans occupy just 30 seats in both chambers of the Massachusetts state legislature to the Democratic Party’s 200 — which is to say that the GOP represents 15 percent of a state that voted 36.5 percent for Donald Trump.
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