The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR;), the world's first public

railway to use steam locomotives, first operated on 27 September 1825.

It initially connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and

Stockton in County Durham, north-east England. The transport of coal

proved profitable, and the line was soon extended to a new port at

Middlesbrough. The opening of the S&DR; was seen as proof of steam

railway effectiveness. While coal was hauled by steam locomotives,

horses drew passenger coaches along the rails until carriages hauled by

locomotives were introduced in 1833. The S&DR; suffered severe financial

difficulties at the end of the 1840s but the discovery of iron ore in

Cleveland led to an increase in revenue. At the beginning of the 1860s

it took over railways that had crossed the Pennines, but was itself

taken over by the North Eastern Railway, continuing to operate

independently until 1876. Much of the original route is now served by

the Tees Valley line.

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1875:

The merchant ship Ellen Southard was wrecked in a storm at

Liverpool, England; the U.S. Congress subsequently awarded 27 Gold

Lifesaving Medals to the men who rescued her crew.

1940:

World War II: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of

Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin, officially forming a

military alliance known as the Axis.

1949:

Members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative

Conference unanimously selected Zeng Liansong's design for the flag of

China (pictured).

2014:

Mount Ontake in central Japan unexpectedly erupted, killing 63

people in the nation's deadliest eruption in more than 100 years.

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Wiktionary's word of the day:

fount:

1. (chiefly poetic, dated or archaic) Synonym of fountain (“a natural

source of water”); a spring.

2. (by extension, agriculture, archaic) A device from which poultry may

drink; a waterer.

3. (figurative) That from which something proceeds; an origin, a source.

4. (UK, printing, typography, chiefly dated, historical) Synonym of font

(“a set of glyphs of unified design, usually representing the letters of

an alphabet and its supplementary characters belonging to one typeface,

style, and weight; a typeface; a family of typefaces”)

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Wikiquote quote of the day:

  Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure

the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally

corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country

who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and

influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of

power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. We must not conclude

merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming

sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country.

It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we

may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it

but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint

of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves.  

--Samuel Adams

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