Discover Top Posts Tagged with #vsi fact

A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1930, the dwarf planet Pluto is officially named.

“The first TNO to be discovered was Pluto, in 1930. Even after Pluto's small size became apparent (and subsequently, thanks to the discovery of its largest satellite in 1978, its small mass), people tended to think of Pluto as the ninth planet. However, when the known population of the Kuiper belt blossomed into hundreds of objects, several of which rivalled Pluto in size, it became increasingly anomalous to classify Pluto as a planet and yet other Kuiper belt objects as something different. When Eris was confirmed to be more massive and probably larger than Pluto, then logically either all the large TNOs had to be called planets, or none of them. However, many people argued to retain Pluto as a planet on sentimental or historical grounds. — From Planets: A Very Short Introduction by David A. Rothery.

[Pg 16 - Planets: A Very Short Introduction by David A. Rothery.]

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#planetsvsi #pluto #david A. Rothery #1930 #Planets #19th planet #Solar system #astronomy #science #cosmology #VSI #vsi fact #very short introductions

A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1857 The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case.

“The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision in March 1857 created another bond between Republicans and abolitionists. In ruling against Dred Scott, an enslaved man who sued for his freedom after being taken into the Midwest, the Supreme Court hoped to quash slavery debate across the country and solidify slaveholders’ rights nationally. Writing for the majority, Roger Taney (a Maryland slaveholder) dismissed Scott’s freedom claim on two grounds: first, slaveholders’ property rights were sacrosanct everywhere in American society, including free territories and states; and, second, African Americans were not U.S. citizens and, as he put it, had “no rights that a white man was bound to respect whatsoever.”… Among Republicans, Abraham Lincoln took the lead in criticizing Taney’s ruling. Like Douglass, he saw Dred Scott through the lens of history. “I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere,” Lincoln commented, but the Taney decision reduced it to a mere political maneuver to support American independence. For Lincoln, as for Douglass, the Declaration remained the ultimate touchstone of American rights and values. The Dred Scott case violated that notion. Channeling Douglass, Lincoln even asked one audience about to celebrate the Fourth of July, “what for?” “But I suppose you will celebrate; and will even go so far as to read the Declaration,” he continued. “Suppose after you read it once in the old fashioned way, [then] you read it once more with Judge Douglas’ version,” which focused on slaveholders’ property rights and not human rights. How would it sound then? Clearly, Lincoln read Douglass’s famous speech, agreeing that Taney’s decision made July 4th a day to mourn and not celebrate.”— From ‘Abolitionism: A Very Short Introduction’ by Richard S. Newman

[Pg 106-7- Abolitionism: A Very Short Introduction by Richard S. Newman.]

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#abolitionism #Very Short Introduction #VSI #VSI fact #Fact of the day #Abolitionism: A Very Short Introduction #Book #Bookblr #Court Case #Dred Scott #History #Historyblr

A Very Short Fact: On this day, the 1974 Super Outbreak occurs, the second biggest tornado outbreak in recorded history. From April 3 to April 4, 1974, there were 148 tornadoes confirmed in 13 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario.

“Tornadoes are produced by supercell systems, which, as just described, are particularly prevalent over the central states of the USA (the High Plains). Tornadoes tend to form from supercells along the dryline between the warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and the drier air from the desert states to the south-west. Although details are still obscure, the method of tornado formation differs from other rotating vortices, which may be grouped under the general term of ‘whirls’, and which will be described shortly. Although the media tend to describe all rotating vortices as ‘tornadoes’ or ‘twisters’, there are two distinct mechanisms at work. Tornadoes appear to originate within a supercell system as a horizontal, rotating cylinder of air. The strong updraughts lift the centre of the cylinder into an arch, and the ‘descending’ limb with clockwise rotation decays, leaving the ‘ascending’ branch as the incipient tornado. (The most common direction of rotation in a tornado is thus anticlockwise at the ground, but clockwise rotation is occasionally observed. Such vortices appear in a slightly different location, relative to the parent supercell.) The separation between the up- and downdraughts in a supercell helps to strengthen the vortex, which descends toward the ground as a funnel cloud (or ‘tuba’), becoming classified as a tornado when it touches down and raises a debris cloud.” — From ‘Weather: A Very Short Introduction’ by Storm Dunlop.

[Pg 106 - ‘Weather: A Very Short Introduction’ by Storm Dunlop.]

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A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ was published.

“In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel first published in serial form in an abolitionist newspaper, The National Era. Although it adopted the sentimental themes of contemporary literature, the novel also took a searing look at the horrors of slavery, condemning the institution as cruel and immoral. It sold half a million copies in the United States and more than a million in England by 1857, and it was translated into many languages and adapted for the stage. Yet it also spurred a sharp backlash from slavery’s stakeholders, many of whom wrote their own novels and plays to dramatize how southern slaves were better off than wage laborers in the North. In all its iterations, in print and on stage, Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a lightning rod in the polarizing debate over slavery, sparking enough controversy for Abraham Lincoln to allegedly remark when he met Stowe for the first time that she was “the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” — From ‘American Cultural History: A Very Short Introduction’ by Eric Avila.

[Pg 1 – From ‘American Cultural History: A Very Short Introduction’ by Eric Avila.]

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#Harriet Beecher Stowe #American Cultural History #Very Short Introduction #VSI #VSI fact #Fact of the day #American Cultural History: A Very Short Introduction #uncle tom's cabin #book #On This Day #bookblr

A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1866 President Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. His veto is overridden by Congress and the bill passed into law on April 9.

“At the core of Radical Republicanism lay a civic ideology grounded in American citizenship and equal rights. Radical Republicans, however, remained divided on black suffrage. They were committed to “loyal” government, a free labor economy, and protection of freedmen’s basic rights. The widespread belief of congressional Republicans that the federal government needed to shoulder responsibility for the newly freed slaves was symbolized in the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1865, charged with aiding blacks in the South. In addition, Congress passed a Civil Rights bill in 1866 to protect the legal rights of all citizens through federal oversight. President Johnson surprised Congress when he vetoed both bills. This proved to be a major political mistake.

Congress pushed forward, overriding Johnson’s vetoes. Using their overwhelming majority in Congress, Radical Republicans passed the Fourteenth Amendment providing citizenship rights and legal protection to all male citizens. Johnson believed that Radicals had misjudged public opinion, and he denounced them in the midterm elections in 1866. On the campaign trail, his harsh attacks and vituperative language, best suited to Tennessee stump speeches, dismayed friends and the general public. Reminding voters of the war’s high cost by literally waving blood-soaked shirts at rallies, Radicals won large majorities in Congress in 1866, ensuring a clash with Johnson.” – From ‘American Political History: A Very Short Introduction' by David Critchlow.

[Pg 69 – ‘American Political History: A Very Short Introduction' by David Critchlow.]

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#American Political History #VSI #VSI fact #Very Short Introduction #Fact of the day #American Political History: A Very Short Introduction #Politics #andrew johnson #us presidents #Presidents

A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1860 the discovery of the planet Vulcan is announced at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris, France.

“This pleasing state of affairs was not to last. Like Uranus, Mercury had an unexplained feature to its orbit: its point of nearest approach to the Sun was advancing in longitude more rapidly than expected, by about one degree per century – a tiny amount, but one that nevertheless called for explanation. Le Verrier, not surprisingly, suspected yet another unseen planet; and in September 1859, he announced that a planet the same size as Mercury but at half the distance from the Sun (and therefore difficult to observe) would be one possible explanation of the phenomenon. It happened that an unknown French physician named Lescarbault had earlier that year seen an object crossing the Sun (or so he thought), and when he read of Le Verrier's prediction, he wrote to him. Le Verrier satisfied himself as to Lescarbault's reliability, and named the planet that the physician had supposedly seen Vulcan. Various alleged sightings of Vulcan followed, but few were convincing; and by the end of the century Vulcan had been rejected as spurious. In 1915 Albert Einstein was to show that the anomalous behaviour of Mercury was implied by his General Theory of Relativity: there was more to the universe than was dreamt of in Newtonian philosophy.” — ‘The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction’ by Michael Hoskin

[Pg 77- The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Hoskin.]

Image credit: “1846 lithography about the solar system” by Library of Congress Wikimedia Commons.

#bookblr #a very short introduction #vsi #VSI fact #vulcan #science #scienceblr #planets #astronomy #the history of astronomy #solar system

A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1909 Ernest Shackleton’s expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.

“Both public and private funding played critical roles in the so-called ‘Heroic Age’ (1898–1916) of Antarctic exploration. Some of the most notable explorers, such as the Anglo-Irish explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, were privately funded (even if his initial experience came from being a participant of the Discovery Expedition in 1901–4). Sent home early from the Discovery Expedition due to ill health, Shackleton led the Nimrod Expedition (1907–9), funded by the Scottish industrialist Sir William Beardmore, and in January 1909, he and his three companions trekked across the polar continent and reached the furthest southerly point thus far achieved. At latitude 88°S, they were approximately 110 miles from the South Pole (the publicly disseminated figure of 97 miles was judged to have more of a dramatic ring to it). They also made the first ascent of Mount Erebus and claimed to have reached the South Magnetic Pole, though later evaluation showed the three-man party's calculations were probably in error. King Edward VII knighted Shackleton for that extraordinary achievement, appropriately termed by fellow expedition member Frank Wild as ‘the great southern journey’. Famously, the decision to turn back from their final destination, the South Pole, was immortalized in the expedition account, The Heart of the Antarctic, as a decision based on a judgement that it was better to be ‘a live donkey than a dead lion’. These words were to acquire a prophetic quality.” — From 'The Antarctic: A Very Short Introduction' by Klaus Dodds.

[Pg 29 - From 'The Antarctic: A Very Short Introduction' by Klaus Dodds.]

Image credit: “Ernest Shackleton” by Rex Features 881627aANL Wikimedia Commons.

#the antarctic #south pole #book #bookblr #ernest shackleton #exploration #a very short introduction #vsi #vsi fact #heroic age

A Very Short Fact: To regain control of the Senate in United States midterm elections, Democrats would need to keep all of their seats and capture two of the Republican seats for a 51-49 majority.

“In creating a bicameral system, James Madison saw the Senate as “a necessary fence.” Selected by state legislatures, senators would serve six-year terms, and only one-third would stand in each congressional election. Madison trusted that this would insulate the Senate from shifting public opinion so it therefore could proceed “with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.” Later in the nineteenth century, a story spread that may be apocryphal yet captured the Senate’s essence. It claimed that when Thomas Jefferson returned from France after the Constitution had been adopted, he questioned George Washington on why the new government needed a Senate. Washington asked, “Why did you pour your coffee into your saucer?” “To cool it,” Jefferson replied. “That is precisely why we created the Senate,” said Washington, “to cool it.””

[Pg 14: The US Congress: A Very Short Introduction (2nd ed.) by Donald A. Ritchie]

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