- Bald eagles can swim using a stroke similar to the butterfly stroke.
- In the U.S., there are about 15,000 vacuum cleaner-related accidents each year.
Stanford White was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich as well as numerous civic, institutional, and religious buildings. His design principles embodied the "American Renaissance".
In 1906, White was shot and killed by the mentally unstable millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, who had become obsessed about White's previous relationship with Thaw's wife, actress Evelyn Nesbit. This led to a court case which was dubbed "The Trial of the Century" by contemporary reporters.
Justin Mark Madden AM is an Australian politician and former Australian rules footballer. He rose to prominence as a highly successful player with the Carlton Football Club, after an early stint with Essendon. He entered politics after retiring in 1997 from AFL. He has held seven Ministerial portfolios since the Victorian Labor Party took government at the 1999 election. Madden was Minister for Youth Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Planning from 1999–2002, Minister for Sport and Recreation from October 1999 to December 2006, Minister for Commonwealth Games from February 2002 to December 2006, Minister for Planning from 2006 - December 2010 and Minister for the Respect Agenda from January 2010 to December of the same year. Madden retired from politics in 2014.
The Peaceful Revolution was the process of sociopolitical change that led to the opening of East Germany's borders with the west, the end of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the German Democratic Republic and the transition to a parliamentary democracy, which enabled the reunification of Germany in October 1990. This happened through non-violent initiatives and demonstrations. This period of change is also referred to in German as Die Wende.
These events were closely linked to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to abandon Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe as well as the reformist movements that spread through Eastern Bloc countries. In addition to the Soviet Union's shift in foreign policy, the GDR's lack of competitiveness in the global market, as well as its sharply rising national debt, hastened the destabilization of the SED's one-party state.
Those driving the reform process within the GDR included intellectuals and church figures who had been in underground opposition for several years, people attempting to flee the country, and peaceful demonstrators who were no longer willing to yield to the threat of violence and repression.