18 years ago today, Iceland enshrined the area surrounding Vatnajökull glacier as a national park, the second-largest in all of Europe behind Yugyd Va in Russia. The Vatnajökull glacier is the largest in Europe outside the Arctic, but the national park includes two areas that were previously protected called Skaftafell and Jökulsárgljúfur. READ about the area’s volcanoes… (2008)
Campsite in Skaftafell, Vatnajorkull National Park – CC 3.0. SA Gummao
The volcanoes of Askja, Kverkfjöll, and Snæfell tower over this region, together with the volcanic table mountain Herðubreið. Long ago, huge glacial floods carved out the canyon of Jökulsárgljúfur in the northern reaches of this plateau. The mighty Dettifoss waterfall still thunders into the upper end of this canyon, while the scenic formations at Hljóðaklettar and the horseshoe-curved cliffs of Ásbyrgi are found farther north.
Vatnajökull is Europe’s largest glacier outside the Arctic, with a surface area of 8,100 km2. Generally measuring 400–600 m in thickness and at the most 950 m, the glacial ice conceals a number of mountains, valleys, and plateaus. It even hides some active central volcanoes, of which Bárðarbunga is the largest and Grímsvötn the most active.
MORE Good News on this Day:
- 250 years ago today, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress a resolution calling for a Declaration of Independence (1776)
- Abraham Lincoln was nominated by his party for a second term as the US president (1864)
- Homer Plessy was arrested when he refused to move from a seat reserved for whites on a train in New Orleans and this action would lead to the US Supreme Court’s landmark ‘separate but equal’’ decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1892)
- Hudson Stuck, a British missionary preaching in Alaska led the first successful ascent of Mt. McKinley, the highest point on the American continent. He published five books about his years in Alaska (1913)
- Liam Neeson was born in Northern Ireland, the actor who started off as a boxing champ in his youth but switched to acting so he could impress a girl, and is now a US citizen, with movie credits including Schindler’s List, Michael Collins, Taken, Love Actually, Batman Begins, Star Wars: Episode I, and The Grey (1952)
- Roger Federer of Switzerland became the sixth man in history to win a tennis Grand Slam when he tied Pete Sampras’ record of 14 major men’s championships winning the French Open (2009)
273 years ago today, the British Museum Act was given Royal Ascent by King George II, establishing what has become today the most visited museum on Earth. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum—national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public and aiming to collect everything. That trend continued, and putting aside the obvious and legitimate accusations of colonial theft, a gradual shift occurred away from books and towards antiquities.
The British Museum – credit, Luke Massey & the Greater London National Park City Initiative
Today, more than 6 million people visit the museum every year. Established like many museums around the collection of a private individual, in this case Sir Hans Sloan, it gradually grew with an interest in antiquarianism. In 1778, an exhibition debuted a collection of items brought back by James Cook from the South Pacific. In 1784, the museum obtained its first collection of Greek and Roman artifacts.
In 1802, King George III presented the Rosetta Stone, 1816, the pilfered Parthenon marbles were acquired. In 1857, Charles Newton was to discover the 4th-century BC Mausoleum of Halicarnassus on a grant from the British Museum. By 1850, the royal library of Ashurbanipal of ancient Assyria, with its over 20,000 cuneiform tables, arrived at the museum.
Today the museum no longer houses collections of natural history, and the books and manuscripts it once held now form part of the independent British Library. 70 million objects are held in it. More than any other museum in the world, it remains embattled over the provenance of its objects, as many of the colonized nations whose heritage it contains would now like some of it back. History will judge the museum on how it resolves this question, and whether it will be considered a force for learning and inspiration, or a tyrannical colonial relic. (1753)
Happy 52nd Birthday to Edward “Bear” Grylls OBE. The British adventurer and television presenter became wildly popular across the United States from his program Man vs Wild. A veritable outdoor superman, Grylls served in the British special forces from 1994 to 1997 in North America and the Himalayas. After which he climbed Everest 18 months following a parachute accident in which he broke his back in three places. Hosting Man Vs Wild for 6 years, he later became the youngest Chief Scout of the United Kingdom at the age of 35.
Bear Grylls (right) stands with statue of the first British scoutmaster.
Speaking English, Spanish, and French, holding a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Shotokan Karate, and helping establish the first mountaineering club at Eton College, Grylls is a busy man.
He is also an author for children and adults, penning his autobiography, Mud, Sweat and Tears: The Autobiography, in 2012, followed by A Survival Guide for Life in late 2012, True Grit in 2013, and The Kid Who Climbed Everest in 2019. He also has penned a twelve-volume series of survival-themed children’s books.
He has become one of the UK’s most successful motivational speakers, using his decades of physical challenges to try and communicate the value of resilience and never giving up. If one thought he couldn’t find the time for anything else, he also has a family summer camp called the Gone Wild Festival Norfolk. (1976)
Happy 86th Birthday to Welsh singing sensation Tom Jones, who says he has no plans to retire—and his voice gives us no reason to doubt him. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide over his six decades in music with 36 hits in the Top 40—in UK alone—including What’s New Pussycat and the No.1 1965 blockbuster It’s Not Unusual. With his dimples and gyrating head and hips, teens and oldsters alike swooned over his curls and open shirts.
When he turned 80, one artist in Wales created a huge depiction of his face in the landscape, on the iconic grounds of Cardiff Castle, using only soil, which was meant to evoke the song, Green, Green Grass of Home.
Bruno Bollaert, CC license – 2018
He became Sir Tom Jones when he was knighted by the Queen in 2005. He became a coach on The Voice-UK, introducing his still-powerful singing style to a whole new audience.
In 2020, he appeared, with silver hair and goatee, to raise money for COVID-19 relief in the One World Together At Home telethon, singing That’s The Glory of Love in front of a painting depicting an old street in his Wales hometown where it all began for him.
And, this month he’s released a new album, Surrounded By Time, after thinking about and missing his late wife. (1940)
And, on this day in 1965, the Supreme Court reached a landmark decision on married couples’ “right to privacy” that effectively legalized the use of contraception.
The ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut decided in favor of Estelle Griswold, who had opened a family-planning clinic in defiance of the then-deeply Catholic state of Connecticut, thus striking down the state’s “bedroom patrol laws” against birth control.
And, on this day in 1982, Graceland opened to the public five years after Elvis Presley died there.
Joseph Novak, CC license
The mansion sits on 14 acres near Memphis and is the second most-visited house in the US, after the White House. Since being opened as a museum by Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie, Graceland has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and been declared a National Historic Landmark. Famous visits to Graceland include Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev, whom Elvis said came “to see how in America a fellow can start out with nothing and, you know, make good”.
The property was named for the previous owner’s daughter Grace Took. Presley’s tombstone, along with that of his parents and his grandmother can be visited in the Meditation Garden next to the mansion, and Elvis’s Pink Cadillac is also on the grounds.
In the early hours of the morning Elvis died, he, his girlfriend Ginger Alden, his first cousin Billy Smith and Billy’s wife played a game of racquetball on a court there, and then Elvis sang a song on the old upright piano (which is on display) before he walked into the main house to wash his hair and go to bed. The bathroom where ‘The King’ died is kept off-limits. WATCH a quick tour…
Happy 47th Birthday to actor, comedian, and writer Bill Hader, who is best known for his years as a cast member on Saturday Night Live. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he dropped out of college to move to Los Angeles and work in film production. Discouraged with his job, he took a comedy class and found his ideal creative outlet. His acting credits include films like Superbad, Tropic Thunder, Trainwreck, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and You, Me and Dupree. A more recent project was a series he created for himself called Barry, on HBO.
He once worked as an usher at a movie theater in Arizona, so he could see films for free, but he was fired for spoiling the ending of Titanic to noisy patrons. (Chuckling at that!) (1978)
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