The children's graves

The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a coal-mining spoil tip that caused the deaths of 116 children and 28 adults on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, engulfing the local junior school and other buildings. There were seven spoil tips on the slopes above Aberfan; the one that slipped onto the village was 111 feet (34 m) high. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees. The organisation's chairman, Lord Robens, was criticised for making misleading statements. Neither the NCB nor any of its employees were prosecuted and the organisation was not fined. Half of the village's surviving children suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. (Full article...)

May'n performing in 2014

• ... that Japanese musician May'n (pictured) adopted her stage name because she wanted her fans to consider her their "main" singer?
• ... that an underwater mountain between Greenland and Norway has been compared to a coral reef?
• ... that German wheelchair basketball player Barbara Gross plays for the University of Alabama team, which includes two other Germans?
• ... that when Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean pitched DC Comics on reintroducing Black Orchid in 1988, editor Karen Berger had never heard of the main character?
• ... that the company set up by horticulturist Theodosia Burr Shepherd is considered the foundation of the California seed industry?
• ... that Theater Bremen, the state theatre in Bremen for operas, plays, dance, and student programs, was selected as opera house of the year by Opernwelt in 2007?
• ... that Adam Marshall was the first Catholic chaplain in the United States Navy, albeit unofficially?
• ... that the entire fourth serial of Doctor Who is missing after being erased by the BBC in 1967?

Hurricane Leslie

• A train runs into a crowd celebrating the Dusshera festival in Amritsar, India, killing more than 50 people and injuring at least 100 others.
• A mass shooting and bomb attack at a polytechnic college in Kerch, Crimea, kills 21 people and injures 70 others.
• Hurricane Leslie (satellite image pictured) makes landfall in Portugal as an extratropical cyclone with 110 kilometres per hour (68 mph) winds, contributing to 16 deaths.

October 21

Florence Nightingale

• 1520 – The islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon near Canada were visited by Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes, who named them "Islands of the 11,000 Virgins".
• 1854 – Florence Nightingale (pictured) with a staff of 38 nurses and 15 nuns were sent to Turkey to help treat wounded British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War.
• 1944 – World War II: The three-week-long Battle of Aachen concluded, making the city the first on German soil to be captured by the Allies.
• 1950 – Korean War: The Battle of Yongju began as British and Australian troops of the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade engaged in heavy fighting with North Korean forces.
• 1978 – After reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft, Frederick Valentich disappeared in unexplained circumstances while piloting a Cessna 182L light aircraft over the Bass Strait to King Island, Australia.

Edmund Waller (d. 1687) · Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929) · Steph Davies (b. 1987)