[Daily article] November 17: Sovereign (British coin)

The sovereign is a legal-tender gold coin of the United Kingdom with a
nominal value of one pound sterling. Struck from 1817 until the present
time, it was originally a circulating coin accepted in Britain and
elsewhere in the world; it is now a bullion coin and is sometimes
mounted in jewellery. In most recent years, it has borne the well-known
design of Saint George and the Dragon on the reverse (pictured), created
by Benedetto Pistrucci. Issued as part of the Great Recoinage of 1816,
it not only became a popular circulating coin, but was used
internationally, trusted as a coin containing a known quantity of gold.
>From the 1850s until 1932, the sovereign was also struck at colonial
mints. With the start of the First World War in 1914, the sovereign
vanished from circulation in Britain, replaced by paper money, and it
did not return afterwards. In addition to its bullion use, it has been
struck since 1979 for collectors.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_%28British_coin%29>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1839:

Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, premiered at La Scala in
Milan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberto_%28opera%29>

1950:

The 14th Dalai Lama assumed full temporal power as ruler of
Tibet at the age of fifteen.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Dalai_Lama>

1997:

Sixty-two people were killed by Islamist terrorists outside
Deir el-Bahari in Luxor, one of Egypt's top tourist attractions.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre>

2013:

Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363 crashed during an aborted
landing at Kazan International Airport, Russia, killing all fifty people
on board and leading to the revocation of the airline's operating
certificate.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatarstan_Airlines_Flight_363>

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Wiktionary's word of the day:

ulp:
1. The sound of a person gulping in fear. [...]
2. (computer science, mathematics) The value that the least significant
digit of a floating-point number represents, used as a measure of
accuracy in numeric calculations.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ulp>

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Wikiquote quote of the day:

  I paint a gradual slipping out of the now, to that beautiful
then, where there are neither kings, presidents, landlords, national
bankers, stockbrokers, railroad magnates, patentright monopolists, or
tax and title collectors; where there are no over-stocked markets or
hungry children, idle counters and naked creatures, splendor and misery,
waste and need. I am told this is farfetched idealism, to paint this
happy, povertyless, crimeless, diseaseless world; I have been told I
"ought to be behind the bars" for it. Remarks of that kind rather
destroy the white streak of faith. I lose confidence in the slipping
process, and am forced to believe that the rulers of the earth are
sowing a fearful wind, to reap a most terrible whirlwind. When I look at
this poor, bleeding, wounded World, this world that has suffered so
long, struggled so much, been scourged so fiercely, thorn-pierced so
deeply, crucified so cruelly, I can only shake my head and remember:
The giant is blind, but he's thinking: and his locks are growing, fast.
 
--Voltairine de Cleyre
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltairine_de_Cleyre>

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