Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 April 12

Aliso Creek is a 19-mile (31 km) urban stream that runs through Orange County in the U.S. state of California from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, collecting seven main tributaries. It flows generally south-southwest through a narrow coastal watershed at the southern extreme of the arid Los Angeles Basin in a fairly straight course. Owing to the submersion of Southern California in the Pacific Ocean until 10 million years ago, the creek flows over marine sedimentary rock that dates from the late Eocene to the Pliocene. The watershed's broad sediment-filled valleys and deeply eroded side canyons were shaped by climate change during the last Ice Age. Historically, the creek served as the boundary between the Juaneño (Acjachemem) and Gabrieleño (Tongva) Indians. Although attempts to use the creek and its watershed as a municipal water source date to the early 20th century, the water it provided was erratic and of poor quality. The creek has become little more than an open wastewater drain, but the watershed supports some biodiversity, and remains a popular recreational area. (Full article...)

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April 12: Yuri's Night; Cosmonautics Day in Russia

• 240 – Shapur I was crowned shahanshah ("king of kings") of the Sasanian Empire, the last Iranian empire before the rise of Islam.
• 1204 – Alexios V Doukas fled Constantinople as forces under Boniface the Marquess of Montferrat and Enrico Dandolo the Doge of Venice entered and sacked the Byzantine capital, effectively ending the Fourth Crusade.
• 1861 – Confederate forces began firing at Fort Sumter (pictured) in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, starting the American Civil War.
• 1980 – Terry Fox dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and began running his "Marathon of Hope" towards the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver, British Columbia, to raise funds across Canada for cancer research.
• 2007 – The canteen of the Council of Representatives of Iraq building was attacked by a suicide bomber, killing one Member of Parliament and wounding 23 other people.

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  • April 11
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