Blakeney Point

The North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest in Norfolk, England, is a Special Protection Area for birds and other wildlife, included in the European Union's Natura 2000 network of protected sites. Its habitats include reed beds, salt marshes, freshwater lagoons, and sand or shingle beaches, across 7,700 ha (19,027 acres) of the county's north coast. The wetlands are important for scarce breeding birds such as pied avocets. The location also attracts rare migrating birds, and ducks and geese winter along this coast in considerable numbers. The area is archaeologically significant, with sites including the mound of an Iron Age fort, a Roman naval port near Brancaster, medieval ruins, and remnants of military use from both world wars. The area attracts many tourists for birdwatching and other outdoor activities. The threat of the sea's encroachment on this soft coast is being met by managed retreat and the creation of new reserves inland. The site is designated as a wetland of international importance, and most of it is a Biosphere Reserve. ( Full article...)

Syster Sol

• ... that singer Syster Sol (pictured) won the award for Best Reggae/Dancehall at the 2014 Kingsizegala?
• ... that the Bristol and Bath Science Park includes an open area where children come to skateboard?
• ... that Kansas City Chiefs rookie linebacker Dadi Nicolas played his senior year of college with a broken hand?
• ... that the Jurassic La Negra Formation in northern Chile contains products of submarine volcanism?
• ... that Rangers F.C. did not knowingly sign any Catholic players between the 1920s and 1980s?
• ... that Tony Sainsbury is the chef de mission of the Independent Paralympic Athletes Team at the 2016 Summer Paralympics?
• ... that Hollyoaks producer Bryan Kirkwood believed he had let Tamara Wall down with the initial characterisation of her character Grace Black?
• ... that whilst loading tanks at night on the Gilling and Pickering Line during World War II, soldiers would stand on either side of the wagons smoking cigarettes to guide the tank drivers?

Artist's impression of OSIRIS-REx

• The 54-kilometre (34 mi) Moscow Ring Railway starts its passenger service.
• North Korea conducts its fifth and largest nuclear test to date.
• NASA launches OSIRIS-REx (artist's impression pictured), a probe sent to return samples from asteroid 101955 Bennu.
• Genetic analysis shows that the genus giraffe, previously thought to contain one extant species, actually consists of four.
• The Summer Paralympics open in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

September 10

Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima

• 1561 – The Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima (pictured), one of the most cherished tales in Japanese military history, the epitome of Japanese chivalry and romance, took place in Shinano Province.
• 1897 – A peaceful labor demonstration made up of mostly Polish and Slovak anthracite coal miners in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, US, was fired upon by a sheriff's posse in the Lattimer massacre.
• 1946 – While riding a train to Darjeeling, Sister Teresa Bojaxhiu, later Mother Teresa, experienced what she later described as "the call within the call", directing her "to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them".
• 1990 – Pope John Paul II consecrated the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire, one of the largest churches in the world.
• 2008 – CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, was first powered up beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.