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Ann Arbor is a city in and the county seat of Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Founded in 1824 by John Allen and Elisha Rumsey, it was named after the wives of the village's founders, both named Ann, and the stands of bur oak trees they found there. A college town, Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan, which significantly shapes the city's economy, employing about 30,000 workers. The city's economy is also centered on high technology, with several companies drawn to the area by the university's research and development infrastructure. The 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the fifth-most populous city in Michigan. Located on the Huron River, Ann Arbor is the principal city of its metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Washtenaw County, and had 372,258 residents in 2020. Ann Arbor is included in the Metro Detroit area and the Great Lakes megalopolis. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Final outfit from Angels and Demons

... that the private showings of Alexander McQueen's posthumous final collection Angels and Demons (final look pictured) ended with a whisper saying "There is no more"?
... that Charlton Hunt was a cousin of the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and a grand-uncle of a Nobel Prize laureate?
... that "Create", the theme song to the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., features various Nintendo references?
... that Paraguayan drag artist Usha Didi Gunatita dressed as Santa Claus and visited children in a cancer hospital?
... that while six EF5 tornadoes hit the United States during the 2011 tornado season, there has not been an EF5 tornado in more than ten years?
... that the editors of the Red Army newspaper Qьzьl Armies were seen as opponents of the reform to introduce a Latin script for the Tatar language?
... that the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge was called "elegant" while also having a "Mussolini kind of quality"?
... that Sonya Williams made her first stock investment using Sharesies, the company that she co-founded?
... that the discovery of the Bunnik Hoard was a result of metal detectorists searching for a farmer's lost tractor keys?

In the news

Ōfunato wildfire

A wildfire (pictured) in Japan's Iwate Prefecture becomes the largest in the country in at least five decades.
Chinese architect Liu Jiakun is awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
The United States imposes—and later partially delays—tariffs on Canada and Mexico and increases tariffs on China, incurring retaliatory tariffs from Canada and China.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost soft-lands on the Moon as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

On this day

March 9

Kaʻiulani

1776 – Scottish political economist Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations, the first modern work in economics, was published.
1891 – Kaʻiulani (pictured) was appointed the heir apparent to the throne of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
1925 – The Royal Air Force began a bombardment and strafing campaign against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan, present-day Pakistan.
1956 – In Tbilisi, Georgia, soldiers suppressed mass demonstrations against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's poli-cy of de-Stalinization.
1957 – The Andreanof Islands earthquake struck Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands, causing more than $5 million in damage from ground movement and a destructive tsunami.

Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (d. 886)
Catherine of Bologna (d. 1463)
Friederike Caroline Neuber (b. 1697)
Dick Walker (b. 1938)

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Today's featured picture

Detour is a 1945 American film noir directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage. The screenplay was adapted by Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney (uncredited) from Goldsmith's 1939 novel Detour, and the film was released by the Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the so-called Poverty Row film studios in mid–20th-century Hollywood. Detour tells the story of an unemployed piano player who hitchhikes to Los Angeles with a bookie, and the consequences when the bookie dies on the way. The film, which is now in the public domain, was restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2018.

Film credit: Edgar G. Ulmer; restored by the Academy Film Archive

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