March 12 – Happy Birthday, William Buckland

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nFiguring out that a cave had been a prehistoric hyena den.
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This cartoon has Buckland checking out an actual hyena den – but that’s not what he did! Instead, he studied fossilized remains in a cave and determined that it had once been a hyena den – thousands and thousands of years ago!

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nPioneering the use of fossilized poop to reconstruct an ancient ecosystem (an ecosystem includes which animals eat which plants and which animals eat which other animals!).
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nSupporting the thesis that the Earth is really, really, really ancient – ancient-er than ancient! 
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nPromoting a theory offered by a fellow geologist that glaciers carved many features seen in modern landscapes.
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nFor a theologian born in 1784, William Buckland managed to do a wonderful amount of science!

nOf course, having been interested in fossils ever since he was a child, and having studied geology, mineralogy, and chemistry when studying for the ministry at Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford, we can call Buckland a geologist and paleontologist as well as a theologian!
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nBuckland was ordained as a priest, elected a fellow of the Royal Society, named a fellow of Corpus Christi, and appointed reader – which meant that he gave a series of lectures. He was also an unofficial curator of the Ashmolean Museum. 
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nBuckland was apparently a bit eccentric. He often did his geological and paleontological field work while wearing an academic gown…and sometimes he lectured indoors on horseback! At home he had a table inlaid with dinosaur coprolites (remember, that means fossilized poop!!!). And he was said to have eaten his way through the animal kingdom, tasting or chowing on a mole, a bluebottle fly, a panther, a crocodile, and a mouse – among other creatures!
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This is a coprolite-topped table perhaps a bit like Buckland’s. Some people call it a “proper Victorian poop table”!!!

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nAlso on this date:

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nRenovation Day in Gabon   

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nBirthday of Girl Scouts of the USA

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nIndependence Day in Mauritius

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nCrown Princess Victoria’s Name Day

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nAnniversary of the appointment of a 12-year-old Park Commissioner 

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nBirthday of Charles Boycott (the bad guy in the story of how the word boycott was coined)
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nArbor Day in China

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nAnniversary of the naming of Australia’s capital city

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nAnniversary of Moscow becoming Russia’s capital…again!

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Anniversary of the first winter ascent of Eigerwund

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nPlan ahead:

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nCheck out my Pinterest boards for:

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• nMarch holidays

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• nMarch birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in March

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nAnd here are my Pinterest boards for: 

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• nApril holidays

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• nApril birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in April

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