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Tumbler Ridge is a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Peace River Regional District. The municipality, with its population of 2,454 people, incorporates a townsite and a large area of mostly Crown Land. The housing and municipal infrastructure were built simultaneously in 1981 by the provincial government to service the coal industry. In 1981, a consortium of Japanese steel mills agreed to purchase 100 million tonnes of coal from two mining companies that were to operate the Quintette mine and the Bullmoose mine. Declining global coal prices after 1981, and weakening Asian markets in the late 1990s, made the town's future uncertain. When price reductions were forced onto the mines, the Quintette mine was closed in 2000 and the town lost about half its population. Since 2000 rising coal prices have led to the opening of new mines. After dinosaur footprints, fossils, and bones were discovered in the municipality, the Peace Region Paleontology Research Centre opened in 2003. Economic diversification has also occurred with oil and gas exploration, forestry, and recreational tourism. Nearby recreational destinations include numerous trails, mountains, waterfalls, snowmobiling areas and provincial parks. (more...)
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From Wikipedia's newest content:
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In the news
- Lucas Papademos (pictured) is sworn in as Prime Minister of Greece, following the resignation of George Papandreou.
- The International Union for Conservation of Nature declares the Western Black Rhinoceros extinct.
- Pennsylvania State University president Graham Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno are dismissed in response to a child sexual abuse scandal.
- Russian Phobos sample return mission Fobos-Grunt and Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 are launched from Baikonur.
- American boxer Joe Frazier dies at the age of 67.
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On this day...
November 12: Birth of Bahá'u'lláh, a holy day in the Bahá'í Faith
- 1028 – Future Byzantine empress Zoe first took the throne as empress consort to Romanos III Argyros.
- 1893 – Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of British India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan, signed the Durand Line Agreement, establishing what is now the international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- 1936 – The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, connecting San Francisco and Oakland, California across San Francisco Bay, opened to traffic.
- 1942 – World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (Japanese air attack pictured), the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles between Allied and Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands, began.
- 1991 – In Dili, East Timor, Indonesian forces opened fire on student demonstrators protesting the occupation of East Timor, killing at least 250 people.
More anniversaries: November 11 – November 12 – November 13
Today's featured picture
An artist's rendition of an Allosaurus fragilis with its jaws open fully, based on the research of paleontologist Robert T. Bakker. Allosaurus were active predators of large animals, and probably had the ability to open their jaws extremely wide. Studies suggest that they used their skulls like hatchets against prey, attacking open-mouthed, slashing flesh with their teeth, and tearing it away without splintering bones. Allosaurus were theropod dinosaurs that lived in the upper Jurassic period.
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