The World Without Us is a non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze statues, plastics, and Mount Rushmore will be among the longest lasting evidence of human presence on Earth. The author of four previous books and numerous articles for magazines, Weisman traveled around the world to interview academics, scientists and other authorities. He used quotes from these interviews to explain the effects of the natural environment and to substantiate predictions. The book has been translated and published in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain. It was successful in the U.S., reaching #6 on the New York Times Best Seller list. It ranked #1 on Time and Entertainment Weekly's top 10 non-fiction books of 2007. The book has received largely positive reviews, specifically for Weisman's journalistic and scientific writing style, but some have questioned the relevance of its subject matter. (more...)

June 15: Pentecost in Eastern Christianity (2008); Father's Day in several countries (2008)

• 1667 – French physician Jean-Baptiste Denys administered the first fully-documented human blood transfusion, giving the blood of a sheep to a 15-year old boy.
• 1846 – To settle the Oregon boundary dispute, the United Kingdom and the United States signed the Oregon Treaty, extending the United States – British North America border west along the 49th parallel north that was first established by the Treaty of 1818.
• 1978 – King Hussein of Jordan married American Lisa Halaby (pictured), who takes the name Queen Noor of Jordan.
• 1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a bomb in the commercial centre of Manchester, England, injuring over 200 people and causing widespread damage to buildings.
• 2001 – Leaders of the People's Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

• More events: June 14 – June 15 – June 16

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• The New Horizons spacecraft becomes the fastest ever launched, taking off successfully from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a nine-year mission to Pluto.
• Alleged fraud prompts heavy sales of livedoor stock, forcing the Tokyo Stock Exchange to close early for the first time.
• Socialist Michelle Bachelet is elected the first female President of Chile.
• Tarja Halonen and Sauli Niinistö take the first round of the Finnish presidential election.

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From Wikipedia's newest articles:

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• ...that the dachas of the Russian poets Boris Pasternak, Korney Chukovsky, and Bulat Okudzhava in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow are open to the public as memorial houses?
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• ...that a Push-Pull Converter is a type of DC to DC converter that uses a transformer to step the voltage of a DC power supply?
• ...that the Chicana artist Yolanda Lopez became famous with the painting "Virgen de Guadalupe", which represents Lopez's personal investigation into Virgen de Guadalupe's status in Mexican society?

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