The Tamil people are an ethnic group from South Asia with a recorded history going back almost two millennia. The oldest Tamil communities are those of southern India and north-eastern Sri Lanka. Unlike many ethnic groups, the Tamils have at no time been governed by a single political entity; Tamil̲akam, the traditional name for the Tamil lands, has always been under the rule of more than one kingdom or state. Despite this, the Tamil cultural identity has always been strong. Historically, this identity has been primarily linguistic, with Tamils being those whose first language was Tamil. In recent times, however, the definition has been broadened to also include emigrants of Tamil descent who maintain Tamil traditions, even when they no longer speak the language. Tamils are ethnically, linguistically and culturally related to the other Dravidian peoples of South Asia. There are an estimated 74 million Tamils around the world.

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This 1873 painting, Les dernières cartouches ("The last bullets") depicts a small detachment from the "Blue Division" of the French Army's Troupes de marine in the Battle of Bazeilles on 1 September 1870. As the French Army retreated from its loss at the Battle of Sedan, this group remained in the last house on the road to Sedan, fighting to the last bullet to cover the retreat.

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• ... that Paul Davidson produced thirty-nine movies directed by Ernst Lubitsch?
• ... that the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society has donated over 60,000 corneas for transplantation in 57 countries, including those of the late President of Sri Lanka, J. R. Jayewardene?
• ... that the ISNSCE's Tulip Award in DNA Computing was first given in Leiden (pictured), whose botanical garden is known as the birthplace of the tulip culture in the Netherlands?

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• 5 February 1784 - The Asiatic Society (logo pictured) founder Sir William Jones was elected its president, serving until his death in 1794
• 6 February 1899 - Formation of the American Ceramic Society in Columbus, Ohio by nine members of the National Brick Manufacturer’s Association
• 11 February 1915 - Wlodimir Ledóchowski elected 26th Superior General of the Society of Jesus
• 28 February 2002 - Gulbarg Society massacre took place during the 2002 Gujarat riots, when a mob attacked the Gulbarg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Chamanpura, Ahmedabad

“ When society requires to be rebuilt, there is no use in attempting to rebuild it on the old plan. ” — John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and Discussions (1859)

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David Émile Durkheim (French: [emil dyʁkɛm] or [dyʁkajm]; April 15, 1858 – November 15, 1917) was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology. Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity; an era in which traditional social and religious ties are no longer assumed, and in which new social institutions have come into being. His first major sociological work was The Division of Labor in Society (1893). In 1895, he published his Rules of the Sociological Method and set up the first European department of sociology, becoming France's first professor of sociology. In 1898, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations, pioneered modern social research and served to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), presented a theory of religion, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and modern societies. Durkheim was also deeply preoccupied with the acceptance of sociology as a legitimate science. He refined the positivism originally set forth by Auguste Comte, promoting what could be considered as a form of epistemological realism, as well as the use of the hypothetico-deductive model in social science. He remained a dominant force in French intellectual life until his death in 1917, presenting numerous lectures and published works on a variety of topics, including the sociology of knowledge, morality, social stratification, religion, law, education, and deviance. Durkheimian terms such as "collective consciousness" have since entered the popular lexicon. (Full article...)

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