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Gerald Durrell (7 January 1925 – 30 January 1995) was a British naturalist, writer and zookeeper. He was born in British India and moved to England in 1928. In 1935 the family moved to Corfu, but the outbreak of World War II forced them to return to the United Kingdom. In the 1940s he began animal-collecting trips for zoos, and published well-received accounts of these, starting with The Overloaded Ark. His account of the years in Corfu, titled My Family and Other Animals, appeared in 1956 and became a bestseller. He founded the Jersey Zoo in 1959, intending it to be an institution for the study of animals and for captive breeding. Durrell and his second wife, Lee McGeorge, made several television documentaries in the 1980s, including Durrell in Russia and Ark on the Move. They co-authored The Amateur Naturalist, which became his most successful book, selling well over a million copies. His ashes were buried at Jersey Zoo. (Full article...)

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• 1797 – The Italian tricolour was first adopted as an official flag by the government of the Cispadane Republic.
• 1904 – The Marconi International Marine Communication Company specified CQD (audio featured) as the distress signal to be used by its operators.
• 1939 – French physicist Marguerite Perey identified francium, the last element to be discovered in nature rather than by synthesis.
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