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The history of merit badges in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has been tracked by categorizing them into a series of merit badge types. Merit badges have been an integral part of the Scouting program since the start of the movement in the United Kingdom in 1908. Scouting came to the United States in 1910; the BSA quickly issued an initial list of just 14 merit badges, but did not produce or award them. In 1911, the BSA manufactured the first official 57 merit badges and began awarding them. The number of badges available has been as high as 140 and, as of 2006, is 121. Merit badge types are identifiable by the cloth and manufacturing process used to make them. The classification of badges into types came about as a way for collectors to categorize and classify their collections. Merit badge collectors often collect other Scouting memorabilia as well. (more...)

Recently featured: Raney nickel – Sheffield – James T. Aubrey, Jr.

Selected anniversaries

February 22: Independence Day in Saint Lucia (1979), Feast of Cathedra Petri (Catholicism).

• 1819 - By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sold Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
• 1876 - The Johns Hopkins University, named after philanthropist Johns Hopkins, was founded.
• 1943 - Members of the White Rose Society were found guilty of treason and guillotined by the Nazi regime in Germany.
• 1958 - President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and President Shukri al-Kuwatli of Syria signed the union pact to form the United Arab Republic.
• 1997 - Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announced the birth of a cloned sheep named Dolly (pictured).

Recent days: February 21 – February 20 – February 19

In the news

• Thieves make off with at least £25 million in the Securitas depot robbery, one of the largest in United Kingdom history.
• A bomb attack in Samarra, Iraq badly damages the Al Askari Mosque (pictured), one of the holiest sites in Shi'a Islam.
• British historian David Irving pleads guilty in Austria to Holocaust denial, and is sentenced to three years of imprisonment.

2006 Winter Olympics

• Alpine skiing: Anja Pärson of Sweden wins the gold medal in the women's slalom.
• Speed skating: Canadians Cindy Klassen and Kristina Groves win gold and silver in the women's 1500-m event.

Did you know...

From Wikipedia's newest articles:

• ...that the Elfin-woods Warbler, an endemic bird of Puerto Rico first observed in 1968, is the last New World warbler to be discovered?
• ...that Broadcasting in East Germany was modelled after the Soviet Union's broadcasting system and East Germany rushed to try to beat West Germany to be first on-air with television?
• ...that The Silent World, an Academy Award winning documentary film by Jacques Cousteau, was the first film to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color?
• ...that until the late 1980s, the most accurate tropical cyclone prediction model was purely statistical?