Name origin: Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811), a Catholic priest, leader of the Mexican War of Independence and recognized as the Father of the Nation. Due to the oppression of poor Mexicans by the Spanish colonisers, on 16th September 1810 he gave the call to arms that triggered the Mexican War of Independence, called the Cry of Dolores.
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Australian-British professor Gilbert Murray (1866-1957) helped Austria recover from World War I in 1920. He was an outstanding scholar of Ancient Greek literature, language and culture. Involved in the League of Nations from 1916, he was also president of the Ethical Union (now Humanists UK) in 1929 and 1930, and a founder of Oxfam.
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Named in honour of Ernst Heinrich Bruns (1848-1919), a German mathematician and astronomer, who also contributed to the development of the field of theoretical geodesy (measurement of the Earth’s relative geometry, gravity and orientation over time). He was mainly engaged in developing the theoretical side of Earth’s shape.
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Stateira was a queen of ancient Persia who died about 400 BCE; wife of Artaxerxes II. She had a son, who became Artaxerxes III. She was a popular ruler, apparently because she talked to ordinary people, but did not get on well with her mother-in-law Parysatis, who eventually poisoned her.
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Aguntum was an ancient Roman site in what is now East Tirol, Austria (about 4km east of Lienz, the discoverer’s birthplace). The city was likely built as a mining and trading centre due to local supplies of iron, copper, zinc and gold.
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Auravictrix is Latin for ‘victory against the wind’ (named for the first Schütte-Lanz zeppelin flights in 1911). The Schütte-Lanz company was an early competitor of the more famous airships built by Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
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Name origin: Desdemona, character in Shakespeare’s Othello. The name may have been inspired by the asteroid’s provisional designation, containing the letters “DM”. Desdemona is the faithful wife of Othello whose reputation is muddied by the villain Iago.
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Name origin: Greek Naiad at Delphi who, to flee Apollo’s pursuit, threw (or transformed) herself into the sacred springs now bearing her name. The water from the springs bestowed the gifts of prophecy and poetry.
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Latona is the Roman name for Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis by Zeus, who was forced to flee Hera’s wrath to give birth in safety. There is no evidence of an independent mythology.
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Germanic goddess associated with water and wagons. Only priests were allowed to touch the cart of Nerthus, which was kept in a sacred grove on an island. When the priest found her to be present by the cart, it was drawn on procession; everywhere it went celebrations took place.
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