GEN-ERIC News

On this day in 1429, French heroine Joan of Arc, a peasant girl who believed she was acting under divine guidance, attempted to oust the duke of Burgundy and take Paris for the newly crowned King Charles VII.

1974: Richard M. Nixon, who had resigned the U.S. presidency on August 8, 1974, was pardoned by his successor, Gerald R. Ford.
1945: At the end of World War II, the first U.S. troops entered the Korean peninsula south of the 38th parallel to receive the Japanese surrender; north of the parallel, Japanese troops surrendered to Soviet forces.
1781: American troops commanded by General Nathanael Greene defeated British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Stewart in the Battle of Eutaw Springs during the American Revolution.
1664: As part of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the duke of York (later James II) took the city of New Amsterdam, whose name was changed to New York.

The amount of the discount may be less important than the numerical value of the farthest right digit, explains a new study from the Journal of Consumer Research. Researchers show that “right-digit effect” influences consumer perception of sale prices. When the right digits are small, people perceive the discount to be larger than when the right digits are large. In other words, an item on sale for $211 from the original price of $222 is thought to be a better deal than an item on sale for $188 from an original price of $199, even though both discounts are $11. In addition, the researchers find that when consumers view regular and sale prices with identical left digits, they perceive larger price discounts when the right digits are “small” – less than 5 – than when they are “large,” or, greater than 5.

Britain is becoming increasingly segregated across all age groups by wealth, health, education and other factors, according to a pioneering atlas based on people rather than geography. The cradle-to-grave “atlas of identity", to be published on Monday, provides a visual representation of the stark social contrasts now dividing different areas of Britain, and even adjoining neighbourhoods. It shows how the area in which an individual lives can be a strong predictor of their identity not only in terms of class but also health, family structure and likely lifespan. It can even reveal the likelihood that a person is divorced - divorcees are clearly clustered along the south coast, possibly because property there is cheaper and the population is older - and when they are likely to have their first child. Women in the affluent south-east are generally much more likely to be older when they give birth. The atlas is also groundbreaking in its breakdown of the population by age, according to researchers behind the project, at Sheffield University. They say mapping based on the “seven ages of man” reveals “ever more clearly that where you live can limit or assist your life chances from cradle to grave".