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From today's featured article
Did you know ...
- ... that The Washington Post described a North Carolina dive bar (pictured) as "a middle finger to the development surrounding it"?
- ... that Lepas testudinata can form colonies of more than 1000 members at a time?
- ... that Patti Smith posed for a racy photograph in Michael Goldstein's rooftop wading pool?
- ... that Palestinian hikaye is a unique form of folk culture performed by older women in winter?
- ... that tennis player Arthur Ashe only realized that his doubles partner Larry Nagler was Jewish when he was invited to Nagler's home for lox and bagels?
- ... that the gecko Teratoscincus roborowskii eats caper fruits and disperses the plant's seeds in its feces?
- ... that at the end of her Weekends with Adele shows, Adele vanishes?
- ... that Henk Zwartepoorte quacked at caimans?
In the news
- Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger (pictured) dies at the age of 100.
- All 41 workers trapped in a road tunnel collapse in Uttarakhand, India, are rescued after 17 days underground.
- In motorcycle racing, Francesco Bagnaia wins the MotoGP World Championship.
- The novel Prophet Song by Paul Lynch wins the Booker Prize.
- Somalia is admitted as the eighth member of the East African Community.
On this day
December 4: Navy Day in India
- 1639 – Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree made the first successful observation of a transit of Venus (example pictured) from Earth.
- 1872 – The American brigantine Mary Celeste was found apparently abandoned under circumstances that remain unknown.
- 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Navy launched a successful attack against the Pakistan Navy at Karachi, sinking three ships with no Indian casualties.
- 1980 – The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
- 2006 – Six black teenagers assaulted a white student in Jena, Louisiana; the subsequent court cases became a cause célèbre for perceived racial injustice in the United States.
- Maerten de Vos (d. 1603)
- Agnes Forbes Blackadder (b. 1875)
- Inder Kumar Gujral (b. 1919)
- Benjamin Britten (d. 1976)
From today's featured list
The World Video Game Hall of Fame is an international hall of fame for video games. The hall's administration is overseen by The Strong's International Center for the History of Electronic Games, and is located at The Strong National Museum of Play (pictured) in Rochester, New York, United States. In the nine years that the hall of fame has been open, 40 games have been inducted out of 74 nominated. Many of those games have been nominated multiple times. Nintendo has been the developer of the most games inducted with six, out of a total of nine nominations of seven games. Atari has had three games inducted out of five nominations of four games, and Blizzard Entertainment has had two games inducted, both on their first nomination. Eight other developers have had more than one game nominated. Minecraft has had the most nominations of any game, at four, and was then inducted, while FIFA International Soccer has had the most nominations without being inducted, at three. (Full list...)
Today's featured picture
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Laodicea on the Lycus was an ancient city in Asia Minor, situated on a hill above the river Lycus. It was located in the Hellenistic regions of Caria and Lydia, which later became the Roman Province of Phrygia Pacatiana. It is now situated near the modern city of Denizli in Turkey. Laodicea was built on the site of an earlier pre-Hellenistic settlement, and was founded by Antiochus II Theos, the king of the Seleucid Empire from 261 to 253 BC, in honour of his wife Laodice, together with several other cities of the same name. Laodicea became a wealthy city, and was later controlled by the Roman and Byzantine empires. The city had a large Jewish population, dating from the time of Antiochus the Great, who transported 2000 Jewish families there from Babylonia. It also became an early seat of Christianity with a bishopric. The Epistle to the Colossians mentions Laodicea as one of the communities of concern for Paul the Apostle. The city was destroyed in an earthquake in around AD 60, and subsequently rebuilt. It was eventually destroyed during the invasions of the Turks and Mongols during the second millennium, and is now a ruin. This photograph taken in 2020 shows the remains of a colonnaded Laodicean street. Photograph credit: Alexander Savin
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