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From today's featured article

William I (Old Norman: Williame I; Old English: Willelm I; c. 1028 – 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. The descendant of Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy since 1035. After a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands and by difficulties with his eldest son.

William was the son of the unmarried Robert I, Duke of Normandy, by Robert's mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, as did the anarchy that plagued the first years of his rule. During his childhood and adolescence, members of the (Full article...)

Did you know...

• ... that the Drudge Report had ten billion visits in the past year?
• ... that Ian McDonald's 2015 science fiction novel Luna: New Moon has been called "Game of Thrones in space"?
• ... that Arii Matamoe (pictured), an 1892 painting of a Pacific Islander's severed head, may have been inspired by the death of Pōmare V shortly after Paul Gauguin's arrival in Tahiti?
• ... that Emma Dench, a British classicist and the McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard University, appeared in a film alongside her aunt Judi Dench in 1968?
• ... that the type fossil of the damselfly Electropodagrion consists only of a thorax, leg, and wing portions?
• ... that NuScale Power has designed a line of small, modular nuclear reactors?
• ... that Buzzfeed printed fake news about President Trump?

In the news (from Infogalactic News)

• After Thousands Of Parents Refused To Comply Another CA School District Vax Mandate Falls
  Judge Ruled Schools Have No Authority To Mandate Medical Procedures For Children
• Ghislaine Maxwell Found Guilty of 5 Of 6 Charges
  Will She Be Epsteined?
• Aaron Rodgers: "If Science Can't Be Questioned, It's Not Science Anymore"
  "It's Propoganda"
  

• Jake Tapper's Producer Resigns From CNN
  Amid Pedo Scandal
• Israel Orders 100 Million Eggs Due To Bird Flu Outbreak
  Eggs And Hens Must Be Destroyed To Contain The Outbreak
• Twitter Suspends mRNA Tech Inventor Dr. Robert Malone
  Ran Counter To Covid Narrative
• Life Expectancy In 2020 Fell 2.3% To 77 Years
  Does This Justify The Covid Panic?
  

On this day...

October 28

• 1344 – The lower town of Smyrna is captured by Crusaders.
• 1707 – The 1707 Hōei earthquake causes more than 5,000 deaths in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyūshū, Japan
• 1918 – World War I: Czechoslovakia is granted independence from Austria-Hungary marking the beginning of an independent Czechoslovak state, after 300 years.
• 1958 – John XXIII is elected Pope.
• 1971 – Britain launches the satellite Prospero into low Earth orbit atop a Black Arrow carrier rocket from Launch Area 5B at Woomera, South Australia, the only British satellite to date launched by a British rocket.
• 1990 – The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic holds the first multiparty legislature election in the country's history.
• 2007 – Cristina Fernández de Kirchner becomes the first woman elected President of Argentina.

• More anniversaries:
  • October 27
  • October 28
  • October 29

October 29

• 1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris leading to the death of three people.
• 1863 – Eighteen countries meet in Geneva and agree to form the International Red Cross.
• 1918 – The German High Seas Fleet is incapacitated when sailors mutiny on the night of the 29th-30th, an action which would trigger the German Revolution of 1918–19.
• 1944 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army enters Hungary.
• 1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
• 1994 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House (Duran is later convicted of trying to kill US President Bill Clinton).
• 1998 – Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras.

• More anniversaries:
  • October 28
  • October 29
  • October 30

• 1806 – Believing he is facing a much larger force, Prussian Lieutenant General Friedrich von Romberg, commanding 5,300 men, surrendered the city of Stettin to 800 French soldiers commanded by General Lassalle.
• 1888 – Rudd Concession granted by King Lobengula of Matabeleland to agents of Cecil Rhodes led by Charles Rudd.
• 1905 – Czar Nicholas II of Russia issues the October Manifesto, granting the Russian peoples basic civil liberties and the right to form a duma.
• 1961 – Because of "violations of Vladimir Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Joseph Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin Wall with a plain granite marker instead.
• 1973 – The Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus for the second time.
• 1974 – The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire. Ali wins by KO in the eighth round, regaining the title of World Heavyweight Champion and causing Foreman´s first professional defeat.
• 1975 – Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.

• More anniversaries:
  • October 29
  • October 30
  • October 31

Today's featured picture

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləm vɑn ˈɣɔx];<ref group =note>The pronunciation of "Van Gogh" varies in both English and Dutch. Especially in British English it is /ˌvæn ˈɡɒx/ van-GOKH or sometimes /ˌvæn ˈɡɒf/ van-GOF. U.S. dictionaries list /ˌvæn ˈɡoʊ/ van-GOH, with a silent gh, as the most common pronunciation. In the dialect of Holland, it is [ˈvɪnsɛnt fɑŋˈxɔx], with a voiceless V. He grew up in Brabant (although his parents were not born there), and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: [vɑɲˈʝɔç], with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh.

Van Gogh painted several versions of landscapes with flowers, including his View of Arles with Irises, and paintings of flowers, including Irises, Sunflowers, lilacs and roses. Some reflect his interests in the language of color, and also in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. (Full article...)

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