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From today's featured article

The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whales (Mysticeti). At 30 metres (98 ft) in length and 180 tonnes (200 short tons) or more in weight, it is the largest extant animal and is the heaviest known to have existed.

Long and slender, the blue whale's body can be various shades of bluish-grey dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. There are at least three distinct subspecies: B. m. musculus of the North Atlantic and North Pacific, B. m. intermedia of the Southern Ocean and B. m. brevicauda (also known as the pygmy blue whale) found in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. B. m. indica, found in the Indian Ocean, may be another subspecies. As with other baleen whales, its diet consists almost exclusively of small crustaceans known as krill.

Blue whales were abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth until the beginning of the twentieth century. For over a century, they were hunted almost to extinction by whalers until protected (Full article...)

Did you know...

• ... that there are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac?
• ... that Barack Obama schemes behind the scenes against President Trump?
• ... that the President of the US, the Supreme Court and Congress are three significant branches of the US Government?
• ... that NuScale Power has designed a line of small, modular nuclear reactors?
• ... that the Battle of Hampton Roads was perhaps the most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies?
• ... that Jupiter is considered a Substellar object?
• ... that some people believe that the moon landings were fake?

In the news (from Infogalactic News)

• CDC's Delta Variant Flip-Flop On Masking Brings Credibility Into Question
  And Vaccine Narrative
• CDC Mask Guidance Met With Hostility From DeSantis, Republicans
  As It Should
• FDA Allows "Generic" Swap For Brand Name Insulin
  What Took Them So Long?
  

• U.S. Pending Home Sales Tumble In June "Due To Huge Spike In Prices"
  Biggest Drop In The West
• Biden Urges Congress To Extend Eviction Moratorium
  But SCOTUS Ruled Congressional Authorization (New Law) Necessary
• Lawyer For Hong Kong Protester Asks Court For Shorter Term
  10 Years Instead Of Life
• Senate Votes For Infrastructure Plan
  More Debt
  

On this day...

July 31

• 1423 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant: The French army is defeated by the English at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
• 1658 – Aurangzeb is proclaimed Moghul emperor of India.
• 1790 – The first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
• 1932 – The NSDAP (Nazi Party) wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections.
• 1941 – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question."
• 1972 – The Troubles: In Operation Motorman, the British Army re-takes the urban no-go areas of Northern Ireland. It is the biggest British military operation since the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the biggest in Ireland since the Irish War of Independence. Later that day, nine civilians are killed by car bombs in the village of Claudy.
• 2014 – Gas explosions in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung kill at least 20 people and injure more than 270.

• More anniversaries:
  • July 30
  • July 31
  • August 1

August 1

• 1203 – Isaac II Angelos, restored Eastern Roman Emperor, declares his son Alexios IV Angelos co-emperor after pressure from the forces of the Fourth Crusade.
• 1664 – Ottoman forces are defeated in the battle of Saint Gotthard by an Austrian army led by Raimondo Montecuccoli, resulting in the Peace of Vasvár.
• 1759 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Minden, an allied Anglo-German army victory over the French. In Britain this was one of a number of events that constituted the Annus Mirabilis of 1759 and is celebrated as Minden Day by certain British Army regiments.
• 1774 – British scientist Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen gas, corroborating the prior discovery of this element by German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
• 1798 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action.
• 1968 – The coronation is held of Hassanal Bolkiah, the 29th Sultan of Brunei.
• 2010 – Convention on Cluster Munitions enters into force.

• More anniversaries:
  • July 31
  • August 1
  • August 2

• 1343 – Olivier de Clisson is found guilty of treason and beheaded at Les Halles in Paris. As a result, his wife, Jeanne de Clisson, sold their holding, bought a fleet of ships, and took to the sea as a pirate to seek revenge against King Philip VI of France and the nobility.
• 1776 – The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place.
• 1830 – Charles X of France abdicates the throne in favor of his grandson Henri.
• 1944 – ASNOM: Birth of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, celebrated as Day of the Republic in the Republic of Macedonia.
• 1973 – A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
• 1989 – Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restored democracy for the first time since 1972.
• 2005 – Air France Flight 358, lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and runs off the runway causing the plane to burst into flames leaving 12 injuries and no fatalities.

• More anniversaries:
  • August 1
  • August 2
  • August 3

Today's featured picture

The Mona Lisa (/ˌmoʊnə ˈliːsə/; Italian: Monna Lisa [ˈmɔnna ˈliːza] or La Gioconda [la dʒoˈkonda], French: La Joconde [la ʒɔkɔ̃d]) is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". (Full article...)

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