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From today's featured article
The Byzantine Empire, sometimes referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, originally founded as Byzantium). It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Both "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire ( Ancient Greek: Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, tr. Basileia tôn Rhōmaiōn; Latin: Imperium Romanum), or Romania ( Ῥωμανία), and to themselves as "Romans." ( Full article...)
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On this day...
August 10
- 1809 – Quito, now the capital of Ecuador, declares independence from Spain. This rebellion will be crushed on August 2, 1810.
- 1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Wilson's Creek: The war enters Missouri when a band of raw Confederate troops defeat Union forces in the southwestern part of the state.
- 1864 – After Uruguay's governing Blanco Party refuses Brazil's demands, José Antônio Saraiva announces that the Brazilian military will begin reprisals, beginning the Uruguayan War.
- 1913 – Second Balkan War: Delegates from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece sign the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the war.
- 1954 – At Massena, New York, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Saint Lawrence Seaway is held.
- 1971 – The Society for American Baseball Research is founded in Cooperstown, New York.
- 2003 – Yuri Malenchenko becomes the first person to marry in outer space.
- 2492 BC – Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and founder of the Armenian nation.
- 1929 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.
- 1947 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founding father of Pakistan, gives a speech to the Constituent Assembly, the contents and meaning of which remain contentious today.
- 1952 – Hussein bin Talal is proclaimed King of Jordan.
- 1995 - 1995 Russell Hill subway accident - The 1995 Russell Hill subway accident was a deadly train crash that occurred in Toronto, Ontario, Canada Three people were killed and 30 were taken to hospital with injuries when one train rear-ended another train. The subway line was shut down for five days.
- 1999 – The Salt Lake City Tornado tears through the downtown district of the city, killing one.
- 2003 – Jemaah Islamiyah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand.
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Today's featured picture
Shortly before his death in 1534
Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint a fresco of
The Last Judgement on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. His successor, Paul III was instrumental in seeing that Michelangelo began and completed the project. Michelangelo labored on the project from 1534 to October 1541. The fresco depicts the Second Coming of Christ and his Judgement of the souls. Michelangelo ignored the usual artistic conventions in portraying Jesus, and showed him a massive, muscular figure, youthful, beardless and naked. He is surrounded by saints, among which
Saint Bartholomew holds a drooping flayed skin, bearing the likeness of Michelangelo. The dead rise from their graves, to be consigned either to Heaven or to Hell. (
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