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From today's featured article

Josette Simon (born 1959 or 1960) is a British actor. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and played the part of Dayna Mellanby in the third and fourth series of the science-fiction television series Blake's 7 from 1980 to 1981. She was the first black woman in a Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) play when she appeared in Salvation Now in 1982, and has been at the forefront of colour-blind casting, playing roles traditionally taken by white actors, including Maggie, a character who is thought to be based on Marilyn Monroe, in Arthur Miller's After the Fall in 1990. Simon's first leading role at the RSC, the first principal part filled by a black woman for the company, was as Rosaline, in Love's Labour's Lost in 1984. Simon has won the Evening Standard's Best Actress award, a Critics' Circle Theatre Award, Plays and Players Critic Awards, and two film festival awards. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2000 for services to drama. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Conestoga wagon on display

... that of the 146 Conestoga wagons (pictured) employed by the Braddock Expedition in the French and Indian War, only one remained intact by the campaign's end?
... that the Yogini with a Mynah Bird has the attributes of an ascetic as well as a princess?
... that artist Dan Hays uses what he calls "the tactile, flawed and time-consuming medium of painting" to reproduce the effect of a low-resolution JPEG?
... that the owner of a South Carolina TV station admitted, "I'm not a broadcaster"?
... that after serving as Malawi's first speaker of the assembly following independence, Alec Nyasulu was a tobacco farmer?
... that the "white rose" in The Valiant Girl White Rose refers to both its star and character, but neither share a name?
... that in 1860, engineer Andreas Kordellas helped restart operations at an ancient Athenian mine?
... that in "Skin of My Teeth", Demi Lovato declared that she barely escaped death?
... that for some time the penguin Happy Feet got more media attention than New Zealand Prime Minister John Key?

In the news

Joseph Aoun

Joseph Aoun (pictured) is elected president of Lebanon after a two-year vacancy.
An attack on the presidential palace in N'Djamena, Chad, results in 19 deaths.
A series of wildfires in Southern California, United States, leaves at least 25 people dead and destroys more than 12,000 structures.
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hits Tingri County in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China, leaving at least 126 people dead.

On this day...

January 14: Ratification Day in the United States (1784)

Poster for the premiere of Tosca

1301 – King Andrew III died without any male heirs, ending the Árpád dynasty, which had ruled Hungary since the late 9th century.
1900 – Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca (poster pictured), based on the play La Tosca by French dramatist Victorien Sardou, premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.
1960 – The Reserve Bank of Australia, the country's central bank and banknote-issuing authority, was established.
1970 – The self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra in southeastern Nigeria surrendered to the federal government less than three years after declaring independence, ending the Nigerian Civil War.
2018 – In the "Minneapolis Miracle", American football player Stefon Diggs caught a 61-yard (56 m) touchdown pass that secured the Minnesota Vikings' victory in the National Football Conference divisional playoff game.

Berthe Morisot (b. 1841)
George Pearce (b. 1870)
Rambhadracharya (b. 1950)
Arfa Karim (d. 2012)

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Today's featured picture

Nigeen Lake is a mildly eutrophic lake located in Srinagar, in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. It is sometimes considered to be a part of Dal Lake and is connected to it via a narrow strait. This panoramic photograph shows the west bank of Nigeen Lake, with houseboats lining the shore. Hari Parbat, a hill overlooking Srinagar, is visible to the left of centre, and the snow-capped Pir Panjal Range can be seen in the distance.

Photograph credit: KennyOMG; edited by UnpetitproleX

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