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Today's featured article

DeLancey W. Gill (1859–1940) was an American drafter, landscape painter, and photographer. As a teenager, he moved in with an aunt in Washington, D.C., after his mother and stepfather traveled west. He eventually found himself employed as an architectural draftsman for the Treasury. He created sketches and watercolor paintings of the city, with a particular focus on the still-undeveloped rural and poorer areas of the district. While working as an illustrator for the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology in the 1890s, he was appointed as the agency's photographer without prior photographic training. He took portrait photographs that circulated widely of thousands of Native American delegates to Washington, including notable figures such as Chief Joseph and Geronimo. These photographs have come under modern criticism for his frequent use of props and clothing, sometimes outdated or inauthentic, given to the delegates. (Full article...)

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In the news

Keir Starmer

The New Popular Front wins the most seats in the National Assembly in the French legislative election but does not achieve a majority.
The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election and Keir Starmer (pictured) becomes prime minister.
Hurricane Beryl, the earliest-recorded Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in a calendar year, leaves at least 15 people dead in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and the United States.
In the Netherlands, a new cabinet is sworn in, with Dick Schoof serving as the prime minister.

Today's featured picture

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist. He is known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating-current electricity supply system. This photograph, taken in Tesla's laboratory in Colorado Springs in December 1899, supposedly shows him reading in a chair next to his giant "magnifying transmitter" high-voltage generator while the machine produces huge bolts of electricity. The image was created through a double exposure as part of a promotional stunt by the photographer Dickenson V. Alley. The machine's huge sparks were first photographed in the darkened room, then the photographic plate was exposed again with the machine off and Tesla sitting in the chair. In his notes, compiled in Colorado Springs Notes, 1899–1900, Tesla admitted that the photo is false.

Photograph credit: Dickenson V. Alley; restored by Bammesk

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Did you know...

Yevhen Klopotenko

... that Yevhen Klopotenko (pictured) fought a "war for borscht"?
... that a street in San Francisco was named after a man who used a false identity?
... that Alfie Templeman described the style of his studio album Radiosoul as "incohesively cohesive"?
... that Rosemary Miller won her state's skeet shooting championship one year after learning the sport, and then won a state shooting championship in all but two years for the rest of her life?
... that the Japanese boy band Nexz was created through the program Nizi Project season 2?
... that the Nazi collaborator Sebastiaan de Ranitz abandoned his office following Mad Tuesday, leaving his department in turmoil?
... that Gedling Town F.C.'s nickname "The Ferrymen" was inspired by the name of a pub located next to the team's stadium?
... that Antonio Dini was the only survivor of a three-man crew after he crashed a plane into the sea, but had no recollection of the crash due to concussion?
... that after a pigeon sculpture in Wellington went missing, members of the public created a memorial for it?

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