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Today's featured article

Lord Curzon, winner of the election

The January 1908 Irish representative peer election was held to fill a vacancy among the 28 Irish representative peers at the time elected for life to the British House of Lords, with ballots sent by post to the 134 Irish peers eligible to vote. The winner was Lord Curzon (pictured), the former viceroy of India, who had never been to Ireland and owned no Irish lands. A former MP, he stood to return to parliament after being denied an earldom by the prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. As he had not asked the House of Lords to affirm his right to vote in Irish representative peer elections, as required to vote in them, some stated that Curzon was ineligible for election. Despite a late start and opposition to him as non-Irish, Curzon led with two votes more than Lord Ashtown, who had two more than Lord Farnham, but the official return noted Curzon was not among those who could vote. When the House of Lords convened, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Loreburn, declared Curzon the winner. (Full article...)

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In the news

Thierry Neuville

Syrian opposition forces enter Aleppo in the first offensive since the 2020 ceasefire.
Israel and Lebanon agree to a 60-day ceasefire to halt the current hostilities.
In motorsport, Thierry Neuville (pictured) and Martijn Wydaeghe win the World Rally Championship.
In Formula One, Max Verstappen wins the World Championship.

Today's featured picture

Winston Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from 1922 to 1924, he was a member of Parliament from 1900 to 1964, representing five different constituencies. This black-and-white photograph of Churchill, titled The Roaring Lion, was taken on 30 December 1941 by the Armenian-Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh in the Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. The photograph is particularly noted for Churchill's posture and facial expression, which have been compared to the wartime feelings that prevailed in the United Kingdom – persistence in the face of an all-conquering enemy.

Photograph credit: Yousuf Karsh

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Did you know...

Nayib Bukele

... that Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele (pictured) has referred to himself as the "coolest dictator in the world"?
... that following its deconsecration, the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Venice and its grounds have been used as a stable, a tobacco warehouse, and a prison?
... that television director Diana Edwards-Jones introduced earpieces to permit direct communication between a control room and newsreaders?
... that St Francis of Assisi Church, Notting Hill, contains a font designed by John Francis Bentley and in which he was later baptised?
... that the 1983 Spanish floods were the most economically damaging in Spain until the 2024 Spanish floods?
... that the medieval Castle Knob was the site of a Cold War nuclear monitoring station?
... that Zhou Houkun wrote a thesis on the use of bamboo to reinforce concrete?
... that Burrito Express began shipping out its burritos by mail because of demand from former customers who had moved away from California?
... that weightlifter Wu Tsai-fu drank six huge glasses of beer to help himself urinate for a drug test?

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