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Pentecost, folios 18v–19r

The Morgan Black Hours is an illuminated book of hours produced in Bruges between 1460 and 1480. It is one of seven surviving black books of hours, all originating from Bruges and dated to the mid- to late 15th century. They are named for their unusual dark blueish colourisation, achieved through the expensive process of dyeing the vellum with iron gall ink. The Morgan Black Hours consists of 121 leaves, most containing rows of Latin text written in Gothic minuscule script inscribed in silver and in gold. The pages are typically dyed a deep blueish black, with borders ornamented with flowers, foliage and grotesques. Although considered a masterpiece of Late Gothic manuscript illumination, there are no surviving records of its commission, but its dark tone, expense of production, quality and rarity suggest ownership by privileged and sophisticated members of the Burgundian court. It has been in the collection of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York since 1912. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Lil Uzi Vert

... that American rapper Lil Uzi Vert (pictured) took more than a year to release his second studio album Eternal Atake, but released its deluxe edition only a week later?
... that Ansgar the Staller was severely injured at the Battle of Hastings, but was carried to London where he then led the English defence at the Burning of Southwark?
... that during filming of the banned ski-BASE jump performed by Rick Sylvester in Yosemite Valley, the film crew were threatened with arrest but not caught afterwards?
... that French medievalist Francis Rapp, who taught at three universities in Strasbourg, specialised in the history of Alsace?
... that the tree Macaranga triloba encourages the ants that defend it by providing them with food bodies?
... that John W. Walsh founded several non-profits around alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, a condition that had fewer than 5,000 recorded cases when he was diagnosed with it?
... that a fresco depicting the Nursing Madonna was found in the churchyard of San Michele Arcangelo ai Corridori di Borgo in Rome?
... that Carol Shanahan bought Port Vale F.C. because she felt that "a loved one was held hostage and someone had to pay the ransom"?

In the news

Coronavirus pandemic

Netanyahu (left) and Gantz (right)

After seventeen months of stalemate, the Likud and Blue and White parties reach an agreement for Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz (pictured) to share power in Israel.
A mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Canada, leaves twenty-two victims dead.
In the South Korean legislative election, the ruling Democratic Party and their allies increase their majority in the National Assembly.

On this day

April 25: Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand (1915); Liberation Day in Italy (1946)

USS Triton (SSRN-586)

775 – The Abbasid army won a decisive victory over the forces of rebelling Armenian princes at the Battle of Bagrevand.
1846 – Mexican–American War: Mexican forces defeated American troops over the disputed border of Texas, later serving as the primary justification for the U.S. Congress's declaration of war on Mexico.
1920 – At the San Remo conference, the principal Allies of World War I passed a resolution allocating League of Nations mandates for the administration of former Ottoman territories in the Middle East.
1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton (pictured) completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the world.
1990 – Violeta Chamorro took office as president of Nicaragua, becoming the first female head of state in the Americas to have been elected in her own right.

Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester (d. 1264)
Georg Sverdrup (b. 1770)
Al Pacino (b. 1940)

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Today's featured picture

Tract housing evolved in the 1940s when the demand for cheap housing rocketed after World War II. Economies of scale meant that large numbers of identical homes could be built faster and more cheaply to fulfil the increased demand. Developers purchased a dozen or more adjacent lots and conducted the building construction as an assembly-line process. This type of development is often criticised by city planners and architects because it overlooks the concept of community building, instead creating a homogeneous residential neighborhood with no local employment, commerce, services, or attractions.

This aerial photograph shows tract housing in the suburbs of Markham, a city in Ontario, Canada.

Photograph credit: Ian Duke; edited by Eric Gaba

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