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The Battle of Cape Ecnomus was a naval battle fought off the coast of Sicily in 256 BC between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic during the First Punic War (264–241 BC). The Carthaginian fleet was commanded by Hanno the Great and Hamilcar; the Roman fleet was led by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. The Roman fleet of 330 warships sailed with approximately 140,000 men on board. The Romans' plan was to cross to Africa and invade the Carthaginian homeland, in what is now Tunisia. The Carthaginians were apparently aware of the Romans' intentions and mustered 350 warships off the south coast of Sicily to intercept them. With a combined total of about 680 warships carrying up to 290,000 crew and marines, the battle was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved. After a prolonged and confused day of fighting the Carthaginians were decisively defeated. (Full article...)

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In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Portal

World Food Programme headquarters in Rome

The UN World Food Programme (headquarters pictured) is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger.
Poet Louise Glück is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of a method for genome editing.

On this day

October 10: Shemini Atzeret (Judaism, 2020)

Spiro Agnew

680 – Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of Muhammad, was killed in the Battle of Karbala by the forces of Yazid I, whom Husayn had refused to recognize as caliph.
1846 – English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest moon of Neptune.
1911 – The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising, marking the beginning of the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.
1963 – The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground, came into effect.
1973 – U.S. vice president Spiro Agnew (pictured) resigned after being charged with tax evasion.

Mary of Waltham (b. 1344)
George Washington Parke Custis (d. 1857)
Kazuyoshi Miura (d. 2008)

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Today's featured picture

Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, and the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. He had a unique improvisational style and famously remarked, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes". He made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", and a wide range of other compositions. He was renowned for a distinctive dress style, which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a few appearances during the final decade of his life. This 1947 photograph of Monk was taken by the American photographer William P. Gottlieb in Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club in New York.

Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden

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