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From today's featured article

Yuji Naka

Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2006 platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega. It was produced in commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the Sonic series, and intended as a reboot for the seventh-generation video game consoles. Players control Sonic, Shadow, and the new character Silver, who battle Solaris, an ancient evil pursued by Doctor Eggman. Development was rushed after Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka (pictured) resigned from the team to form his own company, and half of the team was diverted to work on the Wii game Sonic and the Secret Rings. Sonic the Hedgehog was released for the Xbox 360 in November and for the PlayStation 3 the following month; versions for Wii and Windows were canceled. Praised in prerelease showings, the game was a critical failure, described as one of the worst games in the series. Reviewers criticized its loading times, camera system, story, stability, and controls. In 2010, Sega delisted the game from retailers. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Judy Ann Santos

... that Ploning and Mindanao, films starring Judy Ann Santos (pictured), were the Philippine submissions for Best International Feature Film at the 81st and 93rd Academy Awards, respectively?
... that the 32-story Bridge Apartments in New York City were built directly above a 12-lane freeway?
... that when Heather Phillips made her European debut in Rossini's Bianca e Falliero at the Oper Frankfurt, reviewers agreed that her nuanced coloraturas served to portray Bianca's development?
... that in the 1951 court case Kuzych v White, on appeal from the British Columbia Court of Appeal, five law lords of the British Judicial Committee ruled in favour of a Communist-led trade union?
... that the Godhavn inquiry found that a psychiatrist gave children the antipsychotic medication chlorprothixene to stop bedwetting – which was neither standard nor validated by contemporary evidence?
... that Mily Treviño-Sauceda, the co-founder of the first national grassroots women's farmworker organization in the United States, the National Alliance of Farmworker Women, was a child farmworker in the 1960s?
... that during the Napoleonic looting of art, French soldiers destroyed the Venetian state ship, the Bucentaur, and melted down its gold decorations?
... that the owner of Phoenix's KNXV-TV "[held] a gun to ABC's head" – and it paid off?

In the news

Pedro Castillo

Protests in Peru against inflation and the policies of President Pedro Castillo (pictured) result in at least nine deaths and the looting of the Supreme Court's offices.
In NCAA Division I basketball, the South Carolina Gamecocks win the women's championship and the Kansas Jayhawks win the men's championship.
Rodrigo Chaves Robles is elected President of Costa Rica.
Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians are found dead after Russian forces withdraw from Bucha.

On this day

April 8

Bust of Caracalla

217 – Roman emperor Caracalla (pictured) was assassinated near Harran and succeeded by his Praetorian Guard prefect Macrinus.
876 – Abbasid forces decisively defeated those of Saffarid emir Ya'qub ibn Laith, forcing the latter to halt his advance into Iraq.
1630 – Kiliaen van Rensselaer purchased land near present-day Albany, New York, to found the Manor of Rensselaerswyck, which became the most successful patroonship under the Dutch West India Company.
1904 – Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan, was renamed Times Square after the New York Times building.
1942 – World War II: The United States Army Air Forces flew its first mission from India over the Hump (the eastern end of the Himalayas) to deliver materiel to China.

John II Komnenos (d. 1143)
Niels Juel (d. 1697)
Jack Tramiel (d. 2012)

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From today's featured list

Jack Nicklaus

There have been 54 champions of the Masters Tournament, a golf competition that was established in 1934, with Horton Smith winning the inaugural tournament. The Masters Tournament is the first of four major golf championships to be played each year. The champion receives the "Green Jacket", the first one being won by Sam Snead in 1949. The champion takes the jacket home for a year and returns it thereafter. Jack Nicklaus (pictured) holds the record for the most Masters victories, winning the tournament six times during his career. Nicklaus is also the oldest winner of the Masters: he was 46 years old when he won in 1986. Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, and Tiger Woods jointly hold the record for most consecutive victories, with two each. The lowest winning score, 268 (20 under par), was recorded by Dustin Johnson in 2020. Hideki Matsuyama is the most recent champion, having won the 2021 Masters Tournament with a score of 278 (10 under par). (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Oedipus and the Sphinx is an 1864 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Gustave Moreau. The picture depicts the story in Greek mythology of Oedipus meeting the Sphinx at a crossroads on his journey between Thebes and Delphi. Oedipus must answer the Sphinx's riddle correctly in order to pass, and failure to do so means his own death and that of the besieged Thebans. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Painting credit: Gustave Moreau

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