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French battleship Bouvet

Bouvet was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy, built in the 1890s, and armed with a main battery of two 305 mm (12 in) guns and two 274 mm (10.8 in) guns in individual turrets. A top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) made her one of the fastest battleships in the world. Bouvet spent the majority of her peacetime career conducting routine training exercises and was withdrawn from front-line service in 1907. In early 1915 during World War I the ship participated in a series of attacks on the Ottoman fortifications guarding the Dardanelles. On 18 March 1915, during a major assault, the vessel was hit approximately eight times by shellfire but was not seriously damaged. While turning to withdraw, she struck a mine and sank within two minutes; only 75 men were rescued from a complement of 718. Two British battleships were also sunk by mines the same day, and the disaster convinced the Allies to abandon the naval campaign in favor of an amphibious assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula. (Full article...)

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Push-ups during the congressional office lottery
Push-ups during the congressional office lottery

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Pope Francis
Pope Francis

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December 29

The Squaw Man
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Tom Newman
Tom Newman

The UK Open Billiards Championship is an English billiards tournament, first contested in 1934. Joe Davis won the inaugural UK Professional English Billiards Championship title with an 18,745–18,309 defeat of Tom Newman (pictured). After 1934, the UK Championship was the premier event of the billiards season in the UK, in the absence of any contests for the world championships. David Causier won the 2019 title, with a 632–315 victory over Mark Hirst in the final. The competition was cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and has not been held since. The tournament has been staged 35 times and produced 17 different champions. Mike Russell has won the title a record eight times, one more than Joe Davis's total. Causier has taken three titles, and the only other players to have won the tournament more than once are two-time champions Rex Williams, Robby Foldvari, and Roxton Chapman. (Full list...)

Northern flicker

The northern flicker (Colaptes auratus) is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family, Picidae. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands. Adults of this species are brown with black bars on the back and wings, with a mid- to large-sized northern flicker measuring 28 to 36 cm (11 to 14 in) in length and 42 to 54 cm (17 to 21 in) in wingspan. Its body mass can vary from 86 to 167 grams (3.0 to 5.9 oz). Northern flickers are partial migrants, with those that do migrate beginning their spring migration in early April and making their return between September and October. Individuals that breed farther north travel greater distances than their migratory southern conspecifics, often resulting in the convergence of northern and southern populations at wintering sites. This male northern flicker was photographed looking out from a nesting hole in a tree in Central Park, New York City.

Photograph credit: Rhododendrites

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