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St Melangell's Church is a Grade I listed medieval building in the former village of Pennant Melangell, in the Tanat Valley, Powys, Wales. Built over a Bronze Age burial ground, the church was founded around the 8th century to commemorate the reputed grave of Melangell, a hermit and abbess who founded a convent and sanctuary in the area. The current church was built in the 12th century and has been renovated several times, including major restoration work in the 19th and 20th centuries. Archaeological excavation in the 20th century uncovered prehistoric and early medieval activity. The church contains the reconstructed shrine to Melangell, considered the oldest surviving Romanesque shrine in northern Europe and which was a major pilgrimage site in medieval Wales. The interior of the church holds a 15th-century rood screen depicting Melangell's legend, two 14th-century effigies, paintings, and liturgical fittings. (Full article...)

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On this day

August 9: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples; National Women's Day in South Africa (1956)

First Smokey Bear poster

1821 – The statue of A'a from Rurutu was presented to members of the London Missionary Society on the south Pacific island of Ra'iatea.
1934 – The Blue Lotus, the fifth volume of The Adventures of Tintin by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé and noted for its emphasis on countering negative misconceptions of Chinese people, began serialisation.
1944 – The United States Forest Service authorized the use of Smokey Bear (pictured) as its mascot to replace Bambi.
1974 – On the verge of an impeachment and removal from office amid the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first president of the United States to resign.
2014 – Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African-American man, was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, resulting in widespread protests and unrest.

Stephen of Anjou (d. 1354)
Ernst Haeckel (d. 1919)
Brett Hull (b. 1964)
Gay van der Meer (d. 2014)

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Painting of the Battle of the Nile by Thomas Whitcombe

The order of battle at the Battle of the Nile, fought from 1 to 3 August 1798, consisted of 15 British ships and at least 17 French ships. The Battle of the Nile took place in Aboukir Bay, near the mouth of the Nile on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, and pitted a fleet of the Royal Navy against a fleet of the French Navy. The battle was the climax of a three-month campaign in the Mediterranean during which a large French convoy under General Napoleon Bonaparte had sailed from Toulon to Alexandria via Malta. Despite close pursuit by a British fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson, the French were able to reach Alexandria unscathed and successfully land an army, which Bonaparte led inland. Nelson reached the Egyptian coast on 1 August and discovered the French fleet at 14:00. Advancing during the afternoon, his ships entered the bay at 18:20 and attacked the French directly. The French fleet was almost totally destroyed, which reversed the strategic situation in the Mediterranean, giving the Royal Navy control of the sea which it retained until the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. (Full list...)

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John C. Dancy (1857–1920) was an American politician, journalist, and educator. For many years he was the editor of African Methodist Episcopal newspapers Star of Zion and then Zion Quarterly. In 1897 he was appointed collector of customs at Wilmington, North Carolina, but was chased out of town in the Wilmington massacre of 1898, in part for his activity in the National Afro-American Council which he helped found and of which he was an officer. He then moved to Washington, D.C., where he served as recorder of deeds from 1901 to 1910. His political appointments came in part as a result of the influence of his ally, Booker T. Washington.

Photograph credit: Turner; restored by Adam Cuerden

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