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From today's featured article
Did you know ...
Populus Denver
- ... that the facade of Populus Denver (pictured) has been compared to a "cheese grater"?
- ... that Dalmatius was murdered by his soldiers during a massacre that killed nearly all the male members of the Constantinian dynasty?
- ... that news of the deadliest cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere took a month to reach authorities?
- ... that Israel Keyes buried "murder kits", containing weapons and supplies, years before using them in his crimes?
- ... that the character designer for Drill Dozer had his wife model with two roll cakes on her head to create the main character's hair?
- ... that Harold Orlob was not credited as a composer of the 1909 hit song "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" until he sued in 1947?
- ... that The Mosquito Bowl is based on a college football game played before the battle of Okinawa?
- ... that a painting by Adelaide Ironside modelled its depiction of Christ on the Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi?
- ... that the commissioner of the New York City Department of Bridges did not classify the High Bridge as a bridge?
In the news
Mojtaba Khamenei
- Mojtaba Khamenei (pictured) is elected Supreme Leader of Iran following the assassination of his father, Ali Khamenei.
- Flooding in Kenya leaves at least 43 people dead.
- The Winter Paralympics open in northern Italy.
- Israel and the United States launch strikes on Iran, killing senior officials and sparking a wider war.
- A Lockheed C-130 Hercules of the Bolivian Air Force crashes into a road in El Alto, killing more than 20 people.
On this day
Premiere poster of Rigoletto
1851 – The first performance of Verdi's Rigoletto took place at La Fenice in Venice (poster pictured).
1993 – The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Janet Reno as the first female United States attorney general.
2007 – Georgian authorities accused Russia of orchestrating a helicopter attack in the Kodori Valley, in the breakaway territory of Abkhazia.
2010 – During the inauguration of Chilean president Sebastián Piñera, earthquakes registering 6.9 and 7.0 struck the O'Higgins Region near the city of Pichilemu, causing widespread damage.
2020 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 virus epidemic a pandemic.
Mary of Woodstock (b. 1278)
Stanisław Koniecpolski (d. 1646)
Ralph Abernathy (b. 1926)
Gladys Pearl Baker (d. 1984)
From today's featured list
Wembley Stadium, previously the Empire Stadium, in 2002
Twenty-five venues hosted the events of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. For the first time in the history of the modern Olympic Games, the diving, gymnastics, swimming, and water polo competitions were held indoors. These Games have since been nicknamed the "Austerity Games" for the tight control of costs at a time when the United Kingdom was still under rationing. All of the venues were already in place and required only temporary modifications. The organizing committee decided not to build an Olympic Village; foreign athletes were instead housed in makeshift camps at military bases and colleges around London, while local athletes were told to stay at home. The Empire Stadium (pictured), later known as Wembley Stadium, was chosen as the main venue. The Empress Hall (later Earls Court Exhibition Centre) and the Empire Pool (later Wembley Arena) were later reused as venues of the 2012 Summer Olympics. (Full list...)
Today's featured picture
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| Mobile radar observation of tornadoes, or mobile Doppler weather radar, is a technique developed in the late 20th century to study rapidly evolving atmospheric phenomena such as tornadoes and severe convective storms. This is an improvement over earlier ground-based observation networks such as mesonets, which are often too slow to capture detailed measurements of short-lived events. Early innovations include the 1993 ELDORA airborne radar system, mounted on a Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft to observe large storms at high resolution, and the 1994–95 Doppler on Wheels (DOW), which was deployed during the VORTEX1 project. Later developments improved scanning speed and detail: in 2011, the RaXPol mobile radar was created to rapidly observe storms and hurricanes, and in 2023 the University of Oklahoma and the National Severe Storms Laboratory deployed HORUS, the first fully digital mobile phased array weather radar. This DOW radar loop shows the hook echo and the associated mesocyclone of the 2009 Goshen County tornado in Wyoming. The animation spans a duration of about 24 minutes, and is colored according to reflectivity data on the left and velocity data on the right. Animation credit: Joshua Wurman / Center for Severe Weather Research |
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