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Today (April 27)
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April 27 After the Deluge is an oil painting by English artist George Frederic Watts. Completed in 1891, it shows a scene from the story of Noah's Flood, in which Noah opens the window of his Ark to see that after 40 days the rain has stopped. The Symbolist painting is a stylised seascape, dominated by a bright sunburst breaking through clouds. Watts intended to evoke a monotheistic God in the act of creation, without depicting the Creator directly. The unfinished painting was exhibited at a church in Whitechapel in 1886, under the intentionally simplified title of The Sun. The completed version was shown for the first time at the New Gallery in 1891 and was admired by Watts's fellow artists. It influenced many painters who worked in the two decades following. Between 1902 and 1906 the painting was exhibited around the United Kingdom. It is now in the collection of the Watts Gallery in Compton, Guildford, Surrey. (Full article...)
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April 27: Koningsdag in the Netherlands
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Tomorrow (April 28)
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April 28 "Cross Road Blues" is a song written by the American blues artist Robert Johnson. He sang it as a solo piece with acoustic slide guitar in the Delta blues style. The lyrics describe Johnson's grief at being unable to catch a ride at an intersection before the sun sets. Some have attached a supernatural significance to the song. One of Johnson's two recorded performances was released in 1937 as a single, heard mainly in the Mississippi Delta area. The second, which reached a wider audience, was included on King of the Delta Blues Singers, a compilation album of some of Johnson's songs released in 1961 during the American folk music revival. Elmore James recorded a version of the song in 1954, and another in either 1960 or 1961. In the late 1960s, guitarist Eric Clapton and his bandmates in the British rock group Cream (pictured) popularized it as "Crossroads". Their blues rock interpretation became one of their best-known songs, inspiring many cover versions. (Full article...)
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April 28: Workers' Memorial Day
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In two days (April 29)
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April 29 The Battle of Grand Gulf was fought on April 29, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army forces commanded by Ulysses S. Grant had failed several times to bypass or capture the Confederate-held city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant decided to move his army south of Vicksburg, cross the Mississippi River, and then advance on the city. A Confederate division under John S. Bowen prepared defenses—Forts Wade and Cobun—at Grand Gulf, Mississippi. To clear the way for a Union crossing, seven ironclad warships from the Mississippi Squadron of the Union Navy commanded by Admiral David Dixon Porter bombarded the Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf. Union fire silenced Fort Wade, but the overall Confederate position held. Grant decided to cross the river elsewhere. The next day, Union forces crossed the river at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. The position at Grand Gulf was abandoned and became a Union supply point. The Grand Gulf battlefield is preserved in Grand Gulf Military State Park. (Full article...)
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April 29 Arsenal Women Football Club have played 36 domestic league seasons and remained in the English top flight since joining in 1992. Based in London, they are the most successful club in English women's football. They formed in 1987, 100 years after the inception of the Arsenal men's team, and were an amateur side for over a decade until the team became semi-professional in 2002. During the 1990s and 2000s, under the management of Vic Akers and other successive coaches, Arsenal experienced an unprecedented period of success dominating English competitions with no sustained opposition. Domestically, Arsenal have won 15 league titles, 14 FA Cups, 17 league cups and five FA Community Shields; the club holds the most titles of each individual domestic competition. Arsenal are the only English side to have won Europe's continental women's football competition, the UEFA Women's Champions League (formally the UEFA Women's Cup), after the club defeated the Swedish side Umeå in the 2007 final. (Full list...) | |||
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In three days (April 30)
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April 30 The Inaccessible Island rail (Laterallus rogersi) is a bird found only on Inaccessible Island in the South Atlantic Tristan archipelago. This rail, the smallest extant flightless bird, was described by physician Percy Lowe in 1923. The adult has brown plumage, a black bill, black feet, and red eyes. It occupies most habitats on the island, from the beaches to the central plateau, feeding on a variety of small invertebrates and some plant matter. Pairs are territorial and monogamous; both parents incubate the eggs and raise the chicks. The rail's adaptations to living on a tiny island at high densities include a low basal metabolic rate, small clutch sizes, and flightlessness. Unlike many other oceanic islands, Inaccessible Island has remained free from introduced predators, allowing this species to flourish while many other flightless rails have gone extinct. The species is nevertheless considered vulnerable, due to the danger of a single catastrophe wiping out the small, isolated population. (Full article...)
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In four days (May 1)
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May 1 La Salute è in voi! ("Health/Salvation is in you!") was an early 1900s bomb-making handbook associated with the Galleanisti, followers of anarchist Luigi Galleani, particularly in the United States. The anonymously written, Italian-language handbook repackaged technical content from encyclopedias and applied chemistry books into plain directions for non-technical amateurs to build explosives. It wrapped this content in a political manifesto advocating for impoverished workers to overcome their despair and commit to individual, revolutionary acts. American police and historians used the handbook to profile anarchists and imply guilt by possession. It figured prominently in the prosecution of the Bresci Circle, a case that revolved around the anarchists' right to read. Successful political bombers of this era ultimately had career backgrounds in explosives and were not the self-taught amateurs the handbook sought to create. (Full article...)
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May 1: Beltane and Samhain in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively; Maharashtra Day in Maharashtra, India (1960); Loyalty Day in the United States
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In five days (May 2)
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May 2 The Western Chalukya Empire ruled most of the western Deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries. This Kannadiga dynasty is sometimes called the Kalyani Chalukya after its regal capital at Kalyani, today's Basavakalyan in the modern Bidar District of Karnataka state, and alternatively the Later Chalukya from its theoretical relationship to the sixth-century Chalukya dynasty of Badami. Prior to the rise of the Western and Eastern Chalukyas, the Rashtrakuta Empire of Manyakheta controlled most of the Deccan and Central India for over two centuries. In 973, seeing confusion in the Rashtrakuta Empire after a successful invasion of their capital by the ruler of the Paramara dynasty of Malwa, Tailapa II, a feudatory of the Rashtrakuta dynasty ruling from Bijapur region, defeated his overlords and made Manyakheta his capital. The dynasty quickly rose to power and grew into an empire under Someshvara I who moved the capital to Kalyani. (Full article...)
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May 2: National Day of Prayer in the United States (2024)
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In six days (May 3)
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May 3 Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption was a legally recognized church in the United States established by the comedian and satirist John Oliver (pictured). Announced on August 16, 2015, in an episode of the television program Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the church's purpose was to highlight and criticize televangelists, such as Kenneth Copeland and Robert Tilton, who Oliver argued used television broadcasts of Christian church services for private gain. Oliver also established Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption to draw attention to the tax-exempt status given to churches. During his show on September 13, 2015, Oliver announced that the church had received "thousands of dollars" and a variety of other items from viewers, and stated that the Church would be shutting down. All monetary donations were given to Doctors Without Borders. Oliver set up spinoffs of the Church in 2018 and 2021. The segments and later spinoff segments featured the comedian Rachel Dratch as Oliver's fictional wife, Wanda Jo. (Full article...)
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May 3: World Press Freedom Day; Constitution Memorial Day in Japan (1947); Constitution Day in Poland (1791)
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May 3 The British 1st Armoured Division had eight permanent commanders, or general officer commanding (GOC). The 1st Armoured Division was an armoured division of the British Army. It was formed in 1937 and disbanded in 1945. The division was commanded by a GOC, who received orders from a level above him in the chain of command, and then used the forces within the division to undertake the mission assigned. In addition to directing the tactical battle in which the division was involved, the GOC oversaw a staff and the administrative, logistical, medical, training, and discipline concerns of the division. On 24 November 1937, after several years of debate on such a formation, the division was founded as the Mobile Division. It was then renamed, in April 1939, as the 1st Armoured Division. Following the start of the Second World War, subordinate units and formations were withdrawn from the division to reinforce others. It was eventually deployed for combat, in May 1940. (Full list...) | |||
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In seven days (May 4)
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May 4 Dorothy Olsen (July 10, 1916 – July 23, 2019) was an American aircraft pilot and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II. She developed an interest in aviation at a young age and earned her private pilot's license in 1939, when it was unusual for women to be pilots. In 1943, Olsen joined the newly-formed WASPs as a civil service employee. After training in Texas, she was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach, California, where she worked ferrying new aircraft from the factories where they were built to U.S. airbases. She flew more than 20 types of military airplanes, including high performance fighters – such as the P-51 and the twin-engine P-38 – which she favored over larger aircraft such as bombers. After the war, Olsen retired from flying and moved to Washington State, where she married, raised a family, and lived for the rest of her life. In 2009, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal honoring her service during the war. (Full article...)
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May 4: Youth Day in China; Literary Day in Taiwan; Star Wars Day
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- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.