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From today's featured article
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Ian Carmichael (18 June 1920 – 5 February 2010) was an English actor who had a career that spanned seventy years. Born in Kingston upon Hull, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but his studies—and the early stages of his career—were curtailed by the Second World War. After initial success in revue and sketch productions, he was cast by the film producers John and Roy Boulting to star in a series of satires, starting with Private's Progress in 1956 through to I'm All Right Jack in 1959. In the mid-1960s he played Bertie Wooster for BBC Television for which he received positive reviews, including from P. G. Wodehouse, the writer who created the character of Wooster. In the early 1970s he played another upper-class literary character, Lord Peter Wimsey, the amateur but talented investigator created by Dorothy L. Sayers. Carmichael was often typecast as an affable but bumbling upper-class innocent, but he retained a disciplined approach to training and rehearsing. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
- ... that Boulder–Deer Creek Pass (pictured) is home to "Togo" wolves and is a potential habitat for grizzly bears?
- ... that Wang Yungui lifted her family out of poverty, then helped hundreds of other people in her home village to do likewise?
- ... that Inua Ellams created the antagonist for "The Story & the Engine" after learning that "ghost writer" translates to 'Black person' in French?
- ... that Regina George was once voted the "meanest high school film character of all time"?
- ... that The Guardian recommended Buried Alive! as a book to help children make friends?
- ... that John Lynch was at one point the only honors linguistics student at the University of Sydney?
- ... that Pope John Paul I broke with tradition by declining to be crowned with a tiara at his inauguration?
- ... that Robin Adair Harvey reached 17 state championships in 24 years as a high school field hockey coach?
- ... that British troops during the sack of Yogyakarta looted all the court archives and manuscripts except for a single Quran?
In the news
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- In the US state of Minnesota, state representative Melissa Hortman (pictured) is assassinated and state senator John Hoffman is injured.
- Former president of Nicaragua and first elected female president in the Americas Violeta Chamorro dies at the age of 95.
- Israel launches multiple airstrikes across cities in Iran, killing various nuclear scientists and military officials, including IRGC Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami.
- Air India Flight 171 crashes in Ahmedabad, India, killing 279 people.
On this day
- 1898 – The Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon (pictured) in Bar-le-Duc, France, was designated a monument historique.
- 1958 – English composer Benjamin Britten's one-act opera Noye's Fludde was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival.
- 1981 – The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, the first operational aircraft to be designed around stealth technology, made its maiden flight.
- 1994 – The Troubles: Ulster Volunteer Force members attacked a crowded bar in Loughinisland, Northern Ireland, with assault rifles, killing six people.
- 2022 – A disputed party massacred over 500 Amhara civilians in Gimbi, Ethiopia.
- Rogier van der Weyden (d. 1464)
- Ambrose Philips (d. 1749)
- Lou Brock (b. 1939)
- Stephanie Kwolek (d. 2014)
Today's featured picture
The Garni Temple is a classical colonnaded structure in the village of Garni, in central Armenia, around 30 km (19 mi) east of Yerevan. Built in the Ionic order, it is the best-known structure and symbol of pre-Christian Armenia. It has been described as the "easternmost building of the Greco-Roman world" and the only largely preserved Hellenistic building in the former Soviet Union. It is conventionally identified as a pagan temple built by King Tiridates I in the first century AD as a temple to the sun god Mihr (Mithra). It collapsed in a 1679 earthquake, but much of its fragments remained on the site. Renewed interest in the 19th century led to excavations in the early and mid-20th century. It was reconstructed in 1969–75, using the anastylosis technique. It is one of the main tourist attractions in Armenia and the central shrine of Hetanism (Armenian neopaganism). This aerial photograph shows the Garni Temple in the winter.
Photograph credit: Yerevantsi
