20251119
From today's featured article
"Water Under the Bridge" is a song by the English singer Adele (pictured) from her third studio album 25 (2015). Adele wrote the song with its producer, Greg Kurstin. Columbia Records released the track as the album's fourth single on 14 November 2016. A mid-tempo pop, soul and soft-rock song, "Water Under the Bridge" incorporates influences of 1980s music, R&B and a gospel choir over guitars and snare drums. Inspired by her relationship with the charity founder Simon Konecki, who Adele dated for seven years and married in 2018, the song speaks of forgiveness and details the crucial point in a courtship of determining whether one's partner is willing to put in the work to make it succeed. Music critics praised Adele's vocal performance, though some thought it was too loud and criticised some of the production choices. It reached number one in Israel and the top ten in Poland, Belgium and Iceland and gained Platinum or higher certifications in Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
- ... that a large carnivorous dinosaur recorded at Copper Ridge (fossil track pictured) might have been limping?
- ... that Luke Felix-Fualalo played rugby despite being below his league's age limit because he "was just too big to tell no"?
- ... that the filming location of the Neighbours International Men's Day episode had to be changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic?
- ... that optical physicist Franklin Dollar grew up on a Native American reservation without electricity or running water?
- ... that a British health campaign on recreational drug overdose recommended using soy sauce fishes to measure safe dosages?
- ... that when the COVID-19 pandemic began, Masyita Crystallin was instructed by the Indonesian finance minister to study the Spanish flu to help formulate unconventional economic policies?
- ... that several parents opted against including their children's names on the New London Cenotaph, with the designers leaving blank spaces on the memorial to commemorate them?
- ... that, despite popular myth, NFL player Jairo Penaranda did not participate in llama-broncing?
- ... that golden trout disappeared from Silver Lake?
In the news
- Former prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina (pictured) is found guilty of crimes against humanity in absentia by a Bangladeshi tribunal and sentenced to death.
- The High Court of Justice in London rules BHP liable for the 2015 Mariana dam disaster in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
- A suicide bombing kills 12 people in Islamabad, Pakistan.
- Typhoon Fung-wong hits the Philippines, leaving more than 27 people dead.
On this day
November 19: International Men's Day; World Toilet Day; Liberation Day in Mali (1968)
- 1863 – American Civil War: U.S. president Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
- 1942 – World War II: Soviet troops launched Operation Uranus at the Battle of Stalingrad with the goal of encircling Axis forces, turning the tide of the battle in their favour.
- 1985 – The first of five summits (pictured) between Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. president Ronald Reagan began in Geneva.
- 2005 – Iraq War: A group of United States Marines massacred 25 people in the town of Haditha.
- 2010 – The first of four explosions occurred at the Pike River Mine in the West Coast in New Zealand's worst mining disaster in nearly a century.
- Nicolas Poussin (d. 1665)
- Jean-Antoine Nollet (b. 1700)
- Mikhail Kalinin (b. 1875)
- Rosalynn Carter (d. 2023)
Today's featured picture
The grey-headed honeyeater (Ptilotula keartlandi) is a species of bird in the honeyeater family, Meliphagidae. It is endemic to Australia, where it has an extensive range covering much of the central arid and semi-arid areas of the continent. It mostly frequents eucalyptus scrub and woodlands in stony hill country and timbered gullies within ranges, but has also been observed on sand-plains with flowering vegetation, mulga and mallee woodlands, riverine areas and occasionally in Mitchell grasslands. The grey-headed honeyeater is thought to be largely sedentary, but undertakes nomadic movements in response to flowering events. The bird is relatively small for a honeyeater, with a total body length of 13–16.5 cm (5.1–6.5 in) and a mass of 12–18 g (0.4–0.6 oz). Adults have a distinctive grey crown above a black facial mask with the nape and remaining upper body parts coloured dark fawn-grey, with light olive-yellow breast, belly, flanks, and throat streaked with brown, a light-grey brown rump and a short black bill. It feeds on invertebrates as well as insects on the wing and, like many honeyeaters, it consumes nectar from flowering trees. This grey-headed honeyeater was photographed in Watarrka National Park in Australia's Northern Territory.
Photograph credit: JJ Harrison