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From today's featured article

St George and the Dragon atop Mells War Memorial

Mells War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the village of Mells, Somerset, in south-western England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the memorial takes the form of a marble column topped by a sculpture of Saint George slaying a dragon (pictured). At the base of the column, the names of the village's war dead are inscribed on stone panels. The memorial is flanked by rubble walls in local stone, on top of which grows a yew hedge. Low stone benches protrude from the walls to allow wreaths to be laid. The memorial is one of multiple buildings and structures in Mells designed by Lutyens. The memorial was unveiled on 26 June 1921 by Brigadier-General Arthur Asquith, whose brother is commemorated on it and whose father was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for much of the war. Additional panels were fixed to the wall to commemorate the Second World War. It is a grade II* listed building and since 2015 has been part of a national collection of Lutyens's war memorials. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Rock-cut niches of Teniky in southern Madagascar

... that an enigmatic ancient site deep in Madagascar (pictured) may have been built by Zoroastrians?
... that Jacques Lewis, a 105-year-old French veteran of D-Day, insisted that he participate in a ceremony commemorating the invasion's 80th anniversary?
... that a memorial in Suffolk, England, marks the deaths of six members of a scout troop in a 1914 boating accident and that of the sole survivor two years later in the Battle of the Somme?
... that, according to his family, Ye Yanlan was compelled to leave government service after speaking Cantonese in front of the emperor of China?
... that the suppression of the Diaspora Revolt of 115–117 CE led to the near-total annihilation and displacement of Jewish communities in Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and much of Egypt?
... that 50 Lan occupied the number-one spot in Taiwan's bubble tea market for most of 2023?
... that the world's oldest timepiece with an anchor escapement is in the collection of the Irish Museum of Time?
... that editors often line up in rival camps during contentious disputes on Wikipedia and the winning side typically cites encyclopedic policies to favor their viewpoint?
... that although Hugh O'Neill publicly assisted the English Crown in thwarting Irish rebels during the Nine Years' War, he was secretly the leader of the Irish confederacy?

In the news

Launch of SpaceX Starship

SpaceX Starship, the most powerful rocket to date, is launched (pictured) from Texas and destroyed almost four minutes into the flight.
At least 90 people are killed and 322 others are injured in a crowd crush in Sanaa, Yemen.
The wreckage of Montevideo Maru, a Japanese vessel sunk by the US during World War II with over 1000 captive Australian nationals onboard, is discovered in the South China Sea.

On this day

November 11: Armistice Day (known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations and Veterans Day in the United States); Singles' Day in China and Southeast Asia

Shrine of Remembrance

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British forces and their Iroquois allies attacked a fort and the village of Cherry Valley, New York, killing 14 soldiers and 30 civilians.
1813 – War of 1812: British–Canadian forces repelled an American attack at the Battle of Crysler's Farm, forcing the United States to give up their attempt to capture Montreal.
1934 – The Shrine of Remembrance (pictured), a memorial to all Australians who have served in war, opened in Melbourne.
1999 – The House of Lords Act was given royal assent, removing most hereditary peers from the British House of Lords.
2008 – After 30 years in power, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was succeeded by Mohamed Nasheed as president of the Maldives.

Martha Annie Whiteley (b. 1866)
Édouard Vuillard (b. 1868)
Maria Teresa de Filippis (b. 1926)
Leonardo DiCaprio (b. 1974)

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From today's featured list

Kublai Khan

There were eleven emperors of the Yuan dynasty, an imperial dynasty of China, from 1271 to 1368. Proclaimed on 18 December 1271 by Kublai Khan, the Yuan dynasty succeeded the Song dynasty and preceded the Ming dynasty. The list of emperors includes both Kublai's successors as rulers of China and his predecessors up to his grandfather Genghis Khan, who was retrospectively presented as the founder of the dynasty. Yuan rulers were nominally superior to those of the other three post-Mongol states, but each was de facto independent of the others and occupied with their own territories. Although the reigns of Kublai and his successor Temür were generally peaceful, weaknesses in the Yuan administration later became apparent and led to a gradual breakdown of political stability. By the mid-14th century, the Yuan state became impossible to govern, and in 1368 the last emperor, Toghon Temür, was forced to flee China. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Europa Clipper is a space probe developed by NASA and scheduled for launch in October 2024. The largest spacecraft NASA has built for a planetary mission, Europa Clipper is designed to study Jupiter's moon Europa through a series of flybys while in orbit around Jupiter, with the goals of exploring Europa, investigating its habitability, and aiding in the selection of a landing site for the future Europa Lander. It is expected to reach its destination in 2030. This photograph shows a commemorative plate, 7 by 11 inches (18 by 28 centimeters) in size and made of tantalum, that is attached to the outside of the space probe to seal an entrance to a vault designed to protect the electronics from Jupiter's radiation. The outer face of the plate, pictured here, is etched with waveforms of audio recordings of the word water translated into 103 languages, radiating outwards from the American Sign Language symbol for the same word. The inner face of the plate features a work by the American poet Ada Limón.

Photograph credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech; photographed by Ryan Lannom

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