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From today's featured article

Procession depicted on the Trialeti Chalice, possibly in honor of Dali

Dali is a hunting goddess from the mythology of the Georgian people. The patron of hoofed wild mountain animals, she was said to reward hunters who obeyed her taboos and to punish violators. She was usually described as a beautiful nude woman with golden hair and glowing skin, although she sometimes took on the form of her favored animals. Stories depict her taking human lovers and jealously killing them, and later clashing with her rival Saint George. After the rise of Christianity in Georgia, the stories told about Dali changed; Saint George was presented as having the power to overrule her, and she began to be conflated with a malicious nature spirit called the ali. As a patron of the hunt, she has been compared with Artemis of Greek mythology, a hag in Scottish mythology called the glaistig, and a maiden from folklore who tames a unicorn. Her associations with gold, seduction, and the morning star have led scholars to draw connections with goddesses such as Aphrodite and Ishtar. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Tom Pope playing for Port Vale

... that Tom Pope (pictured) became the second-highest goalscorer in Port Vale's history after twice being rejected by the club as a teenager?
... that the recording of "Waiting for a Train" introduced Jimmie Rodgers's trademark train whistle?
... that K. W. Gransden, despite publishing only two poetry collections, was included by Philip Larkin in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse?
... that for her sound-film debut in 1931, silent-screen star Mae Marsh begged the director to tell her what to say before each scene?
... that the synthetic compound carbonaceous sulfur hydride is the world's first room-temperature superconductor?
... that "So nimm denn meine Hände" by Julie Hausmann, first printed in 1862, placed seventh in a 2019 survey of favourite funeral music in Germany, immediately behind "My Way"?
... that Manoj Kumar and Raj Kumar had to win cases at the Delhi High Court to be awarded the Arjuna Award sporting honour in the 2010s?
... that Filipina soldier and spy Josefina Guerrero, diagnosed with leprosy, created intelligence reports that helped the Americans defeat the Japanese at Manila Harbor?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Portal

Sean Connery

Typhoon Goni makes landfall in the Philippines as a super typhoon, killing at least 16 people.
Scottish actor Sean Connery (pictured) dies at the age of 90.
An earthquake in the Aegean Sea kills at least 85 people and injures more than 990 others.
Typhoon Molave hits the Philippines and Vietnam, killing at least 50 people and leaving 53 others missing.

On this day

November 2

An emu killed by Australian soldiers

1917 – The British government issued the Balfour Declaration in support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population.
1932 – The Australian military began a "war against emus" (man with dead emu pictured), flightless native birds blamed for widespread damage to crops in Western Australia.
1960 – In the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, publisher Penguin Books was acquitted of obscenity for the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence.
2016 – The Chicago Cubs defeated the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series, ending the longest championship drought in Major League Baseball history.

Matilda of Flanders (d. 1083)
James K. Polk (b. 1795)
Hélène de Pourtalès (d. 1945)

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From today's featured list

Kaiserin Augusta and Seeadler

Starting in the 1880s, a series of cruisers was built by the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). The first designs – protected and unprotected – were ordered to replace aging sail and steam-powered frigates and corvettes that were of minimal combat value. After several iterations of each type, these cruisers were developed into armored and light cruisers, respectively, over the following decade. All of these ships were built to fill a variety of roles, including scouts for the main battle fleet and colonial cruisers for Germany's overseas empire. The protected and unprotected cruisers had been withdrawn from active service by the 1910s, though some continued on in secondary roles. Most of the armored and light cruisers saw action in World War I, in all of the major theaters of the conflict. Their service ranged from commerce raiding patrols on the open ocean to the fleet engagements in the North Sea such as the Battle of Jutland. Many of the ships were sunk in the course of the war, and the majority of the remaining vessels were either seized as war prizes by the victorious Allies, scuttled by their crews at Scapa Flow in 1919, or broken up for scrap. (This list is part of a featured topic: Cruisers of Germany.)

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Today's featured picture

The Cassini–Huygens space-research project involved a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency to send a probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and its natural satellites.

This natural-color mosaic image, combining thirty photographs, was taken by the Cassini orbiter over the course of approximately two hours on 23 July 2008 as it panned its wide-angle camera across Saturn and its ring system as the planet approached equinox. Six moons are pictured in the panorama, with the largest, Titan, visible at the bottom left.

Photograph credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute

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