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Southampton Cenotaph is a First World War memorial in Watts Park in the southern English city of Southampton. The cenotaph was the first memorial of dozens designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens to be built in permanent form and it influenced his later designs, including the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London. It is a tapering, multi-tiered pylon featuring a recumbent figure of a soldier, a prominent cross, the town's coat of arms, and two lion sculptures. In front is an altar-like Stone of Remembrance. Later cenotaphs by Lutyens, although similar in outline, were much more austere and featured almost no sculpture. By the beginning of the 21st century, the engravings on the memorial had deteriorated noticeably. They have been supplemented by a series of glass panels, unveiled in 2011, which bear all the names from the cenotaph, as well as names from the Second World War and later conflicts. The memorial was upgraded in 2015 to a Grade I listed building. (Full article...)

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In the news

Bipin Rawat

Chief of the Defence Staff of India Bipin Rawat (pictured) and 12 others die in a helicopter crash.
A coalition government led by newly elected Chancellor Olaf Scholz is formed in Germany.
A prison fire kills at least 38 inmates and injures over 69 others in Gitega, Burundi.
Karl Nehammer becomes Chancellor of Austria following the resignation of Alexander Schallenberg.

On this day

December 9: International Anti-Corruption Day

The surrender of Jerusalem

1892 – The English association football club Newcastle United was founded by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End.
1917 – First World War: Hussein al-Husayni, the Ottoman mayor of Jerusalem, surrendered the city to the British (pictured).
1961 – Tanganyika Territory gained independence from Britain before becoming part of Tanzania three years later.
1981 – Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner; his subsequent conviction and death sentence became the source of great controversy in the United States.
2016 – South Korean president Park Geun-hye was impeached, marking the culmination of the country's political scandal.

Vaišvilkas (d. 1268)
Joe Kelley (b. 1871)
Feroz Khan Noon (d. 1970)

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Today's featured picture

Attacus taprobanis is a species of moth in the family Saturniidae native to southern India and Sri Lanka. This adult male, photographed in Kadavoor, Kerala, developed from a larva feeding on a mahogany tree. When ready to pupate, the larva formed a papery cocoon 7.5 cm (3 in) long interwoven with a leaf; before doing this, the larva had attached the leaf to the stem with a silken thread and cut the leaf stalk. The colours of the dying leaf provided camouflage for the pupa, and the adult insect emerged some 24 days later.

Photograph credit: Jeevan Jose

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