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From today's featured article
The Battle of Grand Gulf was fought on April 29, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army forces commanded by Ulysses S. Grant had failed several times to bypass or capture the Confederate-held city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant decided to move his army south of Vicksburg, cross the Mississippi River, and then advance on the city. A Confederate division under John S. Bowen prepared defenses—Forts Wade and Cobun—at Grand Gulf, Mississippi. To clear the way for a Union crossing, seven ironclad warships from the Mississippi Squadron of the Union Navy commanded by Admiral David Dixon Porter bombarded the Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf. Union fire silenced Fort Wade, but the overall Confederate position held. Grant decided to cross the river elsewhere. The next day, Union forces crossed the river at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. The position at Grand Gulf was abandoned and became a Union supply point. The Grand Gulf battlefield is preserved in Grand Gulf Military State Park. (Full article...)
In the news
- Acting prime minister of Haiti Ariel Henry (pictured) resigns, and is replaced by Michel Patrick Boisvert while the Transitional Presidential Council is sworn in.
- The Ownership, Unity and Responsibility Party, led by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, wins the most seats in the Solomon Islands general election but falls short of a majority.
- NASA announces that the Voyager 1 space probe is sending readable data for the first time in five months.
- The HDZ-led coalition wins the most seats in the Croatian parliamentary election but falls short of a majority.
- Ichthyotitan, the largest known marine reptile, is formally described.
On this day
- 1770 – On his first voyage, British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour (pictured) landed at Botany Bay, making the first recorded European landfall on the eastern coast of Australia.
- 1903 – A rockslide buried part of the Canadian mining town of Frank under 110 million tonnes of rock, killing around 70 people.
- 1944 – Second World War: British agent Nancy Wake parachuted into Auvergne, France, becoming a liaison between the Special Operations Executive and the local Maquis group.
- 1968 – The controversial Broadway musical Hair, a product of the counterculture of the 1960s, opened, with its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
- 2006 – Cyclone Mala made landfall near Thandwe, Myanmar, causing 37 deaths.
- George Farquhar (d. 1707)
- Marietta Blau (b. 1894)
- Giacomo dalla Torre (d. 2020)
From today's featured list
Arsenal Women Football Club have played 36 domestic league seasons and remained in the English top flight since joining in 1992. Based in London, they are the most successful club in English women's football. They formed in 1987, 100 years after the inception of the Arsenal men's team, and were an amateur side for over a decade until the team became semi-professional in 2002. During the 1990s and 2000s, under the management of Vic Akers and other successive coaches, Arsenal experienced an unprecedented period of success dominating English competitions with no sustained opposition. Domestically, Arsenal have won 15 league titles, 14 FA Cups, 17 league cups and five FA Community Shields; the club holds the most titles of each individual domestic competition. Arsenal are the only English side to have won Europe's continental women's football competition, the UEFA Women's Champions League (formally the UEFA Women's Cup), after the club defeated the Swedish side Umeå in the 2007 final. (Full list...)
Selected good articles
Rain is liquid water in the form of droplets (pictured) that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then precipitated—that is, become heavy enough to fall under gravity. It is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. Rain provides suitable conditions for many types of ecosystems, as well as water for hydroelectric power plants and crop irrigation.
The Girls He Left Behind Him and The Iron Clad Lover are two lost American silent short comedies produced by the Thanhouser Company. Both films were originally released together on a single reel and are of two distinct and separate subjects. Released on December 1910, the films were met with positive reviews.
Foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong are domestic workers employed by Hongkongers, typically families. About three percent of Hong Kong's population, an overwhelming majority of which are women. Required by law to live in their employer's residence, they perform household tasks such as cooking, serving, cleaning, dishwashing and child care.
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Today's featured picture
Sphalerite is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula (Zn,Fe)S. It is found in a variety of deposit types, and is found in association with galena, chalcopyrite, pyrite (and other sulfides), calcite, dolomite, quartz, rhodochrosite, and fluorite. Sphalerite is an important ore of zinc, with around 95 percent of all primary zinc extracted from its ore. Due to its variable trace-element content, sphalerite is also an important source of several other metals such as cadmium, gallium, germanium and indium. The zinc in sphalerite is also used to produce brass. This sample was extracted in Creede, Colorado, and features black tetrahedral crystals of sphalerite up to 8 mm (0.31 in) in size, with minor chalcopyrite and calcite, in a 4.5 cm × 3.0 cm × 2.0 cm (1.77 in × 1.18 in × 0.79 in) matrix. This photograph was focus-stacked from 125 separate images. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
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