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Today's featured list: The moons of Saturn are numerous and diverse, ranging from tiny moonlets less than 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) across to the enormous Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury. Saturn has sixty-two moons with confirmed orbits, fifty-three of which have names, and only thirteen of which have diameters larger than 50 kilometers (31 mi). Saturn has seven moons that are large enough to become spherical, and dense rings with complex orbital motions of their own.

Today's featured topic: The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of one titular award. Several new awards have been introduced, and as of 2008^[update], eight awards are presented, including the Team of the Year, Overseas Personality, Lifetime Achievement Award, Helen Rollason Award, the Coach Award, and the Newcomer Award.

Listen to
Spring, from The Four Seasons

Today's featured sound: The Four Seasons, a set of four violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Composed in 1723,The Four Seasons is Vivaldi's best-known work, and is among the most popular pieces of Baroque music. The texture of each concerto is varied, each resembling its respective season. Performed by John Harrison and the Wichita State University Chamber Players.

Did you know...

Santa singing at the 2024 Paralympics closing ceremony

... that Santa opened the 2024 Summer Paralympics closing ceremony (pictured)?
... that researchers speculate that cocoa butter forms crystals on sugar while chocolate is tempered?
... that the noken system used for voting in parts of Indonesia can produce turnouts of 100%?
... that for 19 years Tonya Burns had the only retired jersey number in Iowa State women's basketball history?
... that Northamptonshire has had ninety-two railway stations, but now has only six?
... that Joe Wirkkunen coached the Finland men's national ice hockey team after receiving a recommendation from Canada?
... that the music video for "...Well, Better Than the Alternative" uses software to render handmade paintings over live-action footage of musician Will Wood?
... that British conscientious objector Henry Firth died in 1918 while being held at a work camp in Dartmoor?
... that the ongoing premiere of Gregory Markopoulos's Eniaios started 20 years ago?

In the news
Han Kang The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to South Korean poet and novelist Han Kang (pictured). The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is divided, with half awarded to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for their work on protein structure prediction and the other half to David Baker for his work on computational protein design. Hurricane Milton makes landfall in the U.S. state of Florida. John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research in machine learning with artificial neural networks. Ongoing: Israel–Hamas war Israel–Hezbollah conflict Russian invasion of Ukraine timeline Sudanese civil war timeline Recent deaths: George Baldock Zaw Myint Maung Ifigenia Martínez y Hernández Lore Segal Brian Hastings Lily Ebert Nominate an article
On this day...
October 13 Whirlpool Galaxy 645 – Goguryeo–Tang War: Led by Emperor Taizong, the Tang army was forced to abandon a siege of Ansi Fortress. 1773 – French astronomer Charles Messier discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy (pictured), an interacting, grand design spiral galaxy located an estimated 31 million light-years away. 1917 – At least 30,000 people witnessed the Miracle of the Sun in the fields of Cova da Iria near Fátima, Portugal. 1961 – Newly elected Burundian prime minister Louis Rwagasore was assassinated by his political rivals. 2013 – During the Hindu festival of Navaratri at a temple in Madhya Pradesh, India, rumours about an impending bridge collapse caused a stampede that resulted in 115 deaths. Robert I, Count of Flanders (d. 1093) Bernard Bosanquet (b. 1877) Thomas White (d. 1957) Rebecca Clarke (d. 1979) More anniversaries: October 12 October 13 October 14 Archive By email List of days of the year About

Today's featured picture

Art Tatum (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American pianist, widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz performers in history. Born in Toledo, Ohio, he began playing the piano professionally and hosting a nationwide radio program while in his teens. He left Toledo in 1932 and had residencies as a solo pianist at clubs in major urban centers including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In that decade, he settled into a pattern he followed for most of his career – paid performances followed by long after-hours playing, all accompanied by prodigious consumption of alcohol. In the 1940s, Tatum led a commercially successful trio for a short time and began playing in more formal jazz concert settings, including at Norman Granz–produced Jazz at the Philharmonic events. His popularity diminished towards the end of the decade, as he continued to play in his own style, ignoring the rise of bebop. Granz recorded Tatum extensively in solo and small group formats in the mid-1950s, with the last session only two months before Tatum's death from uremia at the age of 47. This photograph by William P. Gottlieb shows Tatum playing the piano in the Vogue Room in New York City sometime in the late 1940s.

Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb

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