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From today's featured article

Nineteenth-century depiction of the crucified rebel leaders

The Battle of the Saw was the culminating battle of a campaign fought between a Carthaginian army led by Hamilcar Barca and a rebel force led by Spendius in 238 BC in what is now northern Tunisia. Carthage was fighting a coalition of mutinous soldiers and rebellious African cities in the Mercenary War which had started in 240 BC. Unable to confront the Carthaginian war elephants and cavalry on open ground, the rebels stayed on higher and rougher terrain and harassed the Carthaginian army. After several months of campaigning, Hamilcar trapped the rebels. Pinned against local mountains known as "the Saw" due to their sawlike shape, with their supply lines blockaded and with their food exhausted, the rebels ate their horses, their prisoners and then their slaves, hoping that their comrades in Tunis would sortie to rescue them. Eventually, the Carthaginians, led by their elephants, attacked the starving rebels and they were all massacred. The captured rebel leaders were crucified (depiction shown) in sight of their comrades in Tunis. (Full article...)

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Joni L. Rutter

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In the news

Idriss Déby

In the United States, former police officer Derek Chauvin is found guilty of the murder of George Floyd.
President of Chad Idriss Déby (pictured) is killed during a rebel offensive.
Miguel Díaz-Canel is selected as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, succeeding Raúl Castro.
On Mars, NASA's helicopter Ingenuity makes the first powered flight on another planet.
In South Africa, a fire on Table Mountain, Cape Town, destroys historic monuments including Mostert's Mill and the University of Cape Town's special collections library.

On this day

April 21: Grounation Day (Rastafari)

Washington's reception at Trenton depicted by N. C. Wyeth

900 – A debt was pardoned by the chief of Tondo on the island of Luzon and recorded on the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the earliest known calendar-dated document found in the Philippines.
1789 – The Ladies of Trenton social club hosted a reception (depicted) for President-elect George Washington as he journeyed to New York City for his first inauguration.
1863 – Following his exile from Baghdad, Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, began a twelve-day stay in the Garden of Ridván, where he declared himself to be "He whom God shall make manifest".
1975 – Vietnam War: Nguyễn Văn Thiệu resigned as President of South Vietnam and was succeeded by Trần Văn Hương as the town of Xuân Lộc fell after a last stand.

Max Weber (b. 1864)
John Maynard Keynes (d. 1946)
Dorothy Eady (d. 1981)

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Today's featured picture

Cirsium eriophorum, the woolly thistle, is a tall biennial plant native to Central and Western Europe. The large, globose flowers can be up to 7 cm (2.8 in) in diameter. Each flower contains many tubular florets, with long purple tubes and purple stamens, each with a spiny bract covered with white woolly hairs through which a spine projects. This woolly thistle was photographed in Kozara National Park, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Photograph credit: Petar Milošević

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