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Shuttle-Centaur was a version of the Centaur upper stage rocket that could be carried aloft inside the Space Shuttle and used to launch satellites into high Earth orbits or probes into deep space. Two variants were produced: Centaur G-Prime, to launch robotic probes to Jupiter; and Centaur G, for use with US Department of Defense Milstar satellites and the Magellan Venus probe. Its power allowed for heavier deep space probes, prolonging the operational life of the spacecraft. The US Air Force agreed to pay half the cost of Centaur G. The Space Shuttles Challenger and Atlantis were modified to carry the Centaur. After the Challenger accident, NASA concluded it was too risky to fly the Centaur on the Shuttle, just months before its first scheduled flight. The Galileo and Ulysses probes were ultimately launched using the less powerful Inertial Upper Stage. A variant of the Centaur G-Prime was mated with the Titan rocket to produce the Titan IV, which placed 16 military satellites in orbit. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm

... that because the hand in the Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm (pictured) is clenched rather than open, it is assumed to have functioned as a battle standard or a talisman?
... that when King Hugh III of Cyprus tried to force a marriage on his vassal, Lady Isabella of Beirut, the Egyptian sultan Baibars declared himself her protector?
... that Queen of Peace Cemetery opened early because Cemetery of the Holy Rood filled up due to the COVID-19 pandemic?
... that architect Robert Marquis believed that architecture should meet "the users' spiritual and psychological needs" in addition to being functional?
... that the Qing-dynasty erotic novel Shenlou zhi has been called "the earliest novel by far" to describe the opium trade in China?
... that Scott Lee Kimball killed three of his four known victims while he was working as an FBI informant?
... that Yoko Ono considered her 1971 song "Listen, the Snow Is Falling" to be the first pop song she ever wrote?
... that the Australian rugby sevens player Dietrich Roache kept the Australian national sprint champion out of the Australian Olympic team with his speed?

In the news

Hakainde Hichilema

Hakainde Hichilema (pictured) is elected President of Zambia.
The Afghan government collapses as the capital city of Kabul falls to the Taliban offensive.
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti kills more than 2,100 people.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases the first part of its Sixth Assessment Report on the state of knowledge of climate change and its effects.

On this day

August 20

Sun Yat-sen

1710 – War of the Spanish Succession: A Spanish Bourbon army commanded by the Marquis de Bay was soundly defeated by a multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg.
1794 – American troops defeated the Northwestern Confederacy, a Native American alliance, at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, the decisive battle of the Northwest Indian War.
1905 – Sun Yat-sen (pictured), Song Jiaoren, and others founded the Tongmenghui, a secret society dedicated to overthrowing the Qing dynasty of China.
1971 – The Stanford prison experiment, one of the most infamous psychological studies, was ended after six days, when the simulation became too abusive.
1989 – After colliding with a dredger on the River Thames in London, the pleasure steamer Marchioness sank in just thirty seconds, killing 51 people.

Jeremi Wiśniowiecki (d. 1651)
H. P. Lovecraft (b. 1890)
B. K. S. Iyengar (d. 2014)

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The Schauspielhaus Berlin, where Der Freischütz premiered in 1821

The German composer Carl Maria von Weber is best known for his operas, of which he wrote 10 between 1798 and 1826. His first four exist in various states: Die Macht der Liebe und des Weins (composed 1798) is completely lost; two fragments survive for Das Waldmädchen (1800); the libretto to Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn (1803) is lost; and only three numbers from Rübezahl (composed 1804–05) survive. Weber's mature operas—Silvana (1810), Abu Hassan (1811), Der Freischütz (1821), Die drei Pintos (composed 1820–21), Euryanthe (1823), Oberon (1826)—all survive intact; they were all performed within his lifetime, except Die drei Pintos which was posthumously completed by Gustav Mahler. After his family moved to Munich in 1798, the 13-year-old Weber began study with Johann Nepomuk Kalcher, under whose supervision he wrote his first opera, the Singspiel Die Macht der Liebe und des Weins; the work was never performed. Weber's first operatic success came with Silvana, on a libretto by Franz Carl Hiemer that was reworked from Steinsberg's earlier one to Das Waldmädchen. (Full list...)

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Christina Nilsson (20 August 1843 – 20 November 1921) was a Swedish operatic soprano. After four years' study in Paris, she made her operatic debut in 1864 as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's opera La traviata at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris. After this success, she sang at major opera houses in London, Saint Petersburg, Vienna and New York City. She was considered a rival to the Victorian era's most famous diva, Adelina Patti, but while Patti made many phonograph recordings, Nilsson's voice was never recorded.

Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Jebulon

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