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John Leak (c. 1892 – 1972) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in battle that could be awarded at that time to a member of the Australian armed forces. Leak enlisted in early 1915, and served with the 9th Battalion during the Gallipoli campaign. Along with his unit, he transferred to the Western Front, where he participated in the Battle of Pozières in July 1916. For his actions on 23 July during this battle he was awarded the Victoria Cross. He was seriously wounded at the Battle of Mouquet Farm in August. Suffering from the effects of his service, Leak was convicted of desertion in November 1917, but his sentence was ultimately suspended. In early March 1918 he was gassed, and saw no further combat before the Armistice of 11 November 1918. He returned to Australia and was discharged in 1919. After various jobs, Leak settled in South Australia in 1937 and died in 1972. (Full article...)

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Life reconstruction of Pterodactylus antiquus

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... that Edmund Kurtz's edition of Bach's cello suites, published in 1983, is recognized as one of his greatest achievements?
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Comet NEOWISE seen from Germany

A security breach in the administration system of Twitter results in many prominent accounts promoting a bitcoin scam.
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On this day

July 23: Birthday of Haile Selassie (Rastafari); Marine Day in Japan (2020)

Replica of Burt's typographer

1829 – William Austin Burt was awarded a patent for the typographer (replica pictured), the first practical typewriting machine.
1860 – The Eastbourne manslaughter trial began, which later became an important legal precedent in the United Kingdom for discussions of corporal punishment in schools.
1940 – Sumner Welles, U.S. Under Secretary of State, issued a declaration that the U.S. government would not recognize the Soviet Union's annexation of the Baltic states.
1968 – A shootout between police and a Black Power group began in Cleveland, Ohio, sparking three days of rioting.
1995 – Hale–Bopp, one of the most widely observed comets of the 20th century, was independently discovered by astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp.

John Day (d. 1584)
John Babcock (b. 1900)
Saulius Skvernelis (b. 1970)

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Eileen Collins (born 1956) at the commander's station on the Space Shuttle Columbia during STS-93, which launched on July 23, 1999, making Collins the first female commander of a U.S. spacecraft. A now retired NASA astronaut and United States Air Force colonel, she is a veteran of four space missions. On her first spaceflight in 1995, STS-63, she became the first female Shuttle pilot and returned to space as a pilot on STS-84. After commanding STS-93, Collins also commanded the STS-114 mission in 2005.

Photograph credit: NASA

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