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From today's featured article

Porlock Stone Circle, on Exmoor in the south-western English county of Somerset, is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age between 3,300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circles' builders. Many monuments were built in Exmoor during the Bronze Age, but the only other surviving stone circle in the area is the one near Withypool. The circle near Porlock is about 24 metres (79 feet) in diameter and has thirteen green micaceous sandstone rocks. Directly to the north-east of the ring is a cairn apparently connected to a linear stone row. A small lead wheel inside the circle suggests that the site was visited during the Romano-British period. The site was rediscovered in the 1920s. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Historic buildings on South Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee

... that the site of the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. later became part of the South Main Street Historic District (pictured)?
... that The Doctor and Student by Christopher St. Germain was used as a primer by English law students for over two centuries?
... that Izaac Hindom, a Papuan himself, actively promoted the assimilation of Javanese and Papuans, describing the latter as backward and self-centered?
... that the first Cincinnati Marine Hospital was taken by the Department of War, and the second by environmental health scientists?
... that in their 1962 postal history of the Cayman Islands, Philip Saunders and Everard Aguilar were unable to find any surviving mail from the islands before 1889 in private collections, and very little in archives?
... that prior to becoming the highest-grossing film of 1965, The Sound of Music was initially criticized for its romanticism and sentimentality?
... that Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League three seasons after winning the 1992 Football League Second Division play-off Final?
... that John Clark Mayden's images of African Americans were extolled by James Baldwin as capturing the "majesty of black life" by portraying people who are "weary but not cast down"?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Vaccines; Portal

Yoweri Museveni

Yoweri Museveni (pictured) is re-elected as President of Uganda.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and his cabinet resign as a result of a child welfare fraud scandal.
An earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi kills at least 84 people and injures more than 800 others.
Donald Trump becomes the first U.S. president to be impeached twice after the House of Representatives charges him with incitement of insurrection.

On this day

January 18: Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States (2021)

Wilhelm I of Germany

1535 – Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes (present-day Lima, Peru) as the capital of the lands conquered for the Spanish crown.
1871 – Wilhelm I (pictured) became the first emperor, as a number of previously independent German states unified to form the German Empire.
1915 – Japanese prime minister Ōkuma Shigenobu issued the Twenty-One Demands to China in a bid to increase Japan's power in East Asia.
1943 – World War II: In Operation Iskra, the Red Army established a narrow land corridor to Leningrad, partially easing the protracted German siege.

César Cui (b. 1835)
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (d. 1873)
Philippe Starck (b. 1949)

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From today's featured list

Kevin Feige

The 2019 American superhero film Avengers: Endgame was nominated for one Academy Award, one Annie Award (which it won), one British Academy Film Award, three Critics' Choice Awards (winning two), one Grammy Award, one Hollywood Film Award (which it won), seven People's Choice Awards (winning three), and two Satellite Awards. The film is the direct sequel to Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, produced by Kevin Feige (pictured), and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and features an ensemble cast. Many of the actors were recognized for their work, including Robert Downey Jr. (seven nominations), Scarlett Johansson (six nominations), Chris Evans (five nominations), and Josh Brolin (five nominations). (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Sympetrum danae, the black darter or black meadowhawk, is a species of dragonfly found in northern Europe, Asia, and North America. Both sexes are black and yellow, but the abdomen of the male is largely black while that of the female is largely yellow. Breeding takes place in shallow acidic pools, lake margins and ditches in lowland heaths and moorland bogs. The female lays her eggs during flight by dipping the tip of her abdomen into the water. The eggs hatch the following spring, the larvae developing very rapidly and emerging as adults in as little as two months. The male seen here is perched on a frond of bracken on Warren Heath in Hampshire, England.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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