From today's featured article
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Silver coin of Constans II
Constans II (died 411) was the son of the Western Roman emperor Constantine III. When his father rebelled against the ruling emperor Honorius and the army in Britain acclaimed him as emperor in early 407, Constans was a monk. He was summoned to Gaul, appointed to the position of caesar (heir) and swiftly married so that a dynasty could be founded. Honorius acknowledged Constantine as co-emperor in early 409 and Constantine immediately raised Constans to the position of emperor, theoretically equal in rank to Honorius as well as to Constantine. Later in 409 Constans was sent to Hispania (Spain) to quash a revolt, but suffered a defeat and withdrew to Arelate (modern Arles). In 410, Constans was again sent to Hispania with an army. The rebels had strengthened their forces with barbarians and won a battle against Constans; he withdrew north and was defeated again and killed at Vienne early in 411. The rebels then besieged Constantine in Arelate and killed him. (Full article...)
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Frederick L. Scarf
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- ... that after a building in Poland was wrecked by one explosion then demolished by a second, a cat was found alive among the rubble?
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- ... that the song "Bésame" blends afrobeat and flamenco?
- ... that sources do not identify with certainty when or why university students began throwing shoes onto the Shoe Tree in Minneapolis?
- ... that Serge de Beaurecueil, having spent a "wretched childhood" dreaming of journeying to a faraway land, became the only Catholic priest in Afghanistan?
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In the news
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Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
- In cycling, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (pictured) wins the Tour de France Femmes.
- An 8.8-magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, triggering tsunami warnings across the Pacific Ocean.
- In association football, the UEFA Women's Euro concludes with England defeating Spain in the final.
- In cycling, Tadej Poga?ar wins the Tour de France.
On this day
Mushroom cloud over Hiroshima after the Little Boy explosion
- 1777 – The Battle of Oriskany, one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolutionary War, was fought about 6 mi (10 km) east of Fort Stanwix, New York.
- 1945 – World War II: The U.S. Army Air Force bomber Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan (mushroom cloud pictured), killing about 70,000 people instantly.
- 1965 – U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, outlawing literacy tests and other discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disfranchisement of African Americans.
- 1991 – British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee posted a public invitation to collaborate on a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessible via the Internet, known as the World Wide Web.
- 2008 – Mauritanian president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was ousted from power by a group of high-ranking generals that he had dismissed from office several hours earlier.
- William Hillcourt (b. 1900)
- Jennie Lozier (d. 1915)
- Geri Halliwell (b. 1972)
- Shapour Bakhtiar (d. 1991)
Today's featured picture
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Nader Shah Afshar (6 August 1698 or 22 October 1688 – 20 June 1747) was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian history, ruling as shah of Iran from 1736 to 1747, when he was assassinated during a rebellion. He fought numerous campaigns throughout the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia, emerging victorious from the battles of Herat, Mihmandust, Murche-Khort, Kirkuk, Yeghevārd, Khyber Pass, Karnal, and Kars. He has been described as "the last great Asiatic military conqueror", and his victories during his campaigns briefly made him West Asia's most powerful sovereign, ruling over what was arguably the most powerful empire in the world. Nader also changed the Iranian coinage system, minting silver coins, called Naderi, that were equal to the Mughal rupee. This silver coin was minted in Dagestan and is dated 1741–1742. Coin design credit: unknown; photographed by American Numismatic Society
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