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Today's featured article

Rivers Cuomo, frontman of Weezer

Pinkerton is the second studio album by the American rock band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996, by DGC Records. To better capture their live sound, the band self-produced Pinkerton, creating a darker, more abrasive album than their 1994 debut Weezer. The lyrics express loneliness and disillusionment with the rock lifestyle, and reference Japanese culture. Pinkerton produced the singles "El Scorcho" and "The Good Life". It debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200, failing to match sales of Weezer's debut, and received mixed reviews; Rolling Stone readers voted it the third-worst album of 1996. For subsequent albums, Weezer returned to more traditional pop songwriting and less personal lyrics. In subsequent years, Pinkerton was reassessed; several publications named it one of the best albums of the 1990s, and it was certified platinum in 2016. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

September 24: Heritage Day in South Africa; Independence Day in Guinea-Bissau (1973)

Norodom Sihanouk

1645 – English Civil War: Royalists commanded by King Charles I suffered a significant defeat at the Battle of Rowton Heath.
1869 – Jay Gould, James Fisk, and other speculators plotted but failed to control the United States gold market, causing prices to plummet.
1890 – Wilford Woodruff, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote the first draft of a manifesto that officially disavowed the future practice of plural marriage.
1941 – Operation Barbarossa: A Wehrmacht training event known as the Mogilev Conference began, marking an increase in violence against Jews and other civilians in the areas under General Max von Schenckendorff's command.
1993 – Norodom Sihanouk (pictured) became King of Cambodia with the restoration of the monarchy after a 23-year interregnum.

Pope Liberius (d. 366)
Howard Florey (b. 1898)
Esther Eng (b. 1914)
Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (d. 1950)

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In the news

Gukesh Dommaraju

The Chess Olympiad (best individual player Gukesh Dommaraju pictured) concludes with India winning both the open and women's events.
Explosions of electronic devices used by Hezbollah members kill at least 42 people and injure thousands of others in Lebanon and Syria.
Severe flooding in central Europe leaves at least 25 people dead and 11 others missing, with several towns submerged.
Amid widespread protests, Mexico ratifies constitutional changes that will see the federal judiciary chosen by popular vote.

Did you know...

Damage from Storm Ulysses to West End Pier, Morecambe

... that Storm Ulysses (damage pictured) in 1903 was so named because its effects were described in James Joyce's novel Ulysses?
... that Tamurbek Dawletschin wrote one of the only memoirs by a Soviet prisoner of war, 3 million of whom died in German captivity?
... that a class-action lawsuit was filed against Spotify following the discontinuation of the Car Thing?
... that Singaporean former lawyer David Yong learned Korean and moved to South Korea to become a K-pop singer?
... that during the Tunisian campaign in World War II, crews carried an AMES Type 6 radar set across a swamp to allow them to spy on Luftwaffe aircraft running supplies into Tunis?
... that Gwent Broadcasting, at the time the smallest Independent Local Radio station in Britain, lasted less than two years?
... that Valentin Bontus won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in Formula Kite, while Toni Vodišek won the first silver medal?
... that during the Khalji Revolution, Sultan Qaiqabad was wrapped in a carpet and thrown into the Yamuna river?
... that the species classification Poecilia vandepolli existed, then it did not, and now it does again?

Today's featured picture

Picture of the day

The chestnut-crowned antpitta (Grallaria ruficapilla) is a species of bird in the antpitta family, Grallariidae. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. It is around 18 to 23 centimetres (7.1 to 9.1 in) long, with a mass of 70 to 98 grams (2.5 to 3.5 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies G. r. ruficapilla have a rufous crown, nape, and face with an olive-colored back, rump, tail, and wings. Its throat, breast, and belly are white with ochraceous edges on some breast feathers, and olivaceous and blackish streaks on their sides and sometimes their breast. This chestnut-crowned antpitta perching on a branch was photographed in the Río Blanco Ecological Reserve in Manizales, Colombia.Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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