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From today's featured article

William I (Old Norman: Williame I; Old English: Willelm I; c. 1028 – 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. The descendant of Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy since 1035. After a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands and by difficulties with his eldest son.

William was the son of the unmarried Robert I, Duke of Normandy, by Robert's mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, as did the anarchy that plagued the first years of his rule. During his childhood and adolescence, members of the (Full article...)

Did you know...

• ... that Ian McDonald's 2015 science fiction novel Luna: New Moon has been called "Game of Thrones in space"?
• ... that there are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac?
• ... that the United States Navy has ten Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in service?
• ... that 72 Terrorists came from countries that President Trump recently banned in Executive Order 13769?
• ... that the type fossil of the damselfly Electropodagrion consists only of a thorax, leg, and wing portions?
• ... that NuScale Power has designed a line of small, modular nuclear reactors?
• ... that Lord Minginish is the first Gaelic-speaking Chairman of the Scottish Land Court?

In the news (from Infogalactic News)

• Musharraf Sentenced To Death
  He Will Remain In Absentia
• China/Russia Support NoKo
  Want Relaxed Pressure From US
• House To Set Rules For Impeachment
  Rules? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules!
• MA Muslim Keeps Classified Docs
  On US Natl Defense
• France On Strike
  They Quit At Everything
• Giuliani Punches Back
  Helped Oust "Crooked" Ambassador
• Trump/Pence Pro-Life Support
  Helped Save 42K Babies

On this day...

December 16

• 755 – An Lushan revolts against Chancellor Yang Guozhong at Yanjing, initiating the An Lushan Rebellion during the Tang dynasty of China.
• 1689 – Convention Parliament: The Declaration of Right is embodied in the Bill of Rights.
• 1937 – Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.
• 1950 – Korean War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman declares a state of emergency, after Chinese troops enter the fight in support of communist North Korea.
• 1957 – Sir Feroz Khan Noon replaces Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar as Prime Minister of Pakistan.
• 1965 – Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland sends U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a request for 243,000 more men by the end of 1966.
• 1989 – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Smith Vance is assassinated by a mail bomb sent by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr.

• More anniversaries:
  • December 15
  • December 16
  • December 17

December 17

• 1896 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Schenley Park Casino, which was the first multi-purpose arena with the technology to create an artificial ice surface in North America, is destroyed in a fire.
• 1918 – Darwin Rebellion: Up to 1,000 demonstrators march on Government House in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
• 1957 – The United States successfully launches the first Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• 1987 – Final Fantasy is released in Japan on the Famicon, marking the start of the Final Fantasy series and saving Square from bankruptcy.
• 1997 – The British Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 comes into force, banning all handguns with the exception of antique and show weapons.
• 2005 – Jigme Singye Wangchuck abdicates the throne as King of Bhutan.
• 2014 – The United States and Cuba re-establish diplomatic relations after severing them 55 years ago.

• More anniversaries:
  • December 16
  • December 17
  • December 18

• 218 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia – Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic.
• 1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan dynasty of Mongolia and China.
• 1777 – The United States celebrates its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by the Americans over British General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga in October.
• 1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
• 1912 – The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is announced by Charles Dawson.
• 1932 – The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth Spartans in the first NFL Championship Game.
• 1956 – Japan joins the United Nations.

• More anniversaries:
  • December 17
  • December 18
  • December 19

Today's featured picture

Oscar-Claude Monet (/mo??ne?/; French: [klod m?n?]; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.

Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883 Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property, and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life. (Full article...)

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