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The Apennine Colossus is a stone statue, approximately 11 metres (36 feet) tall, in the estate of Villa Demidoff (originally Villa di Pratolino) in Vaglia in Tuscany, Italy. A personification of the Apennine Mountains, the colossal figure was created by Giambologna, a Flemish-born Italian sculptor, in the late 1580s. The statue has the appearance of an elderly man crouched at the shore of a lake, squeezing the head of a sea monster through whose open mouth water originally emanated into the pond in front of the statue. The colossus is depicted naked, with stalactites in the thick beard and long hair to show the metamorphosis of man and mountain, blending his body with the surrounding nature. It is made of stone and plaster and the interior houses a series of chambers and caves on three levels. Initially, the back of the statue was protected by a structure resembling a cave, which was demolished around 1690 by the sculptor Giovanni Battista Foggini, who built a statue of a dragon to adorn the back of the colossus. The Italian sculptor Rinaldo Barbetti renovated the statue in 1876. Sculpture credit: Giambologna; photographed by Rhododendrites
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Today's featured article
Donkey Kong Country is a 1994 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It follows the gorilla Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong as they set out to recover their stolen banana hoard from the crocodile King K. Rool and his army, the Kremlings. Nintendo commissioned Rare to revive the dormant Donkey Kong franchise as it sought a game to compete with Sega's Aladdin (1993). Donkey Kong Country was one of the first home-console games to feature pre-rendered graphics, achieved through a compression technique that converted 3D models into sprites with little loss of detail. It was released on 18 November 1994 to acclaim. Critics hailed its visuals as groundbreaking and praised its gameplay and music; it is frequently listed as one of the greatest games of all time. Donkey Kong Country re-established Donkey Kong as a popular Nintendo franchise and was followed by sequels and ports for subsequent Nintendo consoles. (Full article...)
In the news
- Samantha Harvey (pictured) wins the Booker Prize for her novel Orbital.
- Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby announces his resignation as a result of the John Smyth abuse scandal in the Church of England.
- In Zhuhai, China, 35 people are killed in a vehicle-ramming attack.
- Alliance for Change, led by Navin Ramgoolam, wins the Mauritian general election.
Did you know...
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- ... that the choreography of "How You Get the Girl" during the 1989 World Tour (pictured) resembled that of the musical Singin' in the Rain?
- ... that Johann Friedrich Hartknoch published the first edition of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason?
- ... that according to the Laws of London, merchants from lands ruled by the German emperor enjoyed special trading privileges in 11th-century London?
- ... that language activist Hasan Ali spent more than 20 years compiling a dictionary of the Osing language?
- ... that a Chinese poet wrote about a Syriac church in Sichuan without knowing what it was?
- ... that the politician Veylma Falaeo is the first woman to be President of the Congress of New Caledonia?
- ... that housewives were encouraged to keep Edmonds baking-powder tins to be used as bombs?
- ... that the members of Nocturna met for the first time while recording their debut album?
- ... that tyromancy is a form of fortune-telling using cheese?
On this day...
- 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: In the Bay of Bengal, a French frigate squadron captured three East Indiamen mainly carrying recruits for the Indian Army.
- 1956 – At the Polish embassy in Moscow, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said "We will bury you" while addressing Western envoys, prompting them to leave the room.
- 1999 – Texas A&M University's Aggie Bonfire collapsed (aftermath pictured), killing 12 people and injuring 27 others, and causing the university to officially declare a hiatus on the 90-year-old annual event.
- 2014 – Two Palestinian men attacked the praying congregants of a synagogue in Jerusalem with axes, knives, and a gun, resulting in eight deaths, including the attackers themselves.
- Rose Philippine Duchesne (d. 1852)
- Lise Østergaard (b. 1924)
- Margaret Atwood (b. 1939)
- Chloë Sevigny (b. 1974)
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