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Today's featured article

KARE (channel 11) is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, United States, an NBC affiliate. Channel 11 began service as WTCN, an ABC affiliate, in 1953. It presented several notable children's shows in its early years. After Time Inc. purchased the station in 1957, ABC switched affiliates, leaving channel 11 to become an independent station that broadcast the Minnesota Twins baseball team, movies, and syndicated programs. By the late 1970s, WTCN was one of the nation's most financially successful independent stations. On March 5, 1979, channel 11 became an NBC affiliate but struggled with its revamped newscasts. Between 1983 and 1987, the station moved from last to first in late news ratings, battling WCCO for two decades. It changed call signs twice in that period, to WUSA in 1985 and KARE in 1986, when owner Gannett moved the WUSA call sign to its Washington, D.C., station. More recently, as of 2022, the station has been a second-place finisher in local news. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Marie Denizard

... that Marie Denizard (pictured) stood as a candidate in a French presidential election in 1913, thirty years before French women achieved suffrage?
... that The Crystal was one of few publications in early-20th-century China that regularly covered same-sex intimacy?
... that Hanif Kureshi transformed shadows cast by the Sun into street art?
... that Gigarta, a settlement mentioned by Strabo and Pliny the Elder, is believed to have been located on the slopes of Mount Lebanon, although its exact location remains under debate?
... that Al LeBoeuf was diagnosed with a rare condition in 2012 from an injury that he suffered in 1985?
... that the Swedish broadcaster organising the Eurovision Song Contest 1975 refused to allow the contest to be shown in Chile, as a protest against the country's military dictatorship?
... that the Polish manga and anime fandom arose in the 1990s and now numbers over 100,000 people?
... that Frank A. Kimball brought a transcontinental rail terminus to National City, California, in exchange for thousands of acres of land?
... that Aldous Huxley developed his "feelies" in response to the emergence of "talkies"?

In the news

Protesters in South Korea

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declares martial law (protests pictured) and lifts it hours later after a vote by the National Assembly.
Syrian opposition forces enter Aleppo in the first offensive since the 2020 ceasefire.
Israel and Lebanon agree to a 60-day ceasefire to halt the current hostilities.
In motorsport, Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe win the World Rally Championship.

On this day...

December 4: Navy Day in India

2004 transit of Venus

1639 – Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree made the first successful observation of a transit of Venus (example pictured) from Earth.
1872 – The American brigantine Mary Celeste was found apparently abandoned under circumstances that remain unknown.
1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Navy launched a successful attack against the Pakistan Navy at Karachi, sinking three ships with no Indian casualties.
1980 – The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
2006 – Six black teenagers assaulted a white student in Jena, Louisiana; the subsequent court cases became a cause célèbre for perceived racial injustice in the United States.

Maerten de Vos (d. 1603)
Agnes Forbes Blackadder (b. 1875)
Inder Kumar Gujral (b. 1919)
Benjamin Britten (d. 1976)

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Today's featured picture

The cinnamon teal (Spatula cyanoptera) is a species of dabbling duck found in western North and South America. It is a migratory species, travelling to northern South America and the Caribbean during the Northern Hemisphere's winter. The cinnamon teal lives in marshes and ponds, and feeds mostly on plants. It has a typical length of 16 in (41 cm), with a wing span of 22 inch (56 cm) and a mass of 14 oz (400 g). The male has bright reddish plumage with a duller brown coloration on the female. The bird feeds predominantly by dabbling, with its main diet being plants and sometimes molluscs and aquatic insects. This cinnamon teal was photographed at the Parrot World animal park in Crécy-la-Chapelle, France.

Photograph credit: Clément Bardot

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