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Obverse of the half dollar

The Roanoke Island, North Carolina, half dollar is a commemorative coin issued by the U.S. Bureau of the Mint in 1937. It commemorated the 350th anniversary of the Roanoke Colony, depicting on one side Sir Walter Raleigh (pictured), and on the other Eleanor Dare, holding her child, Virginia Dare, the first child of English descent born in an English colony in the Americas. The coin was one of many commemorative issues authorized by Congress in 1936. As the colony was founded in 1587, the coins were struck in 1937. William Marks Simpson, a sculptor who created several commemorative coins of the era, designed the coin. His work required only slight modification by the Commission of Fine Arts. The legislation allowed the Roanoke Island Memorial Association to buy at least 25,000 coins at a time before July 1937; they placed two orders for the minimum amount. Eventually, 21,000 were returned to the Mint for redemption and melting. Numismatic catalogs value the coin in the low hundreds of dollars. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

"Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?"

... that some British soldiers hung the First World War propaganda poster "Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?" in the trenches and left sarcastic answers to the daughter's question?
... that the Mosaic of Rehob is the oldest surviving Talmudic text?
... that the men's winner of the 2022 New York City Marathon was almost hit by a vehicle during the race?
... that after losing her eyesight to toxoplasmosis, Rhina Aguirre dedicated herself to disability rights and was elected to the Bolivian Senate in 2009?
... that you can see the sea from every apartment in Arlington House, Margate?
... that 161 years ago today, William Y. Slack was promoted to brigadier general, even though he was already dead?
... that Sasajiscymnus tsugae is used as a biological control method for the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive pest of the eastern hemlock?
... that Museum Arnhem in the Netherlands celebrated its 100th anniversary with a giant cat picture?

In the news

JUICE's trajectory

In Sudan, at least 97 people die in clashes between rival factions of the military regime.
R21/Matrix-M, a proven-effective malaria vaccine, is approved for use in Ghana.
The European Space Agency launches the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) to study Ganymede, Europa and Callisto (trajectory pictured).
In the Myanmar civil war, the military junta's air force kills at least 130 civilians in Pazigyi.

On this day

April 17: Evacuation Day in Syria (1946), Patriots' Day in various U.S. states (1775)

Modern reconstruction of Kaunas Castle

1362 – Lithuanian Crusade: After a month-long siege, forces of the Teutonic Order captured and destroyed Kaunas Castle (reconstruction pictured), which was defended by troops of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
1783 – The Mechanical Turk, a fraudulent chess-playing "machine" by Wolfgang von Kempelen that was secretly controlled by a hidden human, began a tour of Europe.
1809 – Napoleonic Wars: After a three-day chase, a British squadron under Alexander Cochrane captured the French ship-of-the-line D'Hautpoul off Puerto Rico.
1973 – George Lucas began writing a 13-page film treatment entitled The Star Wars.
1984 – Metropolitan Police officer Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed while on duty during a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London's St James's Square, resulting in an 11-day police siege of the building and a breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Eliza Acton (b. 1799)
Sirimavo Bandaranaike (b. 1916)
Ralph Abernathy (d. 1990)

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2004 winner Jamie Moyer

The Branch Rickey Award was given annually to an individual in Major League Baseball (MLB) in recognition of his exceptional community service from 1992 to 2014. The award was named in honor of former player and executive Branch Rickey, who broke the major league color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson, while president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey also created the Knothole Gang, a charity that allowed children to attend MLB games. The award, created by the Rotary Club of Denver in 1991, was first awarded to Dave Winfield in 1992 at their annual banquet. Each winner received a bronze sculpture of a baseball player measuring 24 inches (610 mm), named "The Player", designed by sculptor George Lundeen. A larger version of "The Player", standing 13 feet (4.0 m) tall, was erected at Coors Field in Denver. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The orange is a fruit of various citrus species in the family Rutaceae, primarily the cultivar Citrus × sinensis, also known as the sweet orange to distinguish it from C. × aurantium, the bitter orange. The sweet orange is a hybrid between the pomelo (C. maxima) and the mandarin (C. reticulata), with the pomelo being the chloroplast genome and maternal line. The orange originated in a region encompassing south China, northeast India, and Myanmar, and the earliest mention of the sweet orange found in Chinese literature dates from 314 BC. The sweet orange reproduces asexually (apomixis through nucellar embryony); varieties of sweet orange arise through mutations. The whole genome has been sequenced. This photograph, depicting a whole orange, a halved orange, and a peeled orange segment, was focus-stacked from eleven images.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

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