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From today's featured article

Oxford (foreground) and Cambridge, with their opposing blades coming close to clashing

The 149th Boat Race took place on 6 April 2003. Held annually, the Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing race between crews from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge along a 4.2-mile (6.8 km) tidal stretch of the River Thames in south-west London. The lead changed twice during the race, which Oxford won by one foot (30 cm), the smallest margin of victory in the history of the event. The close race has been described as "epic". Five-time Olympic gold medallist Steve Redgrave suggested that the race was the "greatest we will see in any of our lifetimes". Umpired by the Boat Race veteran Boris Rankov, the 2003 race was the first to be scheduled on a Sunday. As a result of a collision between the Cambridge boat and a launch, a member of the Cambridge crew was replaced just two days before the race. This was the first Boat Race to feature two sets of brothers on opposing sides. In the reserve race Cambridge's Goldie beat Oxford's Isis and Oxford won the women's race. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Hart (left) and Roland

... that in a recent book, David Bentley Hart – a New Testament translator and proponent of the existence of fairies – engages in dialogues with his dog Roland (both pictured)?
... that Prilep's Old Bazaar contains a leaning clock tower?
... that in 1945 the US Army confiscated the Hotel Rose in Wiesbaden, which is now the Hessian State Chancellery?
... that the opera Omar, about the Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, had its world premiere in a theater located less than a mile from the site where he was sold as a slave?
... that Panzer Dragoon II Zwei features a villain inspired by Dune's Baron Harkonnen, visuals inspired by the work of Jean Giraud, and a fictional language?
... that Andrew Klemencic said "I don't think that I blockaded the streets nearly as bad as the Salvation Army" after Hawaii police fined him for speaking on a street corner in 1900?
... that the Monument to the Victims of the Holocaust in Madrid was the first Holocaust memorial in Spain when it opened in 2007?
... that football linebacker Roger Bonk was nicknamed "the Boinker"?

In the news

Donald Trump

Former President of the United States Donald Trump (pictured) is arraigned on 34 charges of falsifying business records.
Finland joins NATO as its 31st member.
In the Andorran parliamentary election, the liberal coalition, led by Prime Minister Xavier Espot, wins an absolute majority of seats in the General Council.
In NCAA Division I basketball, the LSU Tigers win the women's championship and the UConn Huskies win the men's championship.

On this day

April 6: First day of Passover (Judaism, 2023); Tartan Day

Jalal Talabani

1652 – Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck landed at Table Bay in Southern Africa, establishing a settlement that later became known as Cape Town.
1809 – Napoleonic Wars: British forces captured the French frigate Niémen in the Bay of Biscay.
1945 – Second World War: The Battle of Slater's Knoll on Bougainville Island concluded with a decisive victory for the Australian Army's 7th Brigade against the Imperial Japanese Army's 6th Division.
2005 – Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (pictured) was elected by the National Assembly as the first non-Arab president of Iraq.
2009 – An earthquake measuring 6.3 M_w struck near L'Aquila in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, killing 308 people and leaving more than 66,000 homeless.

Basil of Trebizond (d. 1340)
Teigan Van Roosmalen (b. 1991)
Tammy Wynette (d. 1998)

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Today's featured picture

Landscape Arch is a natural rock arch in Arches National Park in the U.S. state of Utah. With a length of 290.1 feet (88.4 m), it is the longest natural arch in the park and the United States, and the fifth-longest in the world. Landscape Arch was named by Frank Beckwith, who explored the area in the winter of 1933–34 as the leader of a scientific expedition.

Photograph credit: Thomas Wolf

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