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Island from Proteus in spring

Proteus is a 2013 exploration and walking simulator video game designed and created by Ed Key and David Kanaga for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux. Versions for the PlayStation 3 video game console and the Vita handheld console were developed by Curve Studios. Key first conceived Proteus as an open-ended role-playing game, but redesigned it to be "nontraditional and nonviolent", without prescribed goals. The flora and fauna of the procedurally generated world (pictured) emit unique musical signatures that trigger changes to the background music as the player moves about the world. Before its full release, Proteus won the prize for Best Audio at the 2011 IndieCade awards. In 2012 it was a finalist for the Independent Games Festival's Nuovo Award and was featured in an exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Following its release, critics praised the game, especially for its audio features, although some criticised its brevity and limited replayability. Journalists debated whether Proteus should be described as a video game. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Clock Tower of Haridwar

... that the Clock Tower of Haridwar (pictured) in India provides a good location from which to watch the evening prayers at Har Ki Pauri?
... that Dale Johnston was declared innocent of the murder and dismemberment of his stepdaughter and her fiancé in 1982, 30 years after being sentenced to death for it?
... that in 1945, Kasman Singodimedjo lobbied other Islamist leaders not to implement sharia law in Indonesia?
... that a woman who died from Alzheimer's was memorialized by her granddaughter through posthumous vocals in a song?
... that Tobi Oluwayemi and his older brother Josh are both goalkeepers who played for Tottenham's youth academy?
... that the Meriden, Waterbury and Connecticut River Railroad, created as an alternative to the New Haven Railroad, was absorbed into the New Haven after just 11 years?
... that Kong Dongmei, the granddaughter of Mao Zedong, and her husband have an estimated net worth of 5 billion yuan (US$815 million)?
... that there is ice fishing in Turkey?

In the news

Tornado damage in Rolling Fork, Mississippi

A tornado outbreak (damage pictured) in Mississippi and Alabama, United States, leaves at least 25 people dead.
Robert Metcalfe wins the Turing Award for the invention of Ethernet.
The World Baseball Classic concludes with Japan defeating the United States for the championship.
An earthquake in Afghanistan and Pakistan kills at least 30 people and injures more than 380 others.
Kazakhstan's ruling party Amanat wins the legislative election.

On this day

March 29: Boganda Day in the Central African Republic (1959); Martyrs' Day in Madagascar (1947)

Part of the Terracotta Army

1430 – After an eight-year siege, the Ottoman Empire captured the city of Thessalonica from the Republic of Venice.
1461 – During the Wars of the Roses, Yorkist troops defeated Lancastrian forces at the Battle of Towton in Yorkshire, England, one of the largest land battles ever fought in England.
1951 – The King and I, a musical about Mongkut of Siam, by Rodgers and Hammerstein premiered on Broadway.
1974 – A group of farmers in Shaanxi province, China, discovered a vast collection of terracotta statues (pictured) depicting the armies of the first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang.
2017 – British prime minister Theresa May invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, formally beginning the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.

John Tyler (b. 1790)
Cornelio Saavedra (d. 1829)
Helene Deutsch (d. 1982)

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Today's featured picture

Marian Anderson (1897–1993) was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to spirituals, in major concert and recital venues between 1925 and 1965. Anderson was an important figure in the struggle for African-American artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. In 1939, after being prohibited from performing for an integrated audience in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt arranged for Anderson to perform an open-air concert on Easter Sunday on the Lincoln Memorial steps in the capital which was broadcast to a radio audience of millions and was featured in a documentary film. In 1955, Anderson became the first African-American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera. She worked as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United States Department of State, giving concerts all over the world. She participated in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, singing at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Anderson was awarded the first Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Congressional Gold Medal in 1977, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, the National Medal of Arts in 1986, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

This portrait photograph of Anderson in a formal gown was taken in 1940.

Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam Cuerden

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