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Freddy Fazbear cosplayer (right)

Five Nights at Freddy's is a 2014 survival horror game developed by Scott Cawthon. The player takes the role of Mike Schmidt, a night security guard at a family pizzeria. Schmidt must complete his shifts without being caught by the homicidal animatronic characters (Freddy Fazbear cosplayer pictured) that wander the restaurant at night. Cawthon conceived Five Nights at Freddy's based on criticism of Chipper & Sons Lumber Co., his previous game. Reviewers complained of its unintentionally frightening characters, inspiring Cawthon to create an intentionally scarier experience. Five Nights at Freddy's was first released for Windows on August 8, 2014. It received positive reviews, and became the subject of Let's Play videos on YouTube, gaining a large fan following. The game's success inspired its own media franchise, and its popularity led to thousands of imitations and fan games. A film adaptation by Blumhouse Productions was released in 2023. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Night of the Living Dead (entire film)

... that Night of the Living Dead (film featured) was mistakenly released into the public domain?
... that a variety of the Connecticut field pumpkin is known as "the original commercial jack-o'-lantern pumpkin"?
... that there are nearly one hundred thousand .monsters on the internet?
... that The Faculty Club at UC Berkeley, built in 1902, has been reported to be a hotspot for paranormal activity?
... that British designer Alexander McQueen pressed live worms into a translucent corset to evoke vampirism and undeath for his collection The Hunger?
... that various online retailers removed hundreds of books featuring erotic horror from their stores?
... that "Thriller" is the most popular Halloween song in the United States?
... that film critics accused the MPAA ratings board of having yielded to studio pressure to rate The Exorcist R rather than X?
... that the Circleville Pumpkin Show, the oldest pumpkin show in the United States, has been selecting a Miss Pumpkin since 1933?
... that The Wiccan Web recommends drawing pentagrams on your computer screen in oil?

In the news

Kalle Rovanperä

In motorsport, Kalle Rovanperä (pictured) and Jonne Halttunen win the World Rally Championship.
A coal mine fire in Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan, kills 45 people.
Hurricane Otis makes landfall near Acapulco, Mexico, leaving at least 48 people dead.
In the United States, 18 people are killed in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.

On this day

October 31: Halloween

Metrojet Flight 9268

1917 – World War I: Allied forces defeated Turkish troops in Beersheba in Southern Palestine at the Battle of Beersheba, with the battle involving one of the last successful cavalry charges.
1941 – More than 101 crew members of the USS Reuben James perished when their vessel became the first U.S. Navy ship sunk by hostile action during World War II after it was torpedoed by the German submarine U-552.
1963 – A gas explosion at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum in Indianapolis killed 81 people and injured about 400 others.
2003 – After 22 years in power, Tun Mahathir Mohamad retired as Prime Minister of Malaysia.
2015 – Shortly after takeoff, Metrojet Flight 9268 (pictured) exploded and then crashed into the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board.

Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1723)
Muriel Duckworth (b. 1908)
William Evans-Gordon (d. 1913)
Gordon Steege (b. 1917)

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Today's featured picture

Juniperus brevifolia, or the Azores juniper, is a species of juniper, endemic to the Azores (on the islands of Corvo, Faial, Flores, Pico, Santa Maria, São Jorge, São Miguel, and Terceira), where it occurs at altitudes of 240 to 800 m, and in rare cases up to 1,500 m. It is closely related to J. oxycedrus, the prickly juniper, and J. cedrus, the Canary Islands juniper. J. brevifolia is a shrub or small tree growing to a height of 6 m and a trunk diameter up to 50 cm. The leaves are evergreen, needle-like, in whorls of three, glaucous green, 4 to 10 mm long, with a double white stomatal band on the inner surface. It is dioecious, with separate male and female plants. The seed cones are berry-like, green ripening in 18 months to orange-red with a variable pink waxy coating. The plant is threatened due to habitat fragmentations of its preferred habitat (laurel forest), caused by island colonization and grazing pressures. These J. brevifolia trees were photographed in the Special Protection Area of Zona Central do Pico.

Photograph credit: Pablosievert

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