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St George and the Dragon atop Mells War Memorial

Mells War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the village of Mells, Somerset, in south-western England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the memorial takes the form of a marble column topped by a sculpture of Saint George slaying a dragon (pictured). At the base of the column, the names of the village's war dead are inscribed on stone panels. The memorial is flanked by rubble walls in local stone, on top of which grows a yew hedge. Low stone benches protrude from the walls to allow wreaths to be laid. The memorial is one of multiple buildings and structures in Mells designed by Lutyens. The memorial was unveiled on 26 June 1921 by Brigadier-General Arthur Asquith, whose brother is commemorated on it and whose father was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for much of the war. Additional panels were fixed to the wall to commemorate the Second World War. It is a grade II* listed building and since 2015 has been part of a national collection of Lutyens's war memorials. (Full article...)

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Rock-cut niches of Teniky in southern Madagascar

... that an enigmatic ancient site deep in Madagascar (pictured) may have been built by Zoroastrians?
... that Jacques Lewis, a 105-year-old French veteran of D-Day, insisted on participating in a ceremony commemorating the invasion's 80th anniversary?
... that a memorial in Suffolk, England, marks the deaths of six members of a scout troop in a 1914 boating accident and that of the sole survivor two years later in the Battle of the Somme?
... that, according to his family, Ye Yanlan was compelled to leave government service after speaking Cantonese in front of the emperor of China?
... that the suppression of the Diaspora Revolt of 115–117 CE led to the near-total annihilation and displacement of Jewish communities in Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and much of Egypt?
... that 50 Lan occupied the number-one spot in Taiwan's bubble tea market for most of 2023?
... that the world's oldest timepiece with an anchor escapement is in the collection of the Irish Museum of Time?
... that editors often line up in rival camps during contentious disputes on Wikipedia and the winning side typically cites encyclopedic policies to favor their viewpoint?
... that although Hugh O'Neill publicly assisted the English Crown in thwarting Irish rebels during the Nine Years' War, he was secretly the leader of the Irish confederacy?

In the news

Olaf Scholz

A suicide bombing by the Balochistan Liberation Army at the Quetta railway station, Pakistan, kills 32 people.
The German ruling coalition (Chancellor Olaf Scholz pictured) collapses over disagreements on economic policies.
Donald Trump wins the United States presidential election.
Maia Sandu is re-elected President of Moldova.
In baseball, the Yokohama DeNA BayStars defeat the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks to win the Japan Series.

On this day

November 11: Armistice Day (known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations and Veterans Day in the United States); Singles' Day in China and Southeast Asia

Shrine of Remembrance

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British forces and their Iroquois allies attacked a fort and the village of Cherry Valley, New York, killing 14 soldiers and 30 civilians.
1813 – War of 1812: British–Canadian forces repelled an American attack at the Battle of Crysler's Farm, forcing the United States to give up their attempt to capture Montreal.
1934 – The Shrine of Remembrance (pictured), a memorial to all Australians who have served in war, opened in Melbourne.
1999 – The House of Lords Act was given royal assent, removing most hereditary peers from the British House of Lords.
2008 – After 30 years in power, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was succeeded by Mohamed Nasheed as president of the Maldives.

Martha Annie Whiteley (b. 1866)
Édouard Vuillard (b. 1868)
Maria Teresa de Filippis (b. 1926)
Leonardo DiCaprio (b. 1974)

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Kublai Khan

There were eleven emperors of the Yuan dynasty, an imperial dynasty of China, from 1271 to 1368. Proclaimed on 18 December 1271 by Kublai Khan (pictured), the Yuan dynasty succeeded the Song dynasty and preceded the Ming dynasty. The list of emperors includes both Kublai's successors as rulers of China and his predecessors up to his grandfather Genghis Khan, who was retrospectively presented as the founder of the dynasty. Yuan rulers were nominally superior to those of the other three post-Mongol states, but each was de facto independent of the others and occupied with their own territories. Although the reigns of Kublai and his successor Temür were generally peaceful, weaknesses in the Yuan administration later became apparent and led to a gradual breakdown of political stability. By the mid-14th century, the Yuan state became impossible to govern, and in 1368 the last emperor, Toghon Temür, was forced to flee China. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Shirley Graham Du Bois (November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an American-Ghanaian writer, playwright, composer, and activist for African-American causes. Born in Indianapolis to an Episcopal minister, she moved with her family throughout the United States as a child. After marrying her first husband, she moved to Paris to study music at the Sorbonne. After her divorce and return to the United States, Graham Du Bois took positions at Howard University and Morgan College before completing her BA and master's at Oberlin College in Ohio. Her first major work was the opera Tom-Tom, which premiered in Cleveland in 1932. She married W. E. B. Du Bois in 1951, and the couple later lived in Ghana, Tanzania and China. She won several prizes, including an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for her 1949 biography of Benjamin Banneker. This photograph of Graham Du Bois was taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1946.

Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam Cuerden

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