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Featured picture tools: |
These featured pictures, as scheduled below, appeared as the picture of the day (POTD) on the English Wikipedia's Main Page in October 2019. Individual sections for each day on this page can be linked to with the day number as the anchor name (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Picture of the day/October 2019#1]] for October 1).
You can add an automatically updating POTD template to your user page using {{Pic of the day}} (version with blurb) or {{POTD}} (version without blurb). For instructions on how to make custom POTD layouts, see Wikipedia:Picture of the day.Purge server cache
October 1
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Kristina Inhof (born 1 October 1988) is an Austrian presenter and sports journalist at ORF, the Austrian national public service broadcaster. She was born in Vienna and grew up in Lower Austria, playing handball for Hypo Niederösterreich during her school years. Inhof graduated with a bachelor's degree in sports science with a focus on sports management at the University of Vienna in 2012. Her presenting career began in 2009, working first for Vienna Online and then for cable television station W24. She was hired by Austrian television broadcaster Puls 4 for the broadcast of the UEFA Champions League in 2012. For several months in 2015, Inhof joined the presenting team of Sky Sport News HD. She has been working exclusively for ORF since 2016, presenting for the football department. Photograph credit: Julia Engel
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October 2
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Bath Abbey is an Anglican parish church and Grade I listed building in the English city of Bath. Founded in the 7th century, Bath Abbey was reorganised in the 10th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. It is one of the largest examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in the West Country. The cathedral was consolidated to Wells Cathedral in 1539 after the abbey was dissolved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but the name of the diocese has remained unchanged. The church is cruciform in plan. This picture shows the abbey's west front, including sculptures of angels climbing to heaven on two stone ladders. Photograph credit: David Iliff
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October 3
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Ruth Muskrat Bronson (October 3, 1897 – June 12, 1982) was a Cherokee poet, educator and Indian rights activist. After completing her education, Bronson became the first Guidance and Placement Officer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She served as executive secretary for the National Congress of American Indians, which was founded in 1944, and created their legislative news service. After a decade of work in Washington, D.C., Bronson moved to Arizona. There she served as a health education specialist for the Indian Health Service. Upon her retirement from the government, she received the Oveta Culp Hobby Service Award from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. She continued working for Native American rights, promoting their development and leadership in the private sector until her death. This picture shows Bronson in 1923, at the age of 26. Photograph credit: National Photo Company; restored by Adam Cuerden
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October 4
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Buster Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian, film director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer. He is best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929" when he "worked without interruption" on a series of films that make him "the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies". His career declined afterward with a loss of artistic independence when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, his wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. He recovered in the 1940s, remarried, and revived his career as an honored comic performer for the rest of his life, earning an Academy Honorary Award in 1959. Photograph credit: Bain News Service; restored by Fallschirmjäger
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October 5
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The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term Milky Way is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from the Greek γαλαξίας κύκλος (galaxías kýklos, 'milky circle'). From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies. This picture shows a portion of the Milky Way as seen from Cerro Paranal in Chile, home to the European Southern Observatory (ESO)'s Very Large Telescope, depicting the region spanning the constellations from Sagittarius to Scorpius. The colourful nebulae surrounding Rho Ophiuchi and Antares can be seen to the right, while the dusty lane of the galaxy runs obliquely through the image, dotted with reddish objects such as the Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae. This region of the Milky Way also includes the Galactic Center, likely containing a supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. Photograph credit: ESO / Stéphane Guisard
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October 6
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Houses at Auvers is an oil-on-canvas painting by Vincent van Gogh, painted towards the end of May or beginning of June 1890, shortly after he had moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town northwest of Paris, France. His move was prompted by his dissatisfaction with the boredom and monotony of asylum life at Saint-Rémy, as well as by his emergence as an artist of some renown following Albert Aurier's celebrated January 1890 Mercure de France review of his work. In his final two months at Saint-Rémy, van Gogh painted from memory a number of canvases he called "reminisces of the North", harking back to his Dutch roots. The influence of this return to the North continued at Auvers, notably in The Church at Auvers. He did not, however, repeat his studies of peasant life of the sort he had made in his Nuenen period. His paintings of dwellings at Auvers encompassed a range of social domains. Houses at Auvers is now in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, United States. Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh
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October 7
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Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. He is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. This picture is the "Annie" daguerreotype of Poe, probably taken in 1849, a few months before his death, and given to his friend Annie L. Richmond. The daguerreotype, which is one of a very few known photographs of Poe, is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Yann Forget and Adam Cuerden
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October 8
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Hygin-Auguste Cavé (8 October 1796 – 30 March 1852) was a French attorney, journalist, and government official, as well as an occasional playwright and librettist, who often collaborated with Adolphe Dittmer under the pseudonym Jacques François de Fongeray. He is also sometimes referred to as Edmond Cavé. This picture is an oil-on-canvas portrait of Cavé by French Neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, which he commissioned in 1844, apparently as a companion piece to Ingres's earlier portrait of his wife, Madame Cavé. The painting is now in the collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Painting credit: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
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October 9
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The sable antelope (Hippotragus niger) is an antelope which inhabits wooded savanna in eastern and southern Africa, from the south of Kenya to South Africa, with a separate population in Angola. The species is sexually dimorphic, with the male heavier and about one-fifth taller than the female. It has a compact and robust build, characterized by a thick neck and tough skin, and both sexes have ringed horns which arch backward. The sable antelope has four subspecies. This picture shows an adult male common sable antelope (H. n. niger) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
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October 10
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Fractional currency, also referred to as shinplasters, was introduced by the United States federal government following the outbreak of the Civil War. These low-denomination banknotes of the U.S. dollar were in use between 21 August 1862 and 15 February 1876; they were issued in denominations of 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cents across five issuing periods. The notes could be redeemed by the U.S. Postal Service for the face value in postage stamps. This picture shows a second-issue five-cent (5¢) fractional currency note, issued by the United States Department of the Treasury between 1863 and 1867, featuring a portrait of George Washington, the first president of the United States, on the obverse. This note is in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Other denominations: 10¢, 25¢, 50¢ Banknote credit: United States Department of the Treasury; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
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Fractional currency, also referred to as shinplasters, was introduced by the United States federal government following the outbreak of the Civil War. These low-denomination banknotes of the U.S. dollar were in use between 21 August 1862 and 15 February 1876; they were issued in denominations of 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cents across five issuing periods. The notes could be redeemed by the U.S. Postal Service for the face value in postage stamps. This picture shows a second-issue ten-cent (10¢) fractional currency note, issued by the United States Department of the Treasury between 1863 and 1867, featuring a portrait of George Washington, the first president of the United States, on the obverse. This note is in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Other denominations: 5¢, 25¢, 50¢ Banknote credit: United States Department of the Treasury; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
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Subpage 3
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Fractional currency, also referred to as shinplasters, was introduced by the United States federal government following the outbreak of the Civil War. These low-denomination banknotes of the U.S. dollar were in use between 21 August 1862 and 15 February 1876; they were issued in denominations of 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cents across five issuing periods. The notes could be redeemed by the U.S. Postal Service for the face value in postage stamps. This picture shows a second-issue twenty-five-cent (25¢) fractional currency note, issued by the United States Department of the Treasury between 1863 and 1867, featuring a portrait of George Washington, the first president of the United States, on the obverse. This note is in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Other denominations: 5¢, 10¢, 50¢ Banknote credit: United States Department of the Treasury; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
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Subpage 4
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Fractional currency, also referred to as shinplasters, was introduced by the United States federal government following the outbreak of the Civil War. These low-denomination banknotes of the U.S. dollar were in use between 21 August 1862 and 15 February 1876; they were issued in denominations of 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cents across five issuing periods. The notes could be redeemed by the U.S. Postal Service for the face value in postage stamps. This picture shows a second-issue fifty-cent (50¢) fractional currency note, issued by the United States Department of the Treasury between 1863 and 1867, featuring a portrait of George Washington, the first president of the United States, on the obverse. This note is in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Other denominations: 5¢, 10¢, 25¢ Banknote credit: United States Department of the Treasury; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
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October 11
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The Kaohsiung Confucius Temple is a temple dedicated to the memory of Confucius near Lotus Pond, Zuoying District, in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. With an area of 167 m2 (1,800 sq ft), it is Taiwan's largest Confucian temple complex. The temple was originally constructed in 1684, during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, but fell into disrepair during the Japanese colonial period. A new temple was constructed in 1976, based on Song dynasty architecture, as well as the design of the Temple of Confucius, Qufu. This picture shows the Dacheng Hall, the main building of the temple. Photograph credit: Uwe Aranas
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October 12
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Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon is a very small oil-on-panel portrait of an unidentified man attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. The painting was commissioned and completed sometime around 1430. It contains a number of elements typical of van Eyck's secular portraits, including a slightly oversized head, a dark and flat background, forensic attention to the small details and textures of the man's face, and illusionistic devices. It had long been thought that the ring held in the man's right hand was meant as an indication of his profession as a jeweler or goldsmith and so the painting was long titled on variants of such. More recently, the ring is interpreted as an emblem of betrothal and the titles given by various art historians and publications since are usually more descriptive of the colour or form of the headdress. The painting was attributed to van Eyck in the late 19th century, but this was repeatedly challenged by some art historians until a 1991 cleaning when infrared photography revealed an underdrawing and methods of handling of oil that were unmistakably van Eyck's. Prior to 1948, the panel belonged to the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania. That year, the new Communist regime seized the panel, along with eighteen others it considered the museum's most valuable holdings, and gave it to the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest. At the end of 2006, in time for Sibiu's stint as European Capital of Culture, the works were returned to the Brukenthal Museum. Painting credit: Jan van Eyck
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October 13
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Siege of Mafeking currency was issued by the British commander, Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, during the 217-day siege for the town of Mafeking (now Mahikeng) in South Africa from 13 October 1899 to 17 May 1900, during the Second Boer War. To ease the problems caused by the lack of genuine banknotes, Baden-Powell authorised the issue of siege banknotes in late 1899. Made by Mafeking printers Townshend & Son using woodcut printing, notes were backed by the Standard Bank of South Africa and issued in denominations of one-, two-, three- and ten-shilling coupons, as well as one-pound notes, of which 620 were printed. The intention was that, after the siege was over, these could be exchanged for genuine currency, but in practice few were; most were kept as souvenirs. This picture shows a ten-shilling note from the Siege of Mafeking, dated March 1900; it is now in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Banknote credit: Townshend & Son; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
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October 14
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Roundhay Garden Scene is a short silent actuality film recorded by French inventor Louis Le Prince on 14 October 1888, filmed in Roundhay, Leeds, in the north of England. The footage is believed to be the oldest surviving film in existence. The footage features Louis's son Adolphe Le Prince, mother-in law Sarah Whitley, father-in-law Joseph Whitley, and Annie Hartley, believed to be a family friend, in the garden of Oakwood Grange, the Whitleys' home, leisurely walking around the garden of the premises. This digital remastered version of the film contains 52 frames and is played back at a modern cinematographic frame rate, yielding a running time of 2.11 seconds. Adolphe Le Prince stated, however, that the film was originally shot at 12 frames per second, which would result in a duration of 4.33 seconds. Film credit: Louis Le Prince |
October 15
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William H. Crook (October 15, 1839 – March 13, 1915) was one of President Abraham Lincoln's bodyguards in 1865. After Lincoln's assassination (while Crook was off duty), he continued to work in the White House for a total of over 50 years, serving 12 presidents. Crook, a member of the Washington Police Force and a former Union Army soldier, was selected as one of Lincoln's bodyguards in January 1865. On April 14, 1865, the day of Lincoln's assassination, Crook began his shift at 8 am. He was to have been relieved by John Frederick Parker at 4 pm, but Parker was several hours late. Crook tried to persuade the president not to attend a performance of the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre that night, or at least allow him to go along as an extra bodyguard, but Lincoln said he had promised his wife they would go. As Lincoln left for the theater, he turned to Crook and said "Goodbye, Crook". Before, Lincoln had always said, "Good night, Crook". Crook later recalled: "It was the first time that he neglected to say 'Good Night' to me and it was the only time that he ever said 'Good-bye'. I thought of it at that moment and, a few hours later, when the news flashed over Washington that he had been shot, his last words were so burned into my being that they can never be forgotten." Crook blamed Parker, who had left his post at the theater without permission. Crook was later appointed Executive Clerk of the President of the United States in 1870, and Chief Disbursing Officer in 1877, the latter of which he would hold for the rest of his career, up until the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Photograph credit: Frances Benjamin Johnston; restored by Adam Cuerden |
October 16
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Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established on 16 October 1869 by Emily Davies, Barbara Bodichon and Lady Stanley of Alderley as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status by the university, marking the official admittance of women to the university. In 1976, it was the first Cambridge women's college to become coeducational. This picture is a photochrom print, produced by the Detroit Publishing Company, showing Girton College in the 1890s. The print is now in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Print credit: Detroit Publishing Company; restored by Adam Cuerden
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October 17
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Locusts are a collection of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstances they become more abundant and change their behaviour and habits, becoming gregarious. No taxonomic distinction is made between locust and grasshopper species; the basis for the definition is whether a species forms swarms under intermittently suitable conditions. These grasshoppers are innocuous, their numbers are low, and they do not pose a major economic threat to agriculture. However, under suitable conditions of drought followed by rapid vegetation growth, serotonin in their brains triggers a dramatic set of changes: they start to breed abundantly, becoming gregarious and nomadic (loosely described as migratory) when their populations become dense enough. They form bands of wingless nymphs which later become swarms of winged adults. Both the bands and the swarms move around and rapidly strip fields and cause damage to crops. The adults are powerful fliers; they can travel great distances, consuming most of the green vegetation wherever the swarm settles. This picture shows an adult garden locust (Acanthacris ruficornis), a species distributed throughout Africa and parts of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as southern Spain; this individual was photographed in Ghana. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
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October 18
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Perseus and Andromeda is an oil-on-canvas painting by British artist Sir Frederic Leighton. Completed in 1891, the year it was displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts, it depicts the Greek mythological story of Perseus and Andromeda. In contrast to the basis of a classical tale, Leighton used a Gothic style for the artwork. The mythological theme of Andromeda is depicted in a dramatic manner; the scene is a representation of the myth set on a rocky shore. Perseus is depicted flying above the head of Andromeda, on his winged horse, Pegasus. He is shooting an arrow from the air, that hits the sea monster, Cetus, who turns his head upwards, towards the hero. Andromeda's almost naked, twisted body is shaded by the wings of the dark creature, creating a visual sign of imminent danger. Her sinuous body is contrasted against the dark masses of the monster's irregular and jagged body, as well as depicted in white, representing pure and untouched innocence, indicating an unfair sacrifice for a divine punishment that was not directed towards her, but her mother, Cassiopeia, who, with her husband Cepheus, sacrificed her to Cetus. Pegasus and Perseus are surrounded by a halo of light that connects them visually to the white body of the princess, chained to the rock. The painting is now in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, England. Painting credit: Frederic Leighton
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October 19
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A prokaryote is a unicellular organism that lacks a membrane-bound nucleus, mitochondria, or any other membrane-bound organelle. The word prokaryote comes from the Greek πρό (pro, 'before') and κάρυον (karyon, 'nut' or 'kernel'). Prokaryotes are divided into two domains, Archaea and Bacteria. Species with nuclei and organelles are placed in the third domain, Eukaryota. Prokaryotes reproduce without fusion of gametes. The first living organisms are thought to have been prokaryotes. In prokaryotes, all the intracellular water-soluble components (proteins, DNA and metabolites) are located together in the cytoplasm enclosed by the cell membrane, rather than in separate cellular compartments. Bacteria, however, do possess protein-based bacterial microcompartments, which are thought to act as primitive organelles enclosed in protein shells. Some prokaryotes, such as cyanobacteria, may form large colonies. Others, such as myxobacteria, have multicellular stages in their life cycles. This picture is a labelled diagram of a typical prokaryotic bacterial cell. Diagram credit: Ali Zifan
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October 20
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Atiśa (982–1054) was a Bengali Buddhist religious leader and master from the Indian subcontinent. He was one of the major figures in the spread of 11th-century Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia and inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra. In 1013, he travelled to the kingdom of Srivijaya and stayed there for 12 years before returning to India. He is recognised as one of the greatest figures of classical Buddhism. Atiśa's chief disciple, Dromtön, was the founder of the Kadam school, one of the New Translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism, later supplanted by the Gelug tradition in the 14th century, adopting its teachings and absorbing its monasteries. In 2004, Atiśa was ranked 18th in the BBC's poll of the greatest Bengalis of all time. This picture is a Tibetan painting of Atiśa, produced in the early to mid-12th century with distemper and gold on cloth. In this depiction, he holds a long, thin palm-leaf manuscript with his left hand, probably symbolizing one of the many important texts he wrote, while making the gesture of teaching with his right hand. The painting originated from a Kadam monastery in Tibet and was gifted to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1993. Painting credit: unknown
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October 21
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The red-banded fruiteater (Pipreola whitelyi) is a species of bird in the family Cotingidae. Its known range is restricted to the humid highland forests of the tepuis in the southeast of Venezuela and western Guyana. While likely present, it remains unconfirmed in adjacent parts of northern Brazil. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern". Uniquely among the fruiteaters, the underparts of the male are primarily grey. As suggested by its common name, the male also has a conspicuous red pectoral collar. The species grows to a length of about 16.6 cm (6.5 in). This picture is a lithograph of a female (top) and a male (bottom) red-banded fruiteater, produced by Dutch bird illustrator John Gerrard Keulemans in 1886 for an edition of the journal Ibis. The adult male has greyish-green upper parts with a distinctive long golden stripe that runs above the eye and round the ear coverts. The chin and belly are grey and there is a broad, orange-red chest collar, and yellowish-ochre under-tail coverts. The female has similar head markings, a yellowish patch at the side of the neck, and moss-green upper parts. There is no chest collar and the underparts are greyish-white, boldly streaked with black. The beak and legs are pinkish-grey; the male has an orange iris and the female's is ochre. Lithograph credit: John Gerrard Keulemans
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October 22
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John Sherman (May 10, 1823 – October 22, 1900) was an American congressman and senator from Ohio during the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. He was the principal author of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison. His brothers included General William Tecumseh Sherman, Judge Charles Taylor Sherman and banker Hoyt Sherman. As a Republican senator, he worked on legislation to restore the nation's credit abroad and produce a stable, gold-backed currency at home. Serving as Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, Sherman helped to end wartime inflationary measures and to oversee the law allowing dollars to be redeemed for gold. He returned to the Senate after his term expired, continuing his work on financial legislation, as well as writing and debating laws on immigration, business competition law and interstate commerce. In 1897, he was appointed Secretary of State by President William McKinley, but, due to failing health, he retired in 1898, at the start of the Spanish–American War. This picture is a line engraving of Sherman, produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 42 secretaries of the treasury. Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva
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October 23
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Hurricane Patricia was the most intense tropical cyclone on record worldwide in terms of wind speed and the second-most intense on record worldwide in terms of pressure, behind Typhoon Tip in 1979, with a minimum atmospheric pressure of 872 mbar (hPa; 25.75 inHg). Originating from a sprawling disturbance near the Gulf of Tehuantepec, south of Mexico, in mid-October 2015, Patricia was first classified a tropical depression on October 20. Initial development was slow, with only modest strengthening within the first day of its classification. The system later became a tropical storm and was named Patricia, the twenty-fourth named storm of the annual hurricane season. Exceptionally favorable environmental conditions fueled explosive intensification on October 22. A well-defined eye developed within an intense central dense overcast and Patricia grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours – a near-record pace. On October 23, the hurricane achieved its record peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 215 mph (345 km/h). This made it the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Western Hemisphere and the strongest globally in terms of one-minute maximum sustained winds. This picture shows Hurricane Patricia on October 23, shortly after its record peak intensity, while approaching western Mexico. The image was captured by the MODIS instrument on board NASA's Terra satellite. Photograph credit: NASA; edited by Meow
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October 24
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The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the United Kingdom's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is managed by a registered charity, is held in trust for the nation, and receives no government funding. It can seat 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage. It is the venue for some of the most notable events in British culture, in particular the Proms concerts, which have been held there every summer since 1941. It is host to more than 390 shows in the main auditorium annually, including classical, rock and pop concerts, ballet, opera, film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment, sports, awards ceremonies, school and community events, and charity performances and banquets. A further 400 events are held each year in the non-auditorium spaces. This picture shows the interior of the Royal Albert Hall as viewed from the Grand Tier, showing the organ, the second largest in the British Isles, in the background, as well as the fibreglass acoustic diffusing discs suspended from the ceiling, which were installed in 1969. Photograph credit: Colin
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October 25
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Ariadne auf Naxos ('Ariadne on Naxos'), Op. 60, is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Combining slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera was ninety minutes long, and the performance of the play and opera together totalled over six hours. It was first performed at the Staatsoper Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. The work was revised in 1916, with the play being replaced by a prologue, and first performed at the Vienna State Opera on 4 October of that year. This picture is the cover of a vocal score of the revised edition of Ariadne auf Naxos, published in 1916. Illustration credit: unknown
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October 26
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Macrocranion is a genus of extinct mammal from the Eocene epoch of Europe and North America. Exceptional fossils have been found in the Messel pit in Germany. Macrocranion species are often described as forest-floor predators, about the size of small squirrels but with longer limbs. This picture shows an M. tupaiodon fossil, approximately 15 cm (6 in) in length, excavated at the Messel pit and on display in the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe. Photograph credit: H. Zell
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October 27
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Theodore Roosevelt (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He had previously been the 33rd governor of New York, from 1899 to 1900, and then the 25th vice president of the United States, from March to September 1901. As a leader of the Republican Party, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century. In 1912, he ran for a third term as president. When he could not secure the Republican nomination, he formed his own party, the Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party, which drew enough votes away from the Republican nominee, incumbent President William Howard Taft, to give their Democratic opponent Woodrow Wilson a large victory in the electoral vote. Roosevelt was a distant cousin of the 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the uncle of Franklin's wife Eleanor Roosevelt. His face is depicted on Mount Rushmore, alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. This picture is a line engraving of Roosevelt, produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents. Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva
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October 28
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Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his emotionally charged raw imagery and fixation on personal motifs. Best known for his depictions of popes, crucifixions and portraits of close friends, his abstracted figures are typically isolated in geometrical cages which give them vague 3D depth, set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. Bacon said that he saw images "in series", and his work, which numbers around 590 extant paintings along with many others he destroyed, typically focuses on a single subject for sustained periods, often in triptych or diptych formats. His output can be broadly described as sequences or variations on single motifs, including the 1930s Picasso-influenced bio-morphs and Furies, the 1940s male heads isolated in rooms or geometric structures, the 1950s screaming popes, the mid-to-late 1950s animals and lone figures, the early 1960s crucifixions, the mid to late 1960s portraits of friends, the 1970s self-portraits, and the cooler more technical 1980s paintings. This picture is an oil-on-board portrait of Bacon painted by Irish portrait artist Reginald Gray in 1960. The painting is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. Painting credit: Reginald Gray
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October 29
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The Stonemason's Yard is an early oil-on-canvas painting by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto. It depicts an informal scene in Venice, looking over a temporary stonemason's yard in the Campo San Vidal and across the Grand Canal towards the church of Santa Maria della Carità. Painted in the mid- to late 1720s, it is considered one of Canaletto's finest works. Unsigned and undated, the painting is attributed and dated by stylistic clues. It seems to combine features of Canaletto's early and mature styles, for example in the use of two undercolours, and is a very early example of the use of Prussian blue in oil painting. The informal scene is thought to have been painted for a Venetian patron, rather than a foreign visitor to Venice. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London. Painting credit: Canaletto
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October 30
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John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain, and he served as the first vice president of the United States. Adams was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with many important figures in early American history, including his wife and adviser, Abigail. His letters and other papers serve as an important source of historical information about the era. This picture is a line engraving of Adams, produced around 1902 by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents. Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva
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October 31
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Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film written, directed, photographed and edited by George Romero, co-written by John Russo, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven people who are trapped in a rural farmhouse in Western Pennsylvania, which is besieged by a large and growing group of "living dead". The 96-minute film was completed on a $114,000 budget (equivalent to $823,000 in 2018) and shot outside Pittsburgh, where it had its theatrical premiere on October 1, 1968. It grossed $12 million domestically ($87 million, 2018) and $18 million internationally ($130 million, 2018). Despite being heavily criticized upon its release for its explicit gore, the film eventually garnered critical acclaim and was selected in 1999 by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. Night of the Living Dead led to five subsequent films between 1978 and 2009, also directed by Romero, and inspired several remakes. Film credit: George A. Romero
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