December 31

Paper describing Tarrare's medical history

Tarrare was a French showman, soldier and spy noted for his unusual appetite and eating habits. Able to eat vast amounts of meat, he was constantly hungry; his parents could not provide for him and he was turned out of the family home as a teenager. Tarrare travelled around France in the company of a band of prostitutes and thieves before becoming the warm-up act for a travelling charlatan. In this act, he swallowed corks, stones, live animals, and a whole basketful of apples. He then took this act to Paris, where he worked as a street performer. At the start of the War of the First Coalition, Tarrare joined the French Revolutionary Army, where even quadrupling the standard military ration was unable to satisfy his large appetite. He ate any available food from gutters and rubbish heaps but his condition still deteriorated through hunger. He was hospitalised due to exhaustion and became the subject of a series of medical experiments to test his eating capacity. (Full article...)

December 31: Saint Sylvester's Day (Western Christianity)

Roberto Clemente

• 1759 – Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum to the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin and began brewing Guinness.
• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Quebec, British forces repulsed an attempt by the Continental Army to capture Quebec City and enlist French Canadian support.
• 1950 – Korean War: North Korean troops attacked United Nations forces in the first of two battles at Wonju.
• 1965 – Central African military officers led by Jean-Bédel Bokassa began a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.
• 1972 – Puerto Rican baseball player Roberto Clemente (pictured) died in a plane crash en route to deliver aid to victims of that year's Nicaragua earthquake.

December 31

The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is one of the four extant species of lynx, wild cats in the family Felidae. The Iberian lynx is endemic to the Iberian Peninsula, in which it was once widespread, but it is now restricted to a small number of regions in Spain and Portugal, and is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Fossils suggest that the species has been present in Iberia since the end of the Early Pleistocene, around one million years ago. The Iberian lynx has a short bright yellowish to tawny coloured spotted fur. Its body is short with long legs and a short tail, and its head is small with tufted ears and a ruff (hairs under the neck). It preys foremost on the European rabbit for the bulk of its diet, supplemented by red-legged partridge, rodents, and to a smaller degree also on wild ungulates. The Iberian lynx marks its territory with its urine, scratch marks on the barks of trees, and scat. The home ranges of adults are stable over many years and both males and females reach sexual maturity at one year old, although they rarely start breeding until a territory becomes vacant. This wild female Iberian lynx was photographed in Almuradiel, in the province of Ciudad Real, Spain. Photograph credit: Diego Delso Recently featured: Soprano saxophone Red-tailed laughingthrush Regeneration Archive More featured pictures

January 1

Copper fals citing al-Muti' as overlord

al-Muti' was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 946 to 974, ruling under the tutelage of the Buyid emirs. Al-Muti's reign represented the nadir of the Abbasid Caliphate's power and authority. In previous decades, the secular authority of the caliphs had shrunk to Iraq, and even there had been curtailed by powerful warlords; with the Buyid conquest of Baghdad, it was now abolished entirely. Al-Muti' was raised to the throne by the Buyids and was effectively reduced to a rubber-stamp figurehead, albeit with some vestiges of authority over judicial and religious appointments in Iraq. The very fact of his subordination and powerlessness helped restore some stability to the caliphal institution: in stark contrast to his short-lived and violently deposed predecessors, al-Muti' enjoyed a long and relatively unchallenged tenure, and was able to hand over the throne to his son al-Ta'i'. Al-Muti's prestige as the nominal leader of the Muslim world sharply declined during his tenure. (Full article...)

January 1: Independence Day in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (1993); Public Domain Day; Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Roman Rite Catholicism)

Lehms, c. 1715

• 1726 – J. S. Bach led the first performance of Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16, his church cantata for New Year's Day to a libretto by Georg Christian Lehms (pictured).
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The town of Norfolk, Virginia, was burned and destroyed by the combined actions of British and Whig forces.
• 1785 – The Times began publication in London as The Daily Universal Register.
• 1926 – Ireland's first broadcaster, 2RN, began broadcasting.
• 2011 – A suicide bombing took place outside a Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria, Egypt, following a New Year service, killing 23 people.

January 1

The World Clock, located in Alexanderplatz in Berlin, Germany, is a large world clock displaying the local time in 148 locations across the world. It consists of a 24-sided column, each side of which represents a time zone on Earth and is engraved with the names of various cities. A row of numbers, from 1 to 24, revolve around the outside of the clock during the day, indicating the local time in each time zone. Once per minute, an artistic sculptural rendering of the Solar System made of steel rings and spheres rotates above the clock. Including the sculpture, the World Clock is 10 metres (33 feet) high. It was erected in 1969 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the German Democratic Republic in 1969, and was designed by Erich John, a lecturer at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. In July 2015, the German federal government declared the clock to be a historically and culturally significant monument. This long-exposure photograph shows the World Clock at night. Photograph credit: Diego Delso Recently featured: Iberian lynx Soprano saxophone Red-tailed laughingthrush Archive More featured pictures

January 2

Professed Cookery title page, 1760

Ann Cook (fl. c. 1725 – c. 1760) was an English cookery book writer and innkeeper. In 1754, she published Professed Cookery (pictured), which went on to two further editions in her lifetime. In 1739–1740, Cook and her husband John became embroiled in a feud with Sir Lancelot Allgood, a well-connected local landowner, following an argument over an invoice the Cooks had issued. Although they were later exonerated, Allgood continued his attack on them, forcing them to leave their inn. To earn money, Cook wrote The New System of Cookery in 1753, which was reissued as Professed Cookery in 1754. In the work, in addition to a range of recipes, she included a poem and an "Essay upon the Lady's Art of Cookery". This was an attack on Allgood's half-sister Hannah Glasse, who had published a best-selling cookery book, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, in 1747. The second and third editions of Professed Cookery include a critical analysis of Glasse's work, traditional English recipes and an essay on household management. (Full article...)

January 2: Feast day of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint Basil of Caesarea (Roman Rite Catholicism, Anglicanism)

Llandaff Cathedral

• 533 – Mercurius, a Roman priest, was elected Pope John II; he was apparently the first pope to adopt a new name upon elevation to the papacy.
• 1680 – Trunajaya rebellion: Amangkurat II of Mataram of Java and his courtiers stabbed Trunajaya to death a week after the rebel leader surrendered to VOC forces.
• 1941 – Second World War: Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales, was severely damaged by German bombing during the Cardiff Blitz.
• 1976 – An extratropical cyclone began affecting parts of western Europe, resulting in coastal flooding around the southern portions of the North Sea and leading to at least 82 deaths.
• 2024 – While landing at Haneda Airport, Japan Airlines Flight 516, collided with a De Havilland Canada Dash 8 which killed five people in total.

January 2

1957 performance of Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut

There have been many adaptations of the French novel Manon Lescaut (1731) by Antoine François Prévost into stage plays, ballets, operas, and films. The novel tells a tragic love story about a French nobleman (known only as the Chevalier des Grieux) and a common woman (Manon Lescaut). The first adaptation was a theatrical comedy in 1772. Early theatrical and operatic adaptations were not particularly successful, but several major operas were produced in the 19th century. The most renowned adaptations of Manon Lescaut are operas by Daniel Auber (1856), Jules Massenet (1884), and Giacomo Puccini (1893; performance pictured). Film adaptations followed as soon as the medium was invented, beginning with a 1908 silent-film adaptation of Puccini's opera. (Full list...)

January 2

The Pacific kingfisher (Todiramphus sacer) is a medium-sized bird in the kingfisher family, Alcedinidae. It belongs to the subfamily Halcyoninae, the tree kingfishers, and is found in the South Pacific islands, including American Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. The Pacific kingfisher was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin and was initially placed in the genus Alcedo, but since 1827 it has been placed in the genus Todiramphus. Formerly considered to be a subspecies of the collared kingfisher (T. chloris), a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2015 found that T. chloris was paraphyletic. The Pacific kingfisher perches almost motionless for long periods waiting for prey and its diet includes insects, worms, snails, shrimps, frogs, lizards, small fish and sometimes other small birds and eggs. This Pacific kingfisher was photographed in the Colo-i-Suva Forest Reserve, Fiji, perching with prey in its beak. Photograph credit: JJ Harrison Recently featured: World Clock Iberian lynx Soprano saxophone Archive More featured pictures

January 3

Tseax Cone is a small volcano in the Nass Ranges of the Hazelton Mountains in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. It has an summit elevation of 609 metres (1,998 feet) and lies within an east–west valley through which a tributary of the Tseax River flows. The volcano consists of two nested structures and was the source of four lava flows that descended into neighbouring valleys. A secondary eruptive centre lies just north of Tseax Cone on the opposite side of Melita Lake. It probably formed simultaneously with Tseax Cone; both were formed by volcanic activity sometime in the last 800 years. The exact timing of volcanism at Tseax Cone has been a subject of controversy due to there being no direct written accounts. There is also controversy over whether the volcano was formed during one or more distinct episodes of eruptive activity. The single eruptive episode hypothesis has been proposed by researchers as early as 1923, whereas a multi-eruption hypothesis was proposed in 1978. (Full article...)

January 3

Painting of the Battle of Princeton

• 250 – Decius ordered all people in the Roman Empire (except Jews) to perform a sacrifice to the Roman gods, resulting in widespread persecution of Christians.
• 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces commanded by George Washington defeated British troops at the Battle of Princeton (depicted).
• 1990 – United States invasion of Panama: Manuel Noriega, the deposed strongman of Panama, surrendered to American forces outside the apostolic nunciature in Panama City.
• 2002 – Second Intifada: Israeli forces seized MV Karine A, which was carrying 50 tons of smuggled weapons on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
• 2004 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashed shortly after departure from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport which killed all 148 occupants on board.

January 3

Portrait of Charles Marcotte (also known as Marcotte d'Argenteuil) is an 1810 oil-on-canvas painting by the French Neoclassical artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, completed during the artist's first stay in Rome. It depicts the eponymous Charles Marcotte (1773-1864), who was a long-term friend and supporter of Ingres and commissioned the work initially as a gift for his mother. Marcotte was 23 years old when the portrait was painted and serving as inspector general for waters and forests in Napoleonic Rome. In the painting, he stands against a plain grey-green background, leaning against a table draped with a red cloth. His stiff, starched white and yellow neck collar appears tight and restrictive. Marcotte did not like the final painting, finding it too stern, and it remained in his possession until his death. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., United States. Painting credit: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Recently featured: Pacific kingfisher World Clock Iberian lynx Archive More featured pictures

January 4

Excavated remains of Richard III

The remains of Richard III, the last English king killed in battle and last king of the House of York, were discovered within the site of the former Greyfriars Friary in Leicester, England, in September 2012. Richard III, the final ruler of the Plantagenet dynasty, was killed on 22 August 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field. His body was taken to Greyfriars, where it was buried in a crude grave in the friary church. Following the friary's dissolution in 1538 and subsequent demolition, Richard's tomb was lost. A search for Richard's body began in August 2012 and that September an archaeological excavation took place at the site of the friary. A skeleton (pictured) was discovered of a man with a spinal deformity and severe head injuries. Following extensive anthropological and genetic testing, the remains were identified as those of Richard. Leicester Cathedral was chosen as the site of Richard's reburial. His reinterment took place on 26 March 2015, during a televised memorial service. (Full article...)

January 4: Colonial Repression Martyrs' Day in Angola (1961)

Solomon Northup

• 1853 – Solomon Northup (pictured) regained his freedom after having been sold into slavery in the American South; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave later became a bestseller.
• 1970 – A magnitude-7.1 earthquake occurred in Tonghai County, China, killing at least 15,000 people.
• 1977 – The English punk-rock band Sex Pistols' lewd and disruptive behaviour at Heathrow Airport prompted the record label EMI to end their contract.
• 2010 – The Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest structure, officially opened in Dubai.
• 2020 – Sembawang Hot Spring Park in Singapore reopened after being redeveloped by the National Parks Board.

January 4

The featured picture for this day has not yet been chosen.

In general, pictures of the day are scheduled in order of promotion to featured status. See Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Guidelines for full guidelines.

January 5

In September 1826, Margaret Warden was murdered by arsenic poisoning, near Dundee, Scotland. Warden, a young servant girl, was pregnant at the time of her death; the father was George Smith, the son of Warden's employers, Mary and David Smith. The attending doctor thought that Warden died of cholera, but rumours of poisoning soon spread and she was exhumed. Her stomach contents were tested; arsenic was found and, in October, Mary Smith was committed for trial for murder. Her defence advocates called nearly fifty witnesses, and the trial began on 19 February. Testimony at the trial made it clear that Smith had given Warden something to drink shortly before she became ill. The defence called witnesses who testified that Warden might have committed suicide. The jury returned a verdict of not proven, acquitting Smith of the crime. Popular opinion at the time was that Smith was guilty, and ballads were written about the case. One of Smith's lawyers later wrote that he was sure she had committed the murder. (Full article...)

January 5: Twelfth Night (Western Christianity)

Harry S. Truman

• 1757 – King Louis XV survived an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, who later became the last person in France to be executed by drawing and quartering.
• 1869 – Te Kooti's War: After surviving a five-day siege in the pā at Ngātapa, Māori leader Te Kooti escaped from New Zealand's Armed Constabulary.
• 1919 – The German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party, was founded by Anton Drexler.
• 1949 – In his State of the Union speech, U.S. president Harry S. Truman (pictured) announced: "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal."
• 2003 – The Metropolitan Police arrested six people in conjunction with an alleged terrorist plot to release ricin on the London Underground, although no toxin was found.

January 5

Ilia Malinin, three-time U.S. national champion in men's single skating

The U.S. Figure Skating Championships are an annual figure skating competition organized by U.S. Figure Skating to crown the national champions of the United States. Medals are awarded in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance at the senior and junior levels. The first U.S. Championships were held in 1914 in New Haven, Connecticut, and while they were interrupted during World War I, they have been held without interruption since 1920. Dick Button and Roger Turner are tied for winning the most U.S. championships in men's singles (with seven each), while Maribel Vinson and Michelle Kwan are tied for winning the most championships in women's singles (with nine each). Theresa Weld-Blanchard and Nathaniel Niles hold the record in pair skating (with nine), while Meryl Davis and Charlie White, and Madison Chock and Evan Bates, are tied for winning the most championships in ice dance (with six each). (Full list...)

January 5

Chromodoris annae is a species of sea slug in the family Chromodorididae. It is found in the tropical central area of the Indo-Pacific region from Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to the Marshall Islands, a region rich in biodiversity and rich in coral, mangroves and seagrasses. Chromodoris annae has an elongated body, reaching a maximum length of 5 cm and is coloured in various shades of blue with black spots, its mantle edge and foot being bordered with white and orange-to-yellow lines. This sea slug's diet consists solely of Petrosaspongia, part of the Thorectidae family of sea sponges. It absorbs a noxious chemical from the sponge, which it stores in its glands and uses to deter predation. Chromodoris annae is generally a docile species, but individuals have been occasionally sighted fighting each other. This C. annae sea slug was photographed in the diving resort of Anilao in Mabini, Batangas, Philippines. Photograph credit: Diego Delso Recently featured: Portrait of Charles Marcotte Pacific kingfisher Archive More featured pictures

January 6

New England Revolution stadium

New England Revolution has taken part in several international competitions. New England Revolution is an American soccer club based in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which has competed in Major League Soccer (MLS) since the league's first season in 1996. The club has taken part five times in the CONCACAF Champions Cup; they have reached the quarterfinals on three occasions. In 2008, they lost to Joe Public F.C., marking the first time an MLS side had lost to a Caribbean one. In 2022, they lost to Pumas UNAM in a penalty shootout after winning the first leg 3–0. From 2008 to 2010, the club participated in the SuperLiga, an annual competition between MLS and Liga MX (the first-division Mexican league). They won the 2008 edition of the tournament, winning the final against the Houston Dynamo. The club also reached the final of the 2010 SuperLiga, which they lost to Atlético Morelia. Since 2023, they have participated in the Leagues Cup, another annual tournament between the two leagues. (Full article...)

January 6: Little Christmas

Four Freedoms composite poster (1943)

• 1066 – Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon monarch before the Norman Conquest, was crowned King of England.
• 1536 – The oldest European school of higher learning in the Americas, the Colegio de Santa Cruz, was founded in Tlatelolco, Mexico City.
• 1870 – The Musikverein, considered to be one of the greatest concert halls, is opened in Vienna, Austria.
• 1941 – During his State of the Union address, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his Four Freedoms (composite poster depicted) as fundamental freedoms that all people ought to enjoy.
• 1972 – A brawl broke out between players, fans, and police officers during an ice hockey game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the St. Louis Blues in Philadelphia.

January 6

January 6 United States Capitol attack Photograph credit: Tyler Merbler Recently featured: Chromodoris annae Portrait of Charles Marcotte Archive More featured pictures

January 7

Yoshi's New Island is a 2014 platform game developed by Arzest and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. The third installment in the Yoshi's Island series, it is set between the events of Yoshi's Island (1995) and Yoshi's Island DS (2006). Like its predecessors, Yoshi's New Island's gameplay revolves around safely transporting the infant Mario to his brother Luigi by completing a series of levels across an island. The player characters are dinosaurs known as the Yoshi species; each dinosaur is named Yoshi and has a unique color. Yoshi's New Island received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its sense of charm and nostalgia, but were divided on its art style, level design, and difficulty. Criticism was directed toward its soundtrack—which some considered repetitive—and the game's perceived lack of originality in comparison to its predecessors. The game was reissued as part of the Nintendo Selects line in 2016, and by 2020, it had sold more than two million copies worldwide. Yoshi's New Island was succeeded by Yoshi's Woolly World for the Wii U in 2015. (Full article...)

January 7: Christmas (Eastern Christianity; Julian calendar); Victory over Genocide Day in Cambodia (1979)

• 1797 – The Italian tricolour was first adopted as an official flag by the government of the Cispadane Republic.
• 1904 – The Marconi International Marine Communication Company specified CQD (audio featured) as the distress signal to be used by its operators.
• 1939 – French physicist Marguerite Perey identified francium, the last element to be discovered in nature rather than by synthesis.
• 1979 – The People's Army of Vietnam captured Phnom Penh, marking the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.
• 2020 – After 253 days without an operational government, a second round of investiture votes produced Spain's first coalition government since the Second Republic.

January 7

Chuck Mosley

American musician, singer and songwriter Chuck Mosley recorded over 100 songs during his career, both as a solo artist and as a member of Faith No More, Cement, and Primitive Race. Mosley began his career in Los Angeles, performing in local bands The Animated and Haircuts That Kill, before joining Faith No More in 1983. He appeared on two albums with the group, We Care a Lot (1985) and follow-up Introduce Yourself (1987), before being fired for "erratic behaviour" the following year. After Faith No More, Mosley briefly joined the group Bad Brains, before moving on to form Cement. The latter group released two albums—Cement and The Man with the Action Hair—before a bus accident, which left Mosley with a broken back, curtailed their career. Following this, Mosley left the music industry for several years before returning in 2009 with his solo debut, Will Rap Over Hard Rock for Food. Mosley joined the musical supergroup Primitive Race for their album Soul Pretender, which was released a week before his death. (Full list...)

January 7

The black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is a small nonmigratory passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae. that lives in deciduous and mixed forests. It is native to North America, ranging from the northern United States to southern Canada and all the way up to Alaska and Yukon. It has a distinct black cap on its head, a black bib underneath, and white cheeks. It has a white belly, buff sides, and grey wings, back, and tail. The bird is well known for its vocalizations, including its fee-bee song and its chick-a-dee-dee-dee call, from which it derives its name. The black-capped chickadee feeds primarily on insects and seeds, and is known for its ability to cache food for use during the winter. Its hippocampus grows during the caching season, which is believed to help it better remember its cache locations. The bird builds nests in tree cavities, with the nesting season starting in late April and lasting until late June. This foraging black-capped chickadee was photographed in Central Park, Yew York City, United States. Photograph credit: Rhododendrites Recently featured: January 6 United States Capitol attack Chromodoris annae Archive More featured pictures