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Nearing peak intensity close to the Azores

Hurricane Leslie (2018) was a cyclone of tropical origin, the strongest to strike the Iberian Peninsula since 1842. A large, long-lived, and very erratic tropical cyclone, Leslie developed from an extratropical cyclone that was situated over the northern Atlantic on 22 September. It became a Category 1 hurricane early on 3 October before falling to tropical storm intensity late on 4 October. After re-intensifying, Leslie reached hurricane status for the second time on 10 October, reaching peak intensity two days later and passing between the Azores and Madeira. It thereafter weakened, making landfall over central Portugal before dissipating by 16 October over Spain. The storm was responsible for 17 deaths in mainland Europe, including 2 direct deaths in Portugal and 15 indirect deaths in France. Over 300,000 citizens were left without power in Portugal, with damage there estimated to be about €120 million (US$145 million). The storm and a cold front also caused flooding in France and Spain. (Full article...)

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The "Durable Dodger Infield"

... that the infield of Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey (pictured) played together longer than any other infield foursome in Major League Baseball?
... that after bombing in World War II, the surviving tower of the Friedenskirche, a Lutheran church in Stuttgart, was combined with a new concrete structure?
... that in 2022 Sandhya Dhar has received both a Nari Shakti Puraskar and a bronze medal in boccia at the Indian national championships?
... that professional golfer Cary Middlecoff co-owned Memphis, Tennessee, radio station WCBR in the mid-1950s?
... that Werner Flume called a fellow academic assistant a pig for demanding the boycott of professors of Jewish descent in 1933?
... that the Beresford and the San Remo were sold for a total of $25,000 in 1940, a decade after they were built for $10 million?
... that Nathalie Viteri was dismissed from Ecuador's National Assembly but she is now one of the top five members contributing to their debates?
... that Melody Clinger of the girl band the Clingers met the drummer for the Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson, after wolf-whistling his Rolls Royce on her way home from a guitar lesson?

In the news

Elizabeth II

In Nigeria, at least 40 people are killed in an attack at a Catholic church in Owo, Ondo State.
A fire and explosions at a storage depot in Sitakunda, Bangladesh, kill at least 41 people and injure more than 450 others.
The Commonwealth of Nations celebrates the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II (pictured).
Denmark votes to eliminate its opt-out of the European Union's Common Security and Defence Policy.

On this day

June 11: Queen's Official Birthday in Tuvalu and the United Kingdom (2022)

Afonso of Brazil

1345 – Inspecting a new prison without being escorted by his bodyguard, the megas doux Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, was lynched by the prisoners.
1847 – Prince Afonso (pictured) died at the age of two, leaving his father Pedro II, the last emperor of Brazil, without a male heir.
1962 – American criminals Clarence Anglin, John Anglin and Frank Morris escaped from Alcatraz Island, one of the United States' most famous prisons.
1982 – Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, considered one of the greatest films ever made, was released.
2012 – Two earthquakes struck northern Afghanistan, triggering a massive landslide that buried a village and killed 75 people.

Millicent Fawcett (b. 1847)
Julius Evola (d. 1974)
Taha Karaan (d. 2021)

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Today's featured picture

Julia Margaret Cameron (11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered to be one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity and literature. Cameron also produced sensitive portraits of women and children. After showing a keen interest in photography for many years, she took up the practice at the relatively late age of 48, when her daughter gave her a camera as a present. She quickly produced a large body of work capturing the genius, beauty, and innocence of the men, women, and children who visited her studio, and created unique allegorical images inspired by tableaux vivants, theatre, 15th-century Italian painters, and the work of her creative contemporaries. Her photography career was short but productive; she made around 900 photographs over a twelve-year period. This portrait of Cameron, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was taken in 1870 by her son Henry Herschel Hay Cameron.

Photograph credit: Henry Herschel Hay Cameron; restored by Adam Cuerden

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