From today's featured article
Benedict Joseph Fenwick (1782–1846) was an American Catholic bishop and educator who served as Bishop of Boston from 1825 until his death. Born in Maryland, he entered the Society of Jesus and began his ministry in the Diocese of New York, where he eventually became the vicar general and administrator. In 1817, he became the president of Georgetown College in Washington, D.C. Months later, Ambrose Maréchal, Archbishop of Baltimore, sent him to St. Mary's Church in Charleston, South Carolina, to resolve a longstanding schism. In 1825, Fenwick became the bishop of Boston, during a period of rapid growth of the city's Catholic population due to Irish immigration. Intense nativism and anti-Catholicism culminated with the burning of the Ursuline Convent in 1834, threats against Fenwick's life, and the formation of the Montgomery Guards. He established numerous churches, charitable institutions, newspapers, and schools, including The Pilot in 1829 and the College of the Holy Cross in 1843. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
- ... that the founder of the magazine Shōjo Club (issue pictured) hoped that the publication would instill in its readership the "inner modesty and fortitude of samurai women"?
- ... that Stanford's E. J. Smith, son of the National Football League's all-time leading rusher, was named a 2022 breakout candidate at his father's position?
- ... that members of a 250,000-strong crowd sang the refrain of the Christian hymn "Ich lobe meinen Gott, der aus der Tiefe mich holt" during the 2015 Kirchentag?
- ... that Judith Schiff, as chief research archivist at the Yale University Library, helped determine that skeletons exposed by a tree uprooted by Hurricane Sandy dated to the 18th century?
- ... that neighboring British Sierra Leone and Liberia disputed their border, and the British Empire seized the disputed territory in 1885?
- ... that William Heath Byford performed the first ovariotomy in Chicago in 1860?
- ... that Barclays House in Poole, England, has been sinking since its construction in 1975?
- ... that getting bitten by an eel led Sean Barber to become an umpire?
In the news
- Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (pictured) dies at the age of 91.
- Floods in Pakistan kill more than 1,100 people and over 700,000 livestock.
- The Man of the Hole, the last surviving member of a people eradicated in the genocide of indigenous peoples in Brazil, is found dead.
- In the Angolan general election, the MPLA win the most seats and João Lourenço is re-elected as president.
On this day
- 1774 – Under orders from Governor Thomas Gage, British soldiers removed gunpowder from a magazine in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which caused Patriots to prepare for war.
- 1937 – The first group of around 172,000 Koreans were deported by Soviet authorities from the Russian Far East to the Kazakh and Uzbek SSRs; around 10 to 25 percent died.
- 1939 – German forces began an invasion of Poland, including attacks at Wieluń and at Westerplatte, starting World War II in Europe.
- 1969 – Muammar Gaddafi (pictured) led a coup d'état to overthrow King Idris of Libya.
- 1972 – In a match widely publicized as a Cold War confrontation, American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer became the 11th World Chess Champion with his victory over Russian Boris Spassky.
- Hannah Glasse (d. 1770)
- Hilda Rix Nicholas (b. 1884)
- Luis Walter Alvarez (d. 1988)
Today's featured picture
A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a French adventure short film directed by Georges Méliès and released on 1 September 1902. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon and its 1870 sequel Around the Moon, the silent film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. Its ensemble cast of French theatrical performers is led by Méliès himself as the main character, Professor Barbenfouillis. The film features the overtly theatrical style for which Méliès became famous. In an iconic shot, the astronomers' capsule hits the Man in the Moon in the eye, a visual pun on the expression dans l'œil (literally 'in the eye'), the French equivalent of the English 'bullseye'. Film credit: Georges Méliès
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