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From today's featured article

Edward III outside a walled town

King Edward III of England led a campaign in the Duchy of Brittany in 1342 and 1343. England, at war with France since 1337 in the Hundred Years' War, had sided with John of Montfort's faction in the Breton Civil War soon after it broke out in 1341. An English fleet broke the blockade of Brest on 18 August, and on 30 September a numerically inferior English army inflicted a heavy defeat on the French at the battle of Morlaix. After logistical difficulties, Edward abandoned his siege train and landed in Brittany on 26 October after a storm-wracked three-week passage. The English then advanced on the major Breton town of Vannes. The French garrison repelled an immediate assault and the English began a siege. English raiding parties devastated large parts of eastern Brittany, but attempts to reinforce or supply Edward from England failed. Philip VI of France moved his court to Brittany and entered into negotiations with Edward; they rapidly agreed the Truce of Malestroit, which is widely seen as favouring the English. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Wiley Griffon with his streetcar

... that Wiley Griffon (pictured with streetcar) became the first streetcar operator in Eugene, Oregon, despite Black settlers being outlawed in the state?
... that Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech "The Other America" is thought to have been influenced by a post-Keynesian economist and a democratic socialist?
... that Dorothy Homer declared her library was "dedicated to the principles of Democracy which cherish books while Dictatorships burn them"?
... that a 2004 ballot measure to repeal Jim Crow laws in Alabama failed after opponents claimed that taxes would spike?
... that Ira L. Cooper was the first African-American detective in St. Louis?
... that an owner of a Chicago radio station attempted to destroy records of a documentary covering a race riot?
... that Quaker abolitionist John Vickers hid fugitive slaves in the kiln where he made pottery?
... that both The Artist & The Pervert and Black Exhibition are described as significant works in the academic study of race and BDSM?
... that more than 90 percent of Connecticut voters in 1876 agreed to repeal the requirement of being white to vote?

In the news

Yoweri Museveni

A ceasefire agreement is reached between the Syrian transitional government and the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, following a government-led offensive in northeastern Syria.
Yoweri Museveni (pictured) is re-elected for a seventh term as President of Uganda amid protests over contested results.
A coalition supportive of Benin's president Patrice Talon, consisting of Progressive Union Renewal and Republican Bloc, wins all seats in the parliamentary elections.
Thousands are killed during protests against the Iranian regime.
Thirty people are killed when a crane falls onto a passenger train in Sikhio district, Thailand.

On this day

January 19: Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States (2026)

Depiction of the aftermath of the Siege of Mirandola

1511 – War of the League of Cambrai: Troops led by Pope Julius II captured Mirandola (depicted) after a brief siege.
1915 – World War I: The first major attack of the German bombing campaign against Britain took place when Zeppelins bombed several towns in Norfolk.
1972 – The French newspaper L'Aurore revealed that the former Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon", had been found to be living in Peru.
1975 – An earthquake registering 6.8 M_s struck northern Himachal Pradesh in India, causing extensive damage to the region.
2007 – A four-man team, using only skis and kites, completed a 1,093-mile (1,759 km) trek to reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility, the first people to get there since 1967, and the first to do so on foot.

Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (d. 1636)
Herbert Chapman (b. 1878)
Dennis Taylor (b. 1949)
Francesca Woodman (d. 1981)

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From today's featured list

English actor Josette Simon's first theatrical role was as a chorus member in the Leicester Haymarket Theatre production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which was followed by several minor roles in other productions at the same venue. Her first television role was as Dayna Mellanby in the third and fourth series of the television sci-fi series Blake's 7 from 1980 to 1981. In 1984 she starred as Dorcas Ableman in Golden Girls, directed by Barry Kyle, which became a breakthrough role for her. Later that year she landed her first leading role at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the first for a black actress, when she was cast by Kyle as Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost. She won the Evening Standard's Best Actress award, a Critics' Circle Theatre Award, and Plays and Players Critic Awards for Arthur Miller's After the Fall, in which she played Maggie, thought to have been based on Marilyn Monroe. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Lingnan School was an art movement active in the late Qing dynasty and Republic of China that sought to modernize Chinese painting through borrowing from other artistic traditions. Established by the brothers Gao Jianfu and Gao Qifeng, together with Chen Shuren, the Lingnan School has been considered one of the major art movements of 20th-century Chinese painting. Stylistically, the Lingnan School was marked by a blending of traditional Chinese approaches and Western techniques, as mediated by Japanese understandings. These included matters of lighting and atmosphere, as well as depictions of subjects rarely found in earlier Chinese works. This 1916 work is by Gao Qifeng and is titled The Roar of the Tiger.

Painting credit: Gao Qifeng

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