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From today's featured article

Clock tower in Skegness

Skegness is an English seaside town on the North Sea coast of Lincolnshire with 19,579 residents. The original Skegness was situated farther east but much of it was lost to the sea in the 1520s after the natural sea defences which protected its medieval harbour eroded. Rebuilt along the new shoreline, early modern Skegness was a fishing and farming village. From the late 18th century members of the local gentry visited for holidays. After the railways arrived in 1873, the major landowner turned the town into a seaside resort. It became a popular destination for holiday-makers from East Midlands factory towns such as Nottingham and Leicester. Despite the advent of the package holiday abroad in the 1970s, Skegness has a loyal visitor base; it has attracted new tourists and its affordability has fuelled a rise in visitor numbers since the 2010s recession. With a reputation as a traditional English seaside resort, the town received over 1.4 million visitors in 2015. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

View of El Paso at Sunset (c. 1922–1925)

... that View of El Paso at Sunset (pictured), a 22-foot-long (6.7 m) painting by Audley Dean Nicols, spent years in a janitor's closet at El Paso High School?
... that people with a fish allergy are unlikely to be allergic to shellfish, because fish and shellfish do not have the same allergenic protein?
... that American-Israeli basketball player Bryan Cohen is the only athlete in the history of the Patriot League to win its Defensive Player of Year award three times?
... that social projection may explain political polarization?
... that Gertrude Degenhardt illustrated her brother-in-law Franz Josef Degenhardt's song albums in the 1960s, and created art books such as Women in Music and Vagabondage in Blue in the 1990s?
... that Choctaw was one of only three semi-whaleback ships ever built?
... that armed robbers stole an estimated $30–45 million worth of paintings from Sweden's Nationalmuseum in December 2000, including two Renoirs and a Rembrandt?
... that the Strokes lose a game of baseball by a score of 56–1 against a team of robots in the music video for their song "The Adults Are Talking"?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Vaccines; Portal

Top of the landslide

At least seven people are killed in a landslide (pictured) in Ask, Norway.
An attack at Aden International Airport, Yemen, leaves twenty-five people dead and more than a hundred others injured.
An earthquake strikes Petrinja, Croatia, killing seven people.

On this day

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

Constantine Hangerli

1798 – After his investiture as Prince of Wallachia, Constantine Hangerli (pictured) arrived in Bucharest to assume the throne.
1853 – Solomon Northup regained his freedom after having been sold into slavery in the American South; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave later became a national bestseller.
1912 – The Boy Scouts Association was incorporated throughout the British Empire by royal charter.
1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean troops captured Seoul from United Nations forces.
2018 – A passenger train collided with a truck and derailed in the Free State, South Africa, killing 21 people and injuring 254 others.

Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy (b. 1334)
Nellie Cashman (d. 1925)
Erwin Schrödinger (d. 1961)

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Ivan Capelli

The Lorenzo Bandini Trophy is an annual award honouring the achievements of an individual or team in Formula One motor racing. It is named after the Italian driver Lorenzo Bandini, who died three days after suffering severe burns in a major accident at the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix. The accolade's trophy, a ceramic replica of Bandini's Ferrari 312/67 car adorned with the number 18, is awarded for "a commendable performance in motorsport", based not so much on the results attained, but more on how the success was achieved, and the character and approach to racing of the recipient. The inaugural winner was the Italian driver Ivan Capelli (pictured) in 1992. No award was given in 1993 and 1994 and no-one has won more than once. Although the award has usually been given to racing drivers for their achievements from the previous season, it has been occasionally awarded to other racing team members or to an entire racing team. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The yellow-faced honeyeater (Caligavis chrysops) is a small-to-medium-sized bird in the honeyeater family, Meliphagidae, native to southeastern Australia. Its typical habitat is open sclerophyll forests, as well as woodland, riparian corridors, parks, orchards and gardens. Although some populations are resident, others migrate, using geomagnetic fields to navigate. Comparatively short-billed for a honeyeater, it has adapted to a mixed diet including nectar, pollen, fruit, seeds, honeydew, and insects. It is considered a pest in some areas because of the damage it does to fruit in orchards and urban gardens. This yellow-faced honeyeater was photographed near Lake Parramatta in New South Wales.

Photograph credit: John Harrison

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