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Marble bust of Scipio, 2nd century BC
Marble bust of Scipio, 2nd century BC

The battle of New Carthage, part of the Second Punic War, took place in early 209 BC when a Roman army under Publius Scipio (bust pictured) assaulted New Carthage, held by a Carthaginian garrison under Mago. Late in 210 BC Scipio took command of Roman forces in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) and decided to strike at the regional centre of Carthaginian power: its capital, New Carthage. He marched on the city and immediately attacked it. After defeating a Carthaginian force outside the walls, he pressed attacks on the east gate and the walls. Both were repulsed, but later that day Scipio renewed them. Hard-pressed, Mago moved men from the north wall, overlooking a broad, shallow lagoon. Anticipating this, a force of 500 men waded the lagoon to scale the north wall unopposed. They fought their way to the east gate, opened it from inside and let in their comrades. The city fell and became a logistics centre for the Roman war effort. By 206 BC the Carthaginians had been expelled from Iberia. (Full article...)

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Jerome and Schwartz
Jerome and Schwartz

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Investigators surveying wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge
Investigators surveying wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge

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March 27: Day of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania (1918)

Ball-and-stick model of sildenafil
Ball-and-stick model of sildenafil
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Bünting cloverleaf map

The Bünting cloverleaf map is a historic mappa mundi drawn by the German theologian and cartographer Heinrich Bünting. The map was published in his book Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae in 1581. The map depicts the three continents of the Old World, Europe, Africa and Asia, as three leaves forming the shape of a clover, with Jerusalem at the centre. The three continents include captions for some of their countries and illustrations of cities. The clover is surrounded by the ocean, with its surface including illustrations of sea creatures, monsters, and a ship. England and Denmark are represented as two island-shapes above Europe's leaf, while the Americas are shown as a mostly unrevealed shape in the lower left corner, captioned Die Neue Welt (the New World).

Map credit: Heinrich Bünting

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