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From today's featured article
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Did you know...
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![Maria Antonia Merkelbach](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Mies_Merkelbach_%281924%29.jpg/100px-Mies_Merkelbach_%281924%29.jpg) Maria Antonia Merkelbach
- ... that Maria Antonia Merkelbach (pictured) and her husband took many portrait pictures of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, one of which was chosen as the state photograph?
- ... that the South Jamaica Houses in South Jamaica, New York City, was the first housing development built by the New York City Housing Authority intended to be racially integrated?
- ... that because she was arrested for indecent behavior, Rosette Wolczak died in Auschwitz aged 15?
- ... that recent United States Supreme Court decisions may have created "drug-dog and drunk-driving exceptions to the totality-of-the-circumstances approach"?
- ... that Danell Lynn rode 48,600 miles (78,214 km) to become the first solo woman to set a world record for longest motorcycle journey in a single country?
- ... that Alexander Ewing's tune for "Jerusalem the Golden" was "the earliest written, the best known, and with children the most popular"?
- ... that according to scientists, cow tipping would require between 4 and 14 coordinated people, unlike the depiction of the urban legend in film and television?
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In the news
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![Gotthard Base Tunnel](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/20141120_gotthard-basistunnel02-wikipedia-hannes-ortlieb.jpg/120px-20141120_gotthard-basistunnel02-wikipedia-hannes-ortlieb.jpg) Gotthard Base Tunnel
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On this day...
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June 3: Feast day of Saint Charles Lwanga and the Uganda Martyrs (Roman Catholic Church, Church of England, Lutheranism)
![Andy Warhol](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Andy_Warhol_by_Jack_Mitchell.jpg/120px-Andy_Warhol_by_Jack_Mitchell.jpg) Andy Warhol
- 1770 – Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, a historic Catholic mission church in present-day Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, and the site of the first Christian confirmation in Alta California, was established.
- 1839 – Qing Chinese government official Lin Zexu ordered the destruction of nearly 1.2 million kg (2.6 million lbs) of opium in Humen, precipitating the First Opium War.
- 1937 – Nearly six months after Edward, Duke of Windsor, abdicated the British throne, he married American socialite Wallis Simpson in a private ceremony near Tours, France.
- 1968 – American artist Andy Warhol (pictured) and two others were shot and wounded at his New York City studio "The Factory" by radical feminist Valerie Solanas.
- 2012 – Dana Air Flight 992, a passenger flight from Abuja to Lagos, Nigeria, suffered dual engine failure and crashed into a building, resulting in the deaths of all 153 on board and ten more on the ground.
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From today's featured list |
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Today's featured picture
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An interior view of the Hagia Sophia in 1852, when it was known as the Ayasofya Mosque. The building was originally constructed as a main Eastern Orthodox church and served in this role from 537 AD until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (except between 1204 and 1261 when it was converted by the Fourth Crusaders to a Roman Catholic cathedral). When the Ottoman Turks under Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque and Christian relics and art were either removed or plastered over. It remained a mosque for almost 500 years, before being converted into a museum between 1931 and 1935. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and influenced the design of numerous mosques in what is now Istanbul.
Artwork: Gaspare Fossati; lithograph: Louis Haghe; restoration: Adam Cuerden
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