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October 1

Tourists photographing the painting

The Founding Ceremony of the Nation is a 1953 oil painting by Chinese artist Dong Xiwen. It depicts Mao Zedong and other Communist officials inaugurating the People's Republic of China at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on October 1, 1949. A prominent example of socialist realism, it is one of the most celebrated works of official Chinese art. After the Communists took control of China, they sought to memorialize their success with art. Dong was chosen to reproduce the October 1 ceremony in a painting, and completed it in a folk art style, drawing on historical Chinese art. When Mao viewed it and liked it, it was assured of success, and was widely reproduced. After government purges, Dong was ordered to remove Gao Gang in 1954 and Liu Shaoqi in 1967. In 1972 a copy was made by other artists to accommodate another deletion. After the purged officials were rehabilitated, the replica was modified in 1979 to include them. Both canvases are in the National Museum of China in Beijing. (Full article...)

October 1: Unification Day in Cameroon (1961); National Day in China (1949); Independence Day in Tuvalu (1978); Defenders Day in Ukraine (2015)

Yosemite Valley

• 959 – Edgar acceded to the English throne upon the death of his brother Eadwig.
• 1386 – The Wonderful Parliament met at Westminster Abbey to address King Richard II's need for money, but soon changed focus to the reform of his administration.
• 1890 – At the encouragement of preservationist John Muir and writer Robert Underwood Johnson, the U.S. Congress established Yosemite National Park (pictured) in California.
• 1918 – First World War: British and Arab troops captured Damascus from the Ottoman Empire.
• 2003 – A levy was imposed on the hiring of foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong, who numbered in the hundreds of thousands at the time.

October 1

The passion fruit is the fruit of a number of plants in the genus Passiflora. They are round or oval, and range from a width of 1.5 to 3 inches (3.8 to 7.6 centimetres). The fruits have a juicy edible center composed of a large number of seeds. This photograph shows two passion fruits of the species Passiflora ligularis (also known as the sweet granadilla), one whole and one halved. This picture was focus-stacked from 14 separate images. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus Recently featured: Dewey Arch Wilson Square Olivia de Havilland Archive More featured pictures

October 2

The Claimant in the Tichborne case

The Tichborne case concerned the claim by an individual known as "the Claimant" (pictured) to be the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy and fortune. Roger Tichborne disappeared after a shipwreck in 1854; rumours later surfaced that he had survived and made his way to Australia. In 1866 a butcher called Thomas Castro from Wagga Wagga came forward claiming to be Tichborne; he travelled to England where, despite his unrefined manners and bearing, he was accepted by Lady Tichborne as her son. Although other family members were unconvinced, the Claimant gained considerable public support. By 1871 evidence suggested that Castro was actually Arthur Orton, a butcher's son from Wapping in London, who had gone to sea as a boy. A civil case ended with charges of perjury against him, and in 1874 a criminal court jury decided that he was Orton. He was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment. Released in 1884, he confessed in 1895 to being Orton, only to recant immediately. He died destitute in 1898. (Full article...)

October 2: International Day of Non-Violence; Gandhi Jayanti in India

Thurgood Marshall

• 1470 – With King Edward IV of England forced to flee to the Burgundian Netherlands after a rebellion organised by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, Henry VI was restored to the throne of England.
• 1766 – As part of wider food riots, citizens in Nottingham, England, looted large quantities of cheese; one man was killed during attempts to restore order.
• 1879 – Qing China signed the Treaty of Livadia with the Russian Empire, but the terms were so unfavorable that the Chinese government refused to ratify the treaty.
• 1913 – The Shubert Theatre opened on Broadway with a production of Hamlet.
• 1967 – Thurgood Marshall (pictured) was sworn in as the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
• 2005 – Typhoon Longwang made landfall in China as the deadliest tropical cyclone in that year to impact the country.

October 2

The Australasian shoveler (Spatula rhynchotis) is a species of dabbling duck in the family Anatidae. It is native to southwestern and southeastern Australia, including Tasmania, and New Zealand. It ranges in length from 46 to 53 centimetres (18 to 21 inches) and lives in heavily vegetated swamps. This male Australasian shoveler was photographed in the Goulds Lagoon Wildlife Sanctuary in Granton, Tasmania. Photograph credit: John Harrison Recently featured: Passion fruit Dewey Arch Wilson Square Archive More featured pictures

October 3

Statue of a nymph and satyr once held in the Secretum

The Secretum was a British Museum collection of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that held artefacts and images deemed sexually graphic. Many of the items were from pre-Christian traditions and covered wide ranges of human history and geography. Many of the early artefacts with erotic or sexually graphic images acquired by the museum were not put on public display. Modern scholars believe this segregation was probably motivated by a paternalistic stance from the museum to keep what they considered morally dangerous material away from the public. By the 1860s there were around 700 such items held by the museum. In 1865 the antiquarian George Witt donated his phallocentric collection of 434 artefacts to the museum, which led to the formal setting up of the Secretum. Beginning in 1912 items were gradually transferred from the Secretum into departments appropriate for their time frame and culture. The last remaining items were moved out of the collection in 2005. (Full article...)

October 3

Battle of the Narrow Seas

• 1392 – Muhammad VII became the twelfth sultan of the Emirate of Granada.
• 1602 – Anglo-Spanish War: An English fleet intercepted and attacked six Spanish ships at the Battle of the Narrow Seas (pictured).
• 1849 – American author Edgar Allan Poe was found semi-conscious and delirious in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances; it was the last time he was seen in public before his death four days later.
• 1952 – The United Kingdom successfully conducted its first nuclear test, becoming the world's third state with nuclear weapons.
• 1991 – Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

October 3

Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) was a Swiss mathematician and physicist. He developed important concepts and proved mathematical theorems in fields as diverse as calculus, number theory and topology. Euler introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion of a mathematical function. He is also renowned for his work in mechanics, optics and astronomy. Euler is considered to be the preeminent mathematician of the 18th century and one of the greatest of all time. According to Guinness World Records, he is also the most prolific; his collected works fill 60 to 80 quarto volumes. Euler was featured on the sixth series of the Swiss ten-franc banknote and on numerous Swiss, German and Russian stamps. The asteroid 2002 Euler was named in his honor. This portrait of Euler was created by the Swiss painter Jakob Emanuel Handmann in 1753 and is now in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel. Painting credit: Jakob Emanuel Handmann; restored by Bammesk Recently featured: Australasian shoveler Passion fruit Dewey Arch Archive More featured pictures

October 4

San Lorenzo Colossal Head 1

The Olmec colossal heads are at least 17 monumental stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. The heads date from at least before 900 BC and are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. All portray mature men with fleshy cheeks, flat noses and slightly crossed eyes; their physical characteristics correspond to a type that is still common among the inhabitants of Tabasco and Veracruz. The boulders were brought from the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, a mountain range in Veracruz. It is thought that the finished monuments represent portraits of powerful individual Olmec rulers. Each is given a distinctive headdress. The heads were variously arranged in lines or groups at major Olmec centres. Dating the monuments remains difficult due to the movement of many from their original context prior to archaeological investigation. Most have been dated to the Early Preclassic period (1500–1000 BC) with some to the Middle Preclassic period (1000–400 BC). (Full article...)

October 4: Cinnamon Roll Day in Sweden and Finland

Seal of Otto IV

• 1209 – Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (seal pictured), was crowned.
• 1363 – Red Turban Rebellions: The rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang won the Battle of Lake Poyang by deploying ships intentionally set aflame when the emperor tried to escape.
• 1918 – An ammunition plant in Sayreville, New Jersey, U.S., exploded, killing around 100 people and destroying more than 300 buildings.
• 1957 – The Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
• 2003 – A suicide bomber killed 21 people, including a two-month-old baby, and injured 60 others inside a restaurant in Haifa, Israel.

October 4

Chinese-Indonesian author Kwee Tek Hoay wrote 62 books or serials (36 non-fiction and 26 fiction), 3 essays, and 11 stage plays. He also edited 5 magazines and translated 15 books or other writings. Aside from these works, listed below, he is known to have written numerous reports, obituaries, articles, and film reviews as a magazine editor. Kwee began his writing career in 1919 with the stage play Allah jang Palsoe. During the 1920s, he wrote several novels and stage plays while also working as a journalist, first for Sin Po then for Sin Bin. He established his first magazine, Panorama, in 1925; he went on to manage four further magazines, including the literary-oriented Moestika Romans and the religious Sam Kauw Gwat Po. After 1930 Kwee began to focus predominantly on religious texts, particularly those related to Buddhism, Confucianism, and Chinese folk religion, but also relating to Islam. (Full list...)

October 4

Hübnerite is a mineral consisting of manganese tungsten oxide, with a chemical formula MnWO4. It typically occurs in association with high-temperature hydrothermal vein deposits and altered granites and in alluvial deposits. Hübnerite is the manganese endmember of the wolframite solid solution series, with ferberite (FeWO4) the opposite iron endmember. Color differences between members of the wolframite family are clear and marked, with the color of hübnerite varying from yellowish brown to reddish brown. It was first described in 1865 for an occurrence in the US state of Nevada and was named after the German mining engineer and metallurgist Adolf Hübner. This stacked image, composed of 38 individual photographs, shows red hübnerite crystals with quartz extracted from the Pasto Bueno mine in Pallasca Province, Peru. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus Recently featured: Leonhard Euler Australasian shoveler Passion fruit Archive More featured pictures

October 5

Jacket from The Birds

The Birds is the fifth collection by Alexander McQueen for his fashion house. It was inspired by ornithology and the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds. The collection centred around sharply tailored garments and emphasised female sexuality. The runway show was staged on 9 October 1994 and the venue was a warehouse in the London district of King's Cross. The Birds was styled with imagery of violence and death; some models were covered in tyre tracks and others wore white contact lenses. Reception was generally positive, although the styling drew accusations of misogyny. The show's success allowed McQueen to secure the financial backing to stage his next show, Highland Rape. Garments from The Birds appeared in both stagings of the retrospective exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. Seán McGirr heavily referenced The Birds for Autumn/Winter 2024, his debut collection as creative director for the Alexander McQueen brand. (Full article...)

October 5: World Teachers' Day

Signing of the Treaty of Zamora

• 1143 – The Treaty of Zamora (pictured) established Portugal as a kingdom independent of the Kingdom of León.
• 1970 – The environmental organization Greenpeace was incorporated as the Don't Make a Wave Committee in British Columbia, Canada.
• 1994 - Swiss police found the bodies of 48 members of the Order of the Solar Temple, who had died in a cult mass murder-suicide.
• 1999 – Two trains collided head-on in Ladbroke Grove, London, killing 31 people, injuring 417, and severely damaging public confidence in the management and regulation of safety of Britain's privatised railway system.
• 2011 – Two Chinese cargo ships were attacked and their crews murdered on a stretch of the Mekong River in far northern Thailand.

October 5

Pristimantis elegans is a species of frog in the family Strabomantidae. It is endemic to the Colombian Andes, in the Cordillera Oriental, residing in páramos and cloud forests at elevations of 2,600–3,650 m (8,530–11,980 ft) above sea level. It is typically found in herbaceous vegetation and very small bushes. Pristimantis elegans is a stout-bodied frog, with males typically measuring 37–40 mm (1.5–1.6 in). Development is direct, without free-living tadpole stage. Males of the species have a pulsed advertisement call, which is usually carried out at night, in vegetation. This Pristimantis elegans individual was photographed in Chingaza National Natural Park, Colombia. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp Recently featured: Hübnerite Leonhard Euler Australasian shoveler Archive More featured pictures

October 6

Markham's storm petrel (Hydrobates markhami) is a seabird native to the Pacific Ocean around Peru, Chile, and Ecuador. It is a large and slender storm petrel; its plumage is black to sooty brown with a grayish bar that runs diagonally across the upper side of the wings. A colonial breeder, the species nests in natural cavities in salt crusts in northern Chile and Peru; 95 percent of the known colonies are found in the Atacama Desert. Pairs produce one egg per season, which is laid on bare ground without any nesting material. Parents will attend their brood only at night, returning to the sea before dawn. The diet of Markham's storm petrel consists mainly of fish, cephalopods and crustaceans. Despite its relatively large population, the species is in decline and listed as near threatened. Primary threats are habitat destruction and light pollution, which attracts or disorients fledglings on their first flight to the sea. (Full article...)

October 6: German-American Day in the United States

Rembrandt crater

• 1762 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Manila concluded with a British victory over Spain, leading to a twenty-month occupation.
• 1927 – The Jazz Singer, one of the first feature-length motion pictures with a synchronized recorded music score, was released.
• 1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was attacked and fatally wounded near Laramie, Wyoming, U.S., dying six days later.
• 2002 – Al-Qaeda bombed the oil tanker Limburg, causing oil to leak into the Gulf of Aden.
• 2008 – The MESSENGER probe discovered Mercury's Rembrandt (pictured) – the second largest impact crater on the planet.

October 6

A juniper berry is the female seed cone produced by the various species of junipers and are used as a flavoring agent in northern European and Scandinavian cuisine for meat dishes. Juniper is used to flavor gin, a liquor developed in the 17th century in the Netherlands. Juniper berries are among the only spices derived from conifers, along with spruce buds. This photograph of common juniper cones was enhanced from 55 separate images using focus stacking. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus Recently featured: Pristimantis elegans Hübnerite Leonhard Euler Archive More featured pictures

October 7

Model of Thunderbird 2

Thunderbirds is a British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It was their fifth series to be made using Supermarionation (a form of electronic marionette puppetry) combined with scale model effects sequences. Two series were made, totalling 32 episodes. Thunderbirds follows the exploits of International Rescue, a lifesaving organisation led by ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy. Its missions are carried out using the Thunderbird machines (one pictured), a fleet of five vehicles piloted by Jeff's sons. Thunderbirds premiered on the ITV network on 30 September 1965 and has aired in at least 66 countries. Widely considered the Andersons' most popular and commercially successful series, it has been praised for its effects, music and title sequence. A real-life search and rescue service, the International Rescue Corps, took its name from the series. Thunderbirds was followed by two feature films in the 1960s, a live-action film in 2004 and a remake, Thunderbirds Are Go, in 2015. (Full article...)

October 7

Mindon Min

• 1571 – Ottoman–Habsburg wars: The Battle of Lepanto was fought near the Gulf of Corinth, a significant setback for the Ottoman Empire and the last major naval battle fought entirely with galleys.
• 1878 – The state funeral of Mindon Min (pictured), who ruled Myanmar for 25 years, took place; his death was reportedly preceded by strange omens, and his senior princes were unable to attend as they had all been arrested.
• 1916 – Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland University 222–0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.
• 1991 – Croatian War of Independence: The Yugoslav People's Army conducted an air strike on Banski Dvori, the official residence of the president of Croatia in Zagreb.
• 2008 – 2008 TC₃ exploded above the Nubian Desert in Sudan, in the first time that an asteroid impact had been predicted prior to atmospheric entry.

October 7

Count Rumford (Sir Benjamin Thompson), for whom the award is named.

The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by the Royal Society for "outstanding contributions in the field of physics". The award is named in honour of British scientist Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (pictured), who is noted for his works on thermodynamics and for establishing the Royal Institution. Thompson received the inaugural award in 1800. Since its inception, the medal has been granted to 108 scientists. It has been awarded to citizens of the United Kingdom sixty-seven times, the Netherlands seven times, and Sweden four times. The medal has been awarded to multiple individuals twice: in 1896, to Philipp Lenard and Wilhelm Röntgen and in 1918, to Charles Fabry and Alfred Perot. From 1800 to 2018, the medal was awarded biennially; since then it has been awarded annually. The most recent recipient is British physicist Tony Bell, who received it in 2024. (Full list...)

October 7

Iolanthe is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, first performed in 1882. Their seventh operatic collaboration, it tells the story of Iolanthe, a fairy banished from fairyland because she married a mortal. Her son Strephon, half a fairy, loves Phyllis, whom all the members of the House of Peers wish to marry. Phyllis sees Strephon embracing Iolanthe (as fairies never age, she appears to be seventeen) and assumes that he is unfaithful, not realizing that Iolanthe is his mother, setting off a climactic confrontation between the peers and the fairies. The opera satirises many aspects of British government, law and society. Iolanthe was the first new theatre production in the world to be illuminated entirely by electric lights. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre and ran there for 398 performances, with a simultaneous production in New York. It is still played throughout the English-speaking world and beyond. This poster by H. M. Brock was produced for an early 20th century tour production by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Poster credit: H. M. Brock; restored by Adam Cuerden Recently featured: Juniper berry Pristimantis elegans Hübnerite Archive More featured pictures

October 8

Tony Hawk's Underground is a skateboarding-adventure video game published by Activision in 2003 and 2004 as part of the Tony Hawk's series. Neversoft developed the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox versions, while the Game Boy Advance adaptation was developed by Vicarious Visions and the mobile phone version by Jamdat. Players explore levels and complete goals while performing tricks; players can also create a custom character instead of selecting a professional skater. The plot follows the player and their friend Eric Sparrow as the two become professionals and grow apart. The game was developed with a theme of individuality, and real-world skateboarders contributed their experiences during development. Reviewers praised its wide appeal, soundtrack, customization, multiplayer features, and plot. The graphics and the controls for driving vehicles and walking were less well received. Underground's PlayStation 2 version had sold 2.11 million copies in the United States by December 2007. A sequel was released in 2004. (Full article...)

October 8

Remnant of Kepler's Supernova

• 451 – The Council of Chalcedon, a Christian ecumenical council, opened, and went on to repudiate the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism and set forth the Chalcedonian Creed.
• 1604 – Kepler's Supernova (remnant pictured), the most recent supernova in the Milky Way, was observed worldwide.
• 1918 – World War I: After his platoon suffered heavy casualties during the Meuse–Argonne offensive in France's Forest of Argonne, American Corporal Alvin York led the 7 remaining men on an attack against a German machine gun nest; 25 German soldiers were killed and 132 captured.
• 1932 – The Indian Air Force was founded as an auxiliary air force of the British Royal Air Force.
• 2019 – Anti-government protests calling for free and fair elections began in Baku, Azerbaijan.

October 8

The common blackbird (Turdus merula) is a species of true thrush. It breeds in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, the Falkland Islands, Chile, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It has several subspecies across its large range; a few of the Asian subspecies are sometimes considered to be full species. Depending on latitude, the common blackbird may be resident, partially migratory, or fully migratory. The male of the nominate subspecies, which is found throughout most of Europe, is all black except for a yellow eye-ring and bill and has a rich, melodious song; the adult female and juvenile have mainly dark brown plumage. The species breeds in woods and gardens, building a neat, mud-lined, cup-shaped nest. It is omnivorous, eating a wide range of insects, earthworms, berries, and fruits. This common and conspicuous bird has given rise to many literary and cultural references, frequently related to its song. This female common blackbird was photographed in Souss-Massa National Park, Morocco. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp Recently featured: Iolanthe Juniper berry Pristimantis elegans Archive More featured pictures