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From today's featured article

Mann's 1950 Bowman football card

Bob Mann (April 8, 1924 – October 21, 2006) was an American professional football player in the National Football League (NFL) who broke the color barrier for both the Detroit Lions (alongside Mel Groomes) and the Green Bay Packers. He played college football at Hampton Institute in 1942 and 1943 and at the University of Michigan in 1944, 1946 and 1947. Playing the end position, he broke the Big Ten Conference record for receiving yards in 1946 and 1947. In 1948 Mann signed a professional contract with the Lions, where he stayed for two seasons. He led the NFL in receiving yards in 1949. After a brief stint with the New York Yanks he signed with the Packers, where he was the team's leading receiver in 1951. He remained with the Packers partway through the 1954 season. Mann later became a lawyer and practiced in Detroit. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2016. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Aphaena submaculata

... that Aphaena submaculata (pictured) uses specialized mouthparts to suck the sap of trees?
... that Canadian peacekeepers participated in every UN peacekeeping effort from its inception until 1989?
... that in 1890 Cornelius N. Dorsette, often referred to as the first African-American physician in Alabama, founded Hale Infirmary, a hospital for Black patients and staff in Montgomery?
... that one Potteries derby game was decided by a goal scored twelve seconds into the match?
... that Hong Kong actress and beauty pageant winner Louisa Mak is a Cambridge law graduate?
... that as part of the Apollo 17 Biological Cosmic Ray Experiment, the heads of five mice were each cut into 1600 slices to look for brain lesions?
... that U.S. presidential candidate Johnny Buss owns one of the oldest comedy clubs in the country?
... that Florida State's exclusion from the 2023–24 College Football Playoff prompted an antitrust investigation?
... that beavers, mules, and dogs have been parachuted from airplanes?

In the news

Kamilla Cardoso

In NCAA Division I basketball, the South Carolina Gamecocks win the women's championship (Most Outstanding Player Kamilla Cardoso pictured).
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes near Hualien City, Taiwan.
In Syria, an Israeli airstrike kills 16 people at the Iranian consulate in Damascus, including brigadier general Mohammad Reza Zahedi.
A bus falls from a bridge in Limpopo, South Africa, killing 45 people.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge in the U.S. city of Baltimore collapses after being hit by a container ship.

On this day

April 8

Little Nemo

1271 – Crusades: The Knights Hospitaller surrendered the Krak des Chevaliers, a castle in present-day Syria, to the army of the Mamluk sultan Baybars.
1904 – France and the United Kingdom signed the Entente Cordiale, agreeing to a peaceful coexistence after centuries of intermittent conflict.
1911 – American cartoonist Winsor McCay released the silent short film Little Nemo (featured), one of the earliest animated films.
1933 – The Australian state of Western Australia voted to secede from the federation, but efforts to implement the result proved to be unsuccessful.
1973 – The Progress Party was founded in a movie theater in Oslo, Norway.

Caracalla (d. 217)
Mary Dee (b. 1912)
TBJZL (b. 1993)

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From today's featured list

"Pachelbel's Howitzer", a piece that reworks the Canon into multiple genres for piano

Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D major has been credited with inspiring a significant number of pop songs since the 1960s. After the mid-Baroque era piece was revived from obscurity in the 1960s, its chord progression, bassline, and melodic structure were reproduced in a number of contemporary pop songs, a phenomenon attributed to the memorability and simplicity of the work as well as renewed interest in it. While Pachelbel's Canon itself is not a staple of pop music, it shares common roots with other, more significant chord progressions that lay the foundations of modern pop music. Its perceived ubiquity is itself an object of cultural discussion. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Nithya Menen (born 8 April 1990) is an Indian actress and singer who works primarily in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu films. After appearing in roles in 1998 and 2006 as a child actress, her first lead role was in the Malayalam film Aakasha Gopuram, which was released in 2008. Her debut in leading roles in Telugu and Tamil films were Ala Modalaindi (2011) and Nootrenbadhu (2011). Her Hindi debut was Mission Mangal (2019). As of 2024, Menen has appeared in more than 50 films and has appeared in several lists of top actresses compiled by Rediff.com and Forbes India. This portrait photograph of Menen was taken in 2023.

Photograph credit: Augustus Binu

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