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George Frideric Handel

The music for three of the four operas written by the youthful composer George Frideric Handel (pictured) between 1703 and 1706, when he lived in the German city of Hamburg, is lost apart from a few orchestral fragments. Only the first, Almira, has survived complete. He was able to get Almira and the less successful Nero performed at Oper am Gänsemarkt, the opera house, during the temporary absence of the theatre's director, Reinhard Keiser. Handel's last two Hamburg operas, Florindo and Daphne, were not produced before Handel left the city. No music that can be definitively traced to Nero has been identified, although some of it may have been used in later works, particularly Agrippina, which has a similar plot and characters. Fragments of music from Florindo and Daphne have been preserved without the vocal parts, and some of these elements were incorporated into an orchestral suite first recorded in 2012. (Full article...)

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Cora Victoria Diehl

... that after Cora Victoria Diehl (pictured) was elected as the first woman to hold office in Oklahoma Territory, county records had to be recovered with dynamite when the incumbent refused to concede?
... that a New Zealand coin was declared evidence of an atheistic government by detractors?
... that Patricia Schultz, the author of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, would choose Florence for her final trip before dying?
... that children's book illustration techniques include photography?
... that French historian Patrice Gueniffey called the 2023 film Napoleon a "very anti-French and very pro-British" rewrite of history?
... that the Oasis of Bukhara used to be a swamp?
... that while being held in Stalag Luft I, an American prisoner of war built a violin out of scrap material?
... that a "welding nun" angered farmers with her garbage-eating goat?

In the news

Bernardo Arévalo

Bernardo Arévalo (pictured) is inaugurated as President of Guatemala after multiple attempts to obstruct the event.
Queen Margrethe II abdicates and is succeeded by Frederik X as King of Denmark.
Lai Ching-te is elected President of Taiwan.
A US-led coalition launches a series of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen, amid ongoing attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

On this day

January 17

Queen Liliʻuokalani of Hawaii

1377 – Gregory XI, the last Avignon pope, entered Rome after a four-month journey from Avignon, returning the papacy to its original city.
1893 – Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety led the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani (pictured).
1945 – World War II: Australian troops advanced along the northern part of Bougainville Island (in present-day Papua New Guinea) and began fighting Japanese forces in the Battle of Tsimba Ridge.
1948 – Indonesian National Revolution: The Renville Agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesian republicans was ratified, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to resolve disputes arising from the Linggadjati Agreement of 1946.
1999 – In Little Saigon, California, a series of protests began when the owner of a video rental store displayed an image of Ho Chi Minh.

Ellen Wood (b. 1814)
Abram Lincoln Harris (b. 1899)
Michelle Obama (b. 1964)
Sunanda Pushkar (d. 2014)

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Today's featured picture

The Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate general Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union general George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek. Part of the Maryland campaign, it was the first field army–level engagement in the eastern theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It remains the bloodiest day in American history, with a combined tally of 22,727 dead, wounded, or missing. Although the Union Army suffered heavier casualties than the Confederates, the battle was a major turning point in the Union's favor. This 1862 illustration by Edwin Forbes shows the charge across Burnside's Bridge, which took place during the Battle of Antietam.

Illustration credit: Edwin Forbes; restored by Adam Cuerden

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