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Today's featured article

Frederick Steele

Steele's Greenville expedition took place from April 2 to April 25, 1863, during the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Union forces commanded by Major General Frederick Steele (pictured) occupied Greenville, Mississippi, and operated in the surrounding area, to divert Confederate attention from a more important movement made in Louisiana by Major General John A. McClernand's corps. Minor skirmishing between the two sides occurred, particularly in the early stages of the expedition. More than 1,000 slaves were freed during the operation, and large quantities of supplies and animals were destroyed or removed from the area. Along with other operations, including Grierson's Raid, Steele's Greenville expedition distracted Confederate attention from McClernand's movement. Some historians have suggested that the Greenville expedition represented the Union war policy's shifting more towards expanding the war to Confederate social and economic structures and the Confederate homefront. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

March 19: Saint Joseph's Day (Western Christianity)

Zhao Bing, Emperor of Song

1279 – Mongol conquest of Song China: Zhao Bing (pictured), the last Song emperor, drowned at the end of the Battle of Yamen, bringing the Song dynasty to an end after three centuries.
1824 – American explorer Benjamin Morrell departed Antarctica after a voyage later plagued by claims of fraud.
1944 – The secular oratorio A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
1998 – An unscheduled Ariana Afghan Airlines flight crashed into a mountain on approach into Kabul, killing all 45 people aboard.
2011 – First Libyan Civil War: The French Air Force launched Opération Harmattan, beginning foreign military intervention in Libya.

Lord Edmund Howard (d. 1539)
Greville Wynne (b. 1919)
Joe Gaetjens (b. 1924)
Lise Østergaard (d. 1996)

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In the news

Nightclub fire damage

Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip kill more than 400 people, ending the Gaza war ceasefire.
A nightclub fire (damage pictured) in Kočani, North Macedonia, kills at least 59 people and injures more than 155 others.
In Yemen, 53 people are killed after the United States launches air and naval strikes.
At least 42 people are killed as a result of storms and tornadoes in the Midwestern and Southern United States.
The People's United Party, led by Johnny Briceño, wins the Belizean general election.

Did you know...

Olivia Rodrigo performing "Logical"

... that "Logical" was performed on a crescent moon (pictured) suspended from the ceiling on Olivia Rodrigo's Guts World Tour?
... that a newly discovered bee descends from a single ancestor that reached the Hawaiian Islands between 1 million and 1.5 million years ago?
... that a single company authorizes health-insurance coverage for more than one hundred million Americans?
... that politician Prasenjit Barman was credited for leading the restoration of the Cooch Behar Palace?
... that Sound Transit has 170 pieces of permanent public art at its stations and facilities?
... that football player DJ Pickett was the first All-American at his high school since his uncle nearly 30 years prior?
... that The Dedalus Book of Polish Fantasy features stories spanning two centuries of Polish literary tradition, exploring the theme of personification of evil?
... that Roger Tocotes was suspected by the Duke of Clarence of masterminding the Duchess of Clarence's death, but Tocotes avoided capture until the King got involved?
... that Saturday Morning Strippers restored the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio?

Today's featured picture

Picture of the day

David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone was married to Mary Moffat Livingstone, from the prominent 18th-century Moffat missionary family. His fame as an explorer and his obsession with learning the sources of the Nile was founded on the belief that if he could solve that age-old mystery, his fame would give him the influence to end the East African Arab–Swahili slave trade. Livingstone's subsequent exploration of the central African watershed was the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of Africa. His missionary travels, "disappearance", and eventual death in Africa‍—‌and subsequent glorification as a posthumous national hero in 1874‍—‌led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa". This portrait by Thomas Annan was taken in 1864.Photograph credit: Thomas Annan; restored by Adam Cuerden

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