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Today's featured article

The Championship Course, along which the Boat Race is contested

The Boat Race 2020 was a side-by-side rowing race scheduled to take place on 29 March 2020. Held annually, the Boat Race is contested between crews from the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge along a 4.2-mile (6.8 km) tidal stretch of the River Thames (course pictured) in south-west London. This would have been the 75th women's race and the 166th men's race. Cambridge led the longstanding rivalry 84–80 and 44–30 in the men's and women's races, respectively. The races were cancelled on 16 March 2020 as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Other than as a result of war, it was the first time that the men's race had been cancelled since the first edition in 1845. It was also the first cancellation of the women's race since its 1964 revival. The 2020 event would have been the first time that both senior races would be umpired by women. The members of each crew were announced on the date that the race would have been contested. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

April 13

Van Cliburn

1777 – American Revolutionary War: British and Hessian forces conducted a surprise attack against a Continental Army outpost at Bound Brook, New Jersey.
1829 – The Roman Catholic Relief Act received royal assent, removing the most substantial restrictions on Catholics in the United Kingdom.
1958 – In the midst of the Cold War, American pianist Van Cliburn (pictured) won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
2009 – Twenty-three people died in a fire at a homeless hostel in Kamień Pomorski; it was Poland's deadliest fire since 1980.
2017 – War in Afghanistan: In an airstrike in Nangarhar Province, the U.S. military dropped the most powerful conventional bomb used in combat.

Henry De la Beche (d. 1855)
Annie Jump Cannon (d. 1941)
Günter Grass (d. 2015)

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In the news

Azzi Fudd

A nightclub roof collapse in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, kills 226 people.
In basketball, the UConn Huskies win the NCAA Division I women's championship (Most Outstanding Player Azzi Fudd pictured) and the Florida Gators win the men's championship.
In the National Hockey League, Alexander Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky's record for most goals scored.
In horse racing, Nick Rockett, ridden by Patrick Mullins, wins the Grand National.
South Korea's Constitutional Court removes Yoon Suk Yeol as the president of South Korea, following his earlier declaration of martial law.

Did you know...

Mirella Freni

... that Mirella Freni (pictured) and Luciano Pavarotti, who co-starred as the lovers Mimì and Rodolfo in La bohème at La Scala in 1968, shared the same wet nurse?
... that Bill Chisholm's announced $6.1 billion purchase of the Boston Celtics is the largest amount ever paid for a North American sports team?
... that a former management consultant who coined the framework of "The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism" was described by The New York Times as "a kind of Malcolm Gladwell of conservative Christianity"?
... that the 2001 Zug massacre resulted in changes to security measures for public buildings, but not to Swiss gun laws?
... that Juan Soto, before his blockbuster trade, rejected a 15-year, $440 million contract extension, which would have been the largest deal in Major League Baseball history at the time?
... that about 25 percent of people experience heartburn at least once a month?
... that Miroslav Kvočka was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity against non-Serb detainees in the Omarska concentration camp during the Bosnian War?
... that the Edmonds' Clock Tower was split in two after the June 2011 Christchurch earthquakes?
... that the Overwatch character Juno has been praised for her ability to reward players for having sound game sense?

Today's featured picture

Picture of the day

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, planter, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Following the American Revolutionary War and before becoming president in 1801, Jefferson was the first United States secretary of state under George Washington, and then the second vice president under John Adams. Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and he produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels. This line-engraved portrait of Jefferson was produced by the United States Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) as part of a BEP presentation album of the first 26 presidents. The same portrait appears on the obverse of the two-dollar bill.Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva

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