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The Tomb of Antipope John XXIII was created by Donatello and Michelozzo for the Florence Baptistery adjacent to the Duomo. It was commissioned after Antipope John XXIII's death on December 22, 1419, and completed during the 1420s, establishing it as one of the early landmarks of Renaissance Florence. John XXIII had a long history of cooperation with Florence, which had viewed him as the legitimate pontiff during the Western Schism. Its design included figures of the three Virtues in niches, John XXIII's family arms, a gilded bronze recumbent effigy laid out above an inscription-bearing sarcophagus, and a Madonna and Child in a half-lunette, with a canopy. At its completion, the monument was the tallest sculpture in Florence. The tomb monument was the first of several collaborations between Donatello and Michelozzo; attribution of each design element to the artists, as well as interpretations of its design and iconography, have been debated by art historians. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

René Vallon

... that René Vallon (pictured) achieved the first aeroplane flight, and was the first aeroplane-related death, in China?
... that the creator of The Americans drew inspiration for the show from his time as a CIA officer and a 2010 Russian spy scandal?
... that Tjeerd van Andel was surprised to find heaps of giant clam shells around hot springs on his first dive to the Pacific ocean floor?
... that art historians believe that Ellen Thesleff's self-portrait may have been drawn in a trance-like state?
... that Charles Herman Allen, university administrator and American Civil War captain, opened the University of Wisconsin to female enrollment in 1863?
... that during World War I the organ of evacuated Polish railway workers in Moscow denounced the trade unions of the Warsaw–Vienna railway as "separatists"?
... that the Mingxing Film Company released more than 150 films in 16 years, but most are now lost?
... that St. Gregory the Great Seminary was founded in a former juvenile mental hospital?
... that Ritsuko Taho once had her students at Harvard University slaughter a chicken and turn its bones into a sculpture?

In the news (For today)

Gisèle Pelicot

In France, Dominique Pelicot and 49 other men are convicted of the mass rape of his ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot (portrait shown).
A 7.3-magnitude earthquake hits Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, leaving at least 16 people dead.
Cyclone Chido leaves at least 123 people dead in southern Africa.
President of South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol is impeached following his declaration of martial law.

On the next day

December 22: Yule begins; Dongzhi Festival in China (2023)

Aerial view of the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill

856 – An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.9 struck the eastern Alborz mountains in Persia, causing an estimated 200,000 deaths.
1948 – Chaired by Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, the Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia was established to counter Dutch attempts to re-assert colonial control.
1988 – Brazilian unionist and environmental activist Chico Mendes was murdered at his home in Xapuri.
2008 – A dike ruptured at a waste containment area for a coal-fired power plant in Kingston, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion gallons (4.2 million m³) of coal fly ash slurry (aftermath pictured) in the largest industrial spill in US history.

Carl Friedrich Abel (b. 1723)
William Hyde Wollaston (d. 1828)
Meghan Trainor (b. 1993)
Dina Belenkaya (b. 1993)

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Tomorrow's featured picture

The common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is a medium-sized perching bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about 20 centimetres (8 inches) long and has glossy black plumage, which is speckled with white at some times of year. The legs are pink and the bill is black in winter and yellow in summer; young birds have browner plumage than the adults. It is a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts, with an unmusical but varied song. The starling has about a dozen subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe and western Asia, and it has been introduced elsewhere. This bird is resident in southern and western Europe and southwestern Asia, while northeastern populations migrate south and west in winter. The starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy, pale blue eggs are laid. These take two weeks to hatch and the young remain in the nest for another three weeks. The species is omnivorous, taking a wide range of invertebrates, as well as seeds and fruit. The starling's gift for mimicry has been noted in literature including the medieval Welsh Mabinogion and the works of Pliny the Elder and William Shakespeare. This common starling was photographed at Bodega Head on the northern coast of the U.S. state of California.

Photograph credit: Frank Schulenburg

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