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From today's featured article

Darger's grave in Des Plaines

Henry Darger (April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American who became known after his death for his immense body of art and literature. Born in Chicago, Darger's mother died when he was young, and he was placed in a boys' home after his father's health declined. He was taken to a children's asylum in 1904, escaping six years later. Darger lived in poverty, doing menial work at various hospitals. When he was moved to a nursing home in 1972, his landlords Kiyoko and Nathan Lerner discovered his artwork and writing, popularizing it themselves. His work included a 15,145-page novel entitled In The Realms of the Unreal, centered on a rebellion of child slaves on a fantastical planet, and hundreds of watercolor and collage illustrations, using traced material from popular media. Often classified as an outsider artist for his secrecy, his work contains Catholic themes, graphic depictions of war and the killing of children, and many naked girls with penises, leading to debate on his mental state. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

First issue of Irish War News

... that the second issue of Irish War News was printed eight years after the first (pictured)?
... that four years after kidnapping and killing a former de facto president of Argentina, the guerrilla Montoneros snatched his body to demand the repatriation of Eva Perón's remains from Spain?
... that British journalist and barrister Hashi Mohamed was a refugee from Somalia when he was aged nine?
... that 2026 has been described as "the new 2016"?
... that Beyoncé credited Moi Renée as a songwriter on "Pure/Honey" twenty-five years after Renée's death?
... that Commonwealth MRT station's platform columns have been compared to the columns in Singapore shophouses?
... that Saint Monegundis left her husband and became an anchorite after the deaths of her two daughters?
... that the pirate anime streaming site HiAnime had more visitors than legal competitors like Crunchyroll or Disney+?
... that Mingering Mike spent nearly a decade creating a fictional music career complete with albums, singles, and record labels?

In the news

Emperor penguins

The emperor penguin (pictured) is declared an endangered species by the IUCN due to the effects of climate change.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon kill at least 357 people, hours after a ceasefire was announced in the region.
In NCAA Division I basketball, the Michigan Wolverines win the men's championship and the UCLA Bruins win the women's championship.
NASA's Artemis II lands in the Pacific Ocean, completing its crewed lunar flyby mission.

On this day

April 12: Cosmonautics Day in Russia; Yuri's Night

Yuri Gagarin

1776 – American Revolution: The North Carolina Provincial Congress passed the Halifax Resolves, the first official action in the American colonies calling for independence from Great Britain.
1961 – Aboard Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin performed the first human spaceflight, completing one orbit of Earth in 108 minutes.
1993 – Bosnian War: NATO forces began Operation Deny Flight to enforce a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered by the United Nations Security Council.
2013 – Four Chadian soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing by jihadist rebels in Kidal, Mali.

Margaret of Bourbon, Queen of Navarre (d. 1256)
Beverly Cleary (b. 1916)
Jane Withers (b. 1926)
Sydney Allard (d. 1966)

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Today's featured picture

Stereum hirsutum, commonly known as the false turkey tail or the hairy curtain crust, is a species of fungus in the genus Stereum. An inedible species, it is found in various parts of the world, including North America, Europe and Australia. It forms thin, tough, bracket-like fruiting bodies, often in overlapping brackets on dead wood of both hardwood and conifer trees. The cap is 1 to 5 centimetres (0.5 to 2 in) wide, sometimes fused to form wider shelves, while the flesh is thin and tough. It produces white spores. The species is a plant pathogen that can infect peach trees, and is also itself parasitised by species such as the fungus Naematelia aurantia. This S. hirsutum growth was photographed in the Bruderwald, near Bamberg, Germany, with a focus stack of 23 frames.

Photograph credit: Reinhold Möller

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