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From today's featured article

Reverse of a 1967 brass threepence

The brass threepence, a twelve-sided coin dated between 1937 and 1970, was the first British coin that was not round. By the mid-1930s, the weight of the bronze penny and its fractions had become an issue for firms that dealt with them in bulk. The silver threepence was unpopular in England due to its small size. The Royal Mint chose a brass twelve-sided threepence readily distinguishable from other coins due to its size, shape and colour. The initial reverse design by Frances Madge Kitchener of a thrift plant was altered at the direction of the Royal Mint by Percy Metcalfe without Kitchener's knowledge. The new coin was slow to circulate when released to the public in 1937, but gained the public's liking, and the silver threepence was discontinued in 1945. A new design, with a crowned portcullis (pictured), was instituted for Elizabeth II in 1953. After the decimalisation of the pound in 1971, it rapidly vanished from circulation and lost its status as legal tender after 31 August 1971. (Full article...)

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Koelreuteria dilcheri fossil

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In the news

Tarique Rahman

The Nationalist Party, led by Tarique Rahman (pictured), wins the Bangladeshi general election.
In the Barbadian general election, the Labour Party wins a third term and every seat in the House of Assembly.
Shootings at a residence and a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, leave nine people dead.
In American football, the Seattle Seahawks defeat the New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl.

On this day

February 15: National Flag of Canada Day; Susan B. Anthony Day in some parts of the United States

Painted scene from a box found in the tomb of Kha and Merit

1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: The invasion of Ceylon ended with Johan van Angelbeek, the Batavian governor of the island, surrendering Colombo to British forces.
1906 – A team of Italian archaeologists led by Ernesto Schiaparelli discovered the tomb of Kha and Merit (pictured), an ancient Egyptian foreman and his wife, in the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina.
1961 – All 72 people on board Sabena Flight 548, including the entire U.S. figure-skating team, and one person on the ground were killed when the aircraft crashed on approach to Brussels Airport.
1976 – The first constitution since the Cuban Revolution, providing for a system of government and law based on those of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries, was adopted by a national referendum.
1996 – A Long March 3B rocket carrying the communications satellite Intelsat 708 crashed immediately after launch from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China, destroying a nearby town and killing an unknown number of inhabitants.

John Caesar (d. 1776)
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (b. 1811)
Sophie Bryant (b. 1850)
Norman C. Deno (b. 1921)

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Today's featured picture

The Young Companion, known as Liángyǒu in Chinese, was a pictorial magazine with captions in both Chinese and English, published in Shanghai, China, between 1926 and 1945. It is regarded as one of the most influential large-scale comprehensive Asian pictorials in the 1920s, and has proven useful to historians in modern times in examining the glamorous side of colonial-era Shanghai. It ran for 174 issues, including two special issues not given monthly issue numbers – the "Sun Yat-sen Memorial Special" and the "Eighth Anniversary". This is the cover of the first issue of The Young Companion, dated 15 February 1926, and featuring a photograph of the Chinese actress Hu Die.

Cover credit: Hujiang Photo Studio; retouched by Chris Woodrich

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