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The 2006 Football League Championship play-off final was an association football match played on 21 May 2006 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, between Leeds United and Watford. The match was to determine the third and final team to gain promotion from the Football League Championship, the second tier of English football, to the FA Premiership. The winners of two semi-finals competed for the final Premiership place of the 2006–07 season. Winning the final was estimated to be worth up to £40 million to the successful team. The match was watched by a crowd of 64,736. It was the last play-off final to be held at the Millennium Stadium, as the new Wembley Stadium was completed in time for the 2007 final. Watford won the match 3–0, with opening goalscorer Jay DeMerit named man of the match. Leeds goalkeeper Neil Sullivan scored an own goal to make the score 2–0 to Watford after 60 minutes, and the final goal was a penalty kick scored by Darius Henderson. (Full article...)

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In the news

Francisco Carvalho

In golf, Aaron Rai wins the PGA Championship.
The African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, led by Francisco Carvalho (pictured), wins the most seats in the parliamentary election.
Bulgaria, represented by Dara with the song "Bangaranga", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
The World Health Organization declares the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern.
In Iraq, Ali al-Zaidi succeeds Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani as prime minister.

On this day

May 21: International Tea Day; World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development; Circassian Day of Mourning in Circassian communities

Busoni c. 1897

1138 – The Crusades: The siege of Shaizar ended, and the Emir of Shaizar became a vassal of the Byzantine Empire.
1864 – American Civil War: The inconclusive Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia ended with combined Union and Confederate casualties totaling around 31,000.
1925 – The opera Doktor Faust, unfinished when composer Ferruccio Busoni (pictured) died, was premiered in Dresden.
1946 – While working with a mass of plutonium known as the demon core, Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin accidentally exposed himself to a lethal dose of hard radiation, making him the second victim of a criticality accident in history.
2015 – Islamic State militants entered the ancient city of Palmyra.

Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland (b. 1806)
Ella Stewart Udall (b. 1855)
Stuart Bingham (b. 1976)
Patsy O'Hara (d. 1981)

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The Greenfield tornado was a violent EF4 tornado that struck southwestern Iowa on May 21, 2024, during an ongoing tornado outbreak. Tracking more than 42 miles (68 km), it devastated Greenfield, killing 5 people and injuring 35 others. Winds were officially estimated at 185 mph (298 km/h), though Doppler on Wheels radar recorded brief wind speeds of 309–318 mph (497–512 km/h), among the highest ever measured in a tornado. Numerous buildings and wind turbines were destroyed across Page, Taylor, Adams and Adair counties. The tornado has been noted as an important milestone in the effectiveness of NOAA's experimental Warn-on-Forecast system, which predicted tornadic activity around 75 minutes in advance. This aerial photograph shows damage to houses in northeastern Greenfield.

Photograph: Christopher Riske

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