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William Hopton Anderson (30 December 1891 – 30 December 1975) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He flew with the Australian Flying Corps in World War I, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Belgian Croix de guerre for his combat service with No. 3 Squadron on the Western Front in 1917. At the outbreak of World War II, Anderson was Air Member for Supply. In 1940, he acted as Chief of the Air Staff between the resignation of Air Vice-Marshal Stanley Goble in January and the arrival of Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett of the Royal Air Force (RAF) the next month. Anderson led the newly formed Central and Eastern Area Commands between December 1940 and July 1943, returning to the Air Board as Air Member for Organisation and Equipment from September 1941 to May 1942. He was the founding commandant of the RAAF Staff School from July to November 1943, after which he was appointed Air Member for Personnel. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Evgeny Ketov

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... that Miho Karasawa's stage name, True, was influenced by her songwriting for anime representing her "true" self?
... that the Jack-be-little pumpkin can be turned into a serving bowl for soup?
... that, after two sisters married Armenian leaders in the War of the Antiochene Succession, a third sister, Melisende of Lusignan, married the Armenians' enemy?
... that the first edition of the Autostrada Biennale featured contemporary art exhibitions temporarily hosted in private homes?
... that after Hkam Hkai Hpa of Hsenwi requested military aid against the Kingdom of Ava, the Yongle Emperor dispatched a eunuch in response?

In the news

Brigitte Bardot

French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot (pictured) dies at the age of 91.
Israel becomes the first country to officially recognise Somaliland as an independent state.
Nasry Asfura is elected president of Honduras, after one month of controversy surrounding the vote counting process.
A jet crash near Ankara, Turkey, kills all eight people on board, including Libyan Army chief of staff Mohammed al-Haddad.
A mass stabbing in Taipei, Taiwan, leaves four people dead, including the perpetrator.

On this day

December 30: Tenth of Tevet (Judaism, 2025); Rizal Day in the Philippines (1896)

Tropical Storm Zeta

1460 – Wars of the Roses: At the Battle of Wakefield, Lancastrian forces destroyed the Yorkist army and killed Richard of York at Sandal Magna in West Yorkshire, England.
1845 – The University of Galway, University College Cork and Queen's University Belfast were established as part of the Queen's University of Ireland.
1935 – Second Italo-Ethiopian War: In retaliation for the execution of an Italian prisoner of war, the Italian Air Force destroyed a field hospital of the Swedish Red Cross in Dolo.
2000 – A series of bombings occurred around Metro Manila in the Philippines, killing 22 people and injuring around 100 others.
2005 – Tropical Storm Zeta (pictured) became a tropical depression, making it the record-breaking 28th tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, the most active in recorded history until 2020.

Rudyard Kipling (b. 1865)
Elmira Minita Gordon (b. 1930)
C. Harold Wills (d. 1940)
V (b. 1995)

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Today's featured picture

The soprano saxophone is a small, high-pitched member of the saxophone family, invented in the 1840s by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax. It is a transposing instrument tuned in B-flat, an octave above the tenor saxophone (or, rarely, slightly smaller in C). The soprano is the smallest of the four saxophones in common use (the others being the alto, the tenor and the baritone), although there are smaller rare instruments such as the soprillo and the sopranino. Richard Strauss's Symphonia Domestica includes a C soprano among four different saxophones, and Maurice Ravel's Boléro features a solo for the soprano saxophone immediately following the tenor saxophone's solo. The soprano saxophone also features in some jazz music, with players including the 1930s virtuoso Sidney Bechet, the 1950s innovator Steve Lacy, and John Coltrane. This photograph shows a soprano saxophone manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation.

Photograph credit: Yamaha Corporation

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