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Today's featured article...

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, within New York City. The copper statue, an 1886 gift to the United States from the people of France, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. It is a figure of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty, holding a torch and a tablet bearing the date of the United States Declaration of Independence. A broken chain and shackle lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the national abolition of slavery following the American Civil War. After its dedication the statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, and it was later seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea. Its completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland. (Full article...)

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On this day...

July 4: Independence Day in the United States (1776); Republic Day in the Philippines (1946); Liberation Day in Rwanda (1994)

Crab Nebula

414 – Byzantine emperor Theodosius II proclaimed his elder sister Aelia Pulcheria as Augusta.
1054 – Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", later identified as the supernova that created the Crab Nebula (pictured).
1863 – American Civil War: Confederate forces failed in an attempt to recapture the Union-occupied Helena, Arkansas.
1954 – In what is known as "The Miracle of Bern", West Germany defeated Hungary 3–2 to win the FIFA World Cup.
1954 – CIA officers arrived in Guatemala City to begin Operation PBHistory in an attempt to justify the overthrowing of Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz one week earlier.

Brian Twyne (d. 1644)
Jack Warhop (b. 1884)
Koko (b. 1971)
Victor Chang (d. 1991)

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In the news

Dick Schoof

In the Netherlands, a new cabinet is sworn in, with Dick Schoof (pictured) serving as the prime minister.
A crowd crush during a religious event in Uttar Pradesh, India, leaves at least 110 people dead.
José Raúl Mulino becomes the president of Panama after winning the general election.
In cricket, the T20 World Cup concludes with India defeating South Africa in the final.
In Bolivia, troops led by Juan José Zúñiga storm the presidential palace in an attempted coup.

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From Wikipedia's newest articles:

...that the Roman de Fergus is the earliest piece of non-Celtic vernacular literature to have survived from Scotland?
...that the Philharmonia Hungarica made the first complete recording of Haydn's symphonies, was an orchestra founded by Hungarian exiles and funded by the West German government during the Cold War?
...that the dachas of the Russian poets Boris Pasternak, Korney Chukovsky, and Bulat Okudzhava in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow are open to the public as memorial houses?
...that an aerosani is a type of air-powered, armoured snowmobile, which was used for transport, reconnaissance, and raiding by the Red Army in the Winter War and the Second World War?
...that a push–pull converter is a type of DC-to-DC converter that uses a transformer to step the voltage of a DC power supply?
...that the Chicana artist Yolanda Lopez became famous with the painting "Virgen de Guadalupe", which represents Lopez's personal investigation into Virgen de Guadalupe's status in Mexican society?

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