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From today's featured article

Benjamin Britten (1913–76) was an English composer, conductor and pianist, and a central figure in 20th-century British classical music. His wide compositional range includes opera, orchestral, choral, solo vocal, chamber, instrumental and film music. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. His best-known works include the operas Peter Grimes (1945) and Billy Budd (1951), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945). Recurring themes in his operas are the struggle of an outsider against a hostile society, and the corruption of innocence. He wrote copiously for children and amateur performers, including the opera Noye's Fludde, a Missa Brevis, and the song collection Friday Afternoons. Britten often composed with particular performers in mind, most importantly his personal and professional partner, the tenor Peter Pears, with whom he co-founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948; the pair were responsible for the creation of its Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In 1976 Britten became the first composer to be awarded a life peerage. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Benjamin Britten composed his Festival Te Deum for the centenary of St Mark's Church, Swindon (pictured)?
... that the Philippines is contesting the validity of China's nine-dotted line?
... that after 180 people died from drinking moonshine in 2008, the state of Tamil Nadu considered introducing prohibition?
... that some 200 pages of research were compiled for the TV series Ambassadors?
... that the recently-announced Lumia 2520 is Nokia's first Windows tablet computer?
... that after a two year absence from the sport, Ruth Wanjiru achieved third place in the 2012 Ottawa Marathon?
... that the jiangshi film is a horror genre based on the hopping corpses of Chinese folklore?

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In the news

A double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut kills 23 people.
British biochemist and two-time Nobel Prize winner Frederick Sanger (pictured) dies at the age of 95.
NASA launches the MAVEN probe to Mars.
Fifty people are killed when a Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737 crashes in Kazan, Russia.
Abdulla Yameen is elected president of the Maldives.
Sachin Tendulkar retires from all forms of cricket.
The prime ministers of Canada, India and Mauritius boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka, over allegations of war crimes and human rights abuses.
A herd of 40 elephants is struck by a passenger train in Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary, India.

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On this day...

November 22: Alphabet Day in Albania (1908)

498 – Following the death of Anastasius II, both Symmachus and Laurentius were elected pope, causing a schism that would last until 506.
1635 – Dutch colonial forces on Taiwan launched a three-month pacification campaign against Taiwanese aborigines.
1963 – Hours after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, Lyndon B. Johnson (pictured) was sworn in aboard Air Force One as the 36th President of the United States.
1988 – The first B-2 stealth bomber of the United States Air Force was first displayed in public at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
2005 – Angela Merkel assumed office as the first female Chancellor of Germany.

More anniversaries: November 21 – November 22 – November 23

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Today's featured picture

A posthumous portrait of U.S. president John F. Kennedy, completed by Aaron Shikler in 1970. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested that evening for the crime, but was killed by Jack Ruby two days later, before a trial could take place. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, but conspiracy theories persisted. In 1978, a select committee concluded that both investigations were flawed and that the assassination was probably the result of a conspiracy.

Painting: Aaron Shikler

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