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From today's featured article

Head VI is a 1949 painting by the Irish-born, English figurative artist Francis Bacon. It is the last of six panels making up his "1949 Head" series, which are largely modeled on Diego Velázquez's Portrait of Innocent X. Applying forceful, expressive brush strokes, Bacon placed the figure within a draped glass cage. The intended effect is of a man trapped and suffocated by his surroundings, screaming into an airless void. Head VI was the first of Bacon's paintings to reference Velázquez, whose portrait of Pope Innocent X haunted Bacon and inspired his series of over 45 "screaming popes". Head VI contains many figurations that were to reappear throughout his career; the geometric cages are present as late as the 1985–86 Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych. In 1949 Bacon was a highly controversial artist, best known for his 1944 Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, and as the enfant terrible of British art. The curator Lawrence Gowing wrote that the "shock of the picture, when it was seen with a whole series of heads ... was indescribable. It was everything unpardonable." Today the panel is considered among Bacon's finest. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Anti-Terror Unit fighters

... that the leader of the US-trained Anti-Terror Units (fighters pictured) was suspected to have been assassinated by Turkish Intelligence operatives for conducting "terror operations"?
... that Moufdi Zakaria reportedly wrote the lyrics to the national anthem of Algeria with his own blood on the walls of his jail cell?
... that construction of the Macrolibramiento Palmillas-Apaseo el Grande highway was delayed by difficulties acquiring rights of way, rising material costs, and intermittent funding from the Mexican government?
... that after the death of pediatric neurologist Bronson Crothers, Harvard Medical School established a professorship in his name?
... that the video game Horizon Zero Dawn was considered the most risky out of 40 concepts pitched for development?
... that sailors under Magellan may have guessed that Samborombón Bay was the birthplace of the phantom island of Saint Brendan?
... that the upcoming film The Darkest Minds is the live-action directorial debut of animation director Jennifer Yuh Nelson?
... that physician Bodog F. Beck kept a beehive outside his office in New York for his "bee venom therapy"?

In the news

Petya's ransom note displayed on a compromised system

Cyberattacks on Ukraine spread a new variant of the Petya malware (ransom note pictured) around the world and cause severe disruptions.
An anti-government coalition uses a police helicopter to attack the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the Interior Ministry of Venezuela.
In sailing, the America's Cup concludes with Emirates Team New Zealand defeating Oracle Team USA.
An oil truck explosion in Ahmedpur East, Pakistan, kills at least 190 people and injures more than 140 others.
The World Health Organization estimates that 200,000 people in Yemen have been infected with cholera.

On this day...

July 5

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

1775 – The Second Continental Congress of Britain's Thirteen Colonies adopted the Olive Branch Petition in the hopes of avoiding war with Great Britain.
1865 – Royal assent was given to an Act of Parliament allowing the Talyllyn Railway to carry passengers by steam haulage – the first narrow-gauge railway in Britain to do so from the start.
1950 – Korean War: In the first encounter between North Korean and American forces, the unprepared and undisciplined U.S. Army task force was routed.
1977 – General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (pictured) overthrew Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a military coup d'état.
2004 – Indonesia held its first direct presidential elections, which resulted in the election of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as President of Indonesia after the second round on September 20.

Nicéphore Niépce (d. 1833) · Sophie Wyss (b. 1897) · Megan Rapinoe (b. 1985)

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Today's featured picture

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) was a French writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. He is best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929), as well as the films The Blood of a Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1949).

Photograph: Agence de presse Meurisse; restoration: JLPC

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