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From today's featured article

Command sheet for an invasion in Hyborian War

Hyborian War is a play-by-mail game set during Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age in the world of Conan the Barbarian. The Origins Award–winning game, published by Reality Simulations, Inc., has been continuously available for play since 1985. The game’s genre is heroic fantasy, also known as sword and sorcery. Conan appears as a wandering hero whom players can employ until fortune takes him elsewhere. The game designer wove multiple aspects of Howard's stories into Hyborian War including diverse landscapes and cultures, grand armies, large-scale battles, powerful wizards, and courageous and heroic deeds. Gameplay is multifaceted and complex. Players choose from 36 kingdoms of small, medium, and large sizes, each with different victory conditions. A central focus of the game is conquest and expansion through military action and diplomacy. Intrigue, magic, and other tools of statecraft in a fantasy setting are available to players. The game retains an active player base in the 21st century. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Warsaw Equality Parade in 2018

... that Jarosław Kaczyński, an adviser to the prime minister of Poland, claimed that equality marches (example pictured) are "a real threat to ... the Polish state"?
... that the multi-talented Aonghus McAnally has been a radio producer, television presenter, guitarist, singer, Irish billiards champion, actor, stand-up comedian, and magician?
... that the purchasers of West Virginia radio station WGKV were deemed by the Federal Communications Commission to be "almost wholly ignorant of the field of radio broadcasting"?
... that the Eocene leaf species Tetracentron hopkinsii was not confirmed from Washington state until 2018?
... that Hawona Sullivan Janzen's Rondo Family Reunion uses lawn signs with photographs and poetry to commemorate the historically Black Rondo neighborhood torn apart by the construction of I-94 in Minnesota?
... that St. Stephanus in Bork, a Baroque church built in the 1720s, received a large former wayside cross in the 20th century?
... that Byzantine general Manuel Kamytzes began a rebellion against his emperor when the latter took advantage of his capture to confiscate his fortune, imprison his family, and refuse to ransom him?
... that a large Pepsi-Cola sign faces the United Nations?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta

In Mali, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (pictured) resigns and dissolves the government after his arrest in a military coup following months of protests.
Ronnie O'Sullivan wins the World Snooker Championship, defeating Kyren Wilson in the final.
Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei sets a new world record in the men's 5000 metres.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates agree to establish diplomatic relations.

On this day

August 19: Independence Day in Afghanistan (1919)

Bonnie Prince Charlie

1274 – Shortly after his return from the Ninth Crusade, Edward I was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey, nearly two years after his father's death.
1745 – Bonnie Prince Charlie (portrait shown) raised the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan, Scotland, in an attempt to regain the British throne for his father, beginning the Jacobite rising of 1745.
1920 – Russian Civil War: Peasants in Tambov Governorate began a rebellion against the Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia.
2003 – A Hamas suicide bomber killed 24 people and wounded more than 130 others, many of whom were Orthodox Jewish children, on a crowded public bus in Shmuel HaNavi neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel.

Abu Yazid (d. 947)
C. I. Scofield (b. 1843)
Aleksander Kreek (d. 1977)

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Today's featured picture

Gaillardia pulchella is a North American species of short-lived perennial or annual flowering plant in the sunflower family, Asteraceae. It is often known as the Indian blanketflower, perhaps because of the resemblance of the inflorescence to the brightly patterned blankets made by Native Americans. It is a drought-tolerant plant native to northern Mexico and the southern United States, often carpeting fields and the sides of highways for miles in the summer and fall. These G. pulchella blooms were photographed in Aspen, Colorado.

Photograph credit: Rhododendrites

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