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From today's featured article

Reverse of the Apollo 11 gold half eagle

The Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins were issued by the United States Mint in 2019 to mark the 50th anniversary of the first crewed landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. There is a gold half eagle (five-dollar coin), two sizes of silver dollars, and a copper-nickel clad half dollar, all with the same design and curved, with the obverse concave and the reverse convex. The obverse shows a bootprint on the lunar surface, and the reverse (pictured), based on a well-known photo by Armstrong, depicts the visor of Aldrin's space suit, reflecting Armstrong, the U.S. flag and the Lunar Module Eagle. The depiction of Aldrin made him the seventh individual depicted on a U.S. coin to be alive at the time it was struck. The program was the most successful U.S. commemorative coin issue since the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame coins, with more than 600,000 Apollo 11 coins sold. The larger silver dollar won the Coin of the Year Award for 2019-dated issues. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Mr. Bean in Leicester Square

... that you can sit next to Mr. Bean (pictured) in Leicester Square?
... that Maria of Antioch had a clerk and a notary interrupt the coronation of her rival Hugh III of Cyprus, after which they fled the cathedral?
... that Central Park Tower, partially cantilevered over another building, was compared to a giant "poised to squash a poodle"?
... that José Adán Aguerri's family opened the first movie theater in Nicaragua?
... that Italy won the UEFA Euro 1968 Final but only after winning a coin toss and a replay?
... that Chilean psychologist Neva Milicic Müller wrote a book about parent–child separation that can help children and caregivers during COVID-19 lockdowns?
... that north London's Barnet Gate was called Grendel's Gate by the Anglo-Saxons, after the monster slain in the epic poem Beowulf?
... that Des van Jaarsveldt was the first Rhodesian to captain the South Africa national rugby team and possibly the first to give a Springboks team talk in English?

In the news

Pedro Castillo

Pedro Castillo (pictured) becomes president-elect of Peru following the official declaration of the results of April's election.
Floods across western Europe leave more than 200 people dead.
In South Africa, protests and subsequent unrest over the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma result in 212 deaths and more than 2,500 arrests.
The Supreme Court of Nepal designates Sher Bahadur Deuba as prime minister.

On this day

July 20: First day of Eid al-Adha (Islam, 2021)

USS Constitution

1793 – Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific coast at Bella Coola, British Columbia, completing the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico.
1982 – Members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated two bombs in Hyde Park and Regent's Park in London, killing eleven British Army personnel and seven horses.
1997 – After being fully restored, USS Constitution (pictured), one of the original six frigates of the United States Navy, sailed for the first time in 116 years.
2001 – Twenty-three-year-old Italian anti-globalist Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by a police officer while protesting outside the 27th G8 summit held in Genoa, Italy.

Robert Wallop (b. 1601)
Patriarch Miron of Romania (b. 1868)
Amanda Clement (d. 1971)

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Today's featured picture

Tranquility Base is the landing site of the Apollo 11 mission on the Moon where, on July 20, 1969, humans first landed and walked on a celestial body other than the Earth. This photograph was taken at Tranquility Base by Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 commander, and depicts crewmember Buzz Aldrin with scientific equipment he had just deployed on the lunar surface. In the background on the right of the image is the lunar module, Eagle; the United States flag planted at the site during the mission was blown over the next day by the exhaust of the ascent rocket.

Photograph credit: Neil Armstrong

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