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These featured pictures, as scheduled below, appeared as the picture of the day (POTD) on the English Wikipedia's Main Page in the last 30 days.
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June 16
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An odd-eyed cat is a cat with one blue eye and one eye either green, yellow, or brown. This is a feline form of complete heterochromia, a condition that occurs in some other animals, including humans. There is also partial heterochromia, where there can be one blue eye and one eye that is partially blue and partially another color. The condition most commonly affects white cats, but may be found in a cat of any color, provided that it possesses the white-spotting gene. This white domestic cat has complete heterochromia, with a blue left eye and a yellow right eye. Photograph credit: Keith Kissel
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June 15
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Guano is the accumulated excrement of seabirds and bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to its exceptionally high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium: key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a lesser extent, sought for the production of gunpowder and other explosive materials. The demand for guano in the 19th century spurred the human colonization of remote bird islands in many parts of the world, resulting in some of the first examples of United States colonialism and the expansion of the British Empire. However, the guano-mining process resulted in ecological degradation through the loss of millions of seabirds. This photograph, taken near Île-de-Bréhat in northwestern France, depicts a herring gull (Larus argentatus) excreting waste, which accumulates to form guano. Photograph credit: Nicolas Sanchez
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June 14
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The checker shadow illusion is an optical illusion published in 1995 by Edward Adelson, an American professor of vision science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The phenomenon features an image of a checkerboard with light and dark squares, partly shadowed by another object, such as a cylinder as in this illustration. The optical illusion is that the area labeled A appears to be darker than the area labeled B. However, within the context of the two-dimensional image, they are of identical brightness – in other words, they would be printed with identical mixtures of ink, or displayed on a screen with pixels of identical color. Optical illusion credit: Edward Adelson; illustrated by Pbrks
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June 13
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The Danube Delta is the second-largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and the best preserved on the continent. While a small part of the delta lies in Ukraine (Odessa Oblast), a majority of its area of 3,446 km2 (1,331 sq mi) lies in Romania (Tulcea County). With the lagoons of Razim–Sinoe, located south of the main delta, the combined territory of 5,165 km2 (1,994 sq mi) is designated a World Heritage Site. Photograph credit: European Space Agency
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June 12
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The Notre-Dame fire broke out in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on 15 April 2019, causing severe damage to the building's spire, roof, and upper walls. The fire resulted in the contamination of the site and nearby areas of the city with toxic dust and lead. Investigators believed that the fire was caused by a cigarette or an electrical short circuit; the prosecutor of Paris found no evidence showing the fire was started deliberately. The cathedral's wooden spire, or flèche, was built by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in the Gothic Revival style and installed in 1859, weighing around 250 tons. This photograph, taken during the 2019 fire, depicts the spire of Notre-Dame aflame; it collapsed shortly afterwards. Photograph credit: Guillaume Levrier
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June 11
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Julia Margaret Cameron (11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered to be one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity and literature. Cameron also produced sensitive portraits of women and children. After showing a keen interest in photography for many years, she took up the practice at the relatively late age of 48, when her daughter gave her a camera as a present. She quickly produced a large body of work capturing the genius, beauty, and innocence of the men, women, and children who visited her studio, and created unique allegorical images inspired by tableaux vivants, theatre, 15th-century Italian painters, and the work of her creative contemporaries. Her photography career was short but productive; she made around 900 photographs over a twelve-year period. This portrait of Cameron, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was taken in 1870 by her son Henry Herschel Hay Cameron. Photograph credit: Henry Herschel Hay Cameron; restored by Adam Cuerden
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June 10
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Sinopterus dongi was a species of pterosaur that lived in the Early Cretaceous, about 120 million years ago. Like all the other members of the family Tapejaridae, Sinopterus is known for its large skull, which has a prominent crest and a birdlike pointed beak, and its lack of teeth. It was also a member of the Jehol Biota, an Early Cretaceous ecosystem mainly found in Liaoning, China best known for its feathered dinosaurs that has a crucial impact on studying the relationship between dinosaurs and birds. This S. dongi fossil specimen was collected in Chaoyang, in the western part of Liaoning. Part of the collection of the Beijing Museum of Natural History, the fossil was temporarily exhibited at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung, Taiwan. Photograph credit: Y.-C. Tsai
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June 9
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The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is a 1632 oil-on-canvas painting by Rembrandt housed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The painting is regarded as one of Rembrandt's early masterpieces. In the work, Nicolaes Tulp is pictured explaining the musculature of the arm to a group of doctors. Some of the spectators are various doctors who paid to be included in the painting. The painting is signed in the top-left hand corner Rembrandt. f[ecit] 1632. This may be the first instance of Rembrandt signing a painting with his forename (in its original form) as opposed to the monogram RHL ("Rembrandt Harmenszoon of Leiden"), and is thus a sign of his growing artistic confidence. Painting credit: Rembrandt
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June 8
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Robert Bruce is an 1846 pastiche opera in three acts, with music by Gioachino Rossini and Louis Niedermeyer to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, after Sir Walter Scott's History of Scotland. The music was stitched together by Niedermeyer, with the composer's permission, with pieces from La donna del lago, Zelmira, and other Rossini operas. The work was premiered on 30 December 1846 by the Paris Opera at the Salle Le Peletier. This illustration is the set for act 3 of the opera, taking place in the ramparts of Stirling Castle, designed by Charles-Antoine Cambon. Set design credit: Charles-Antoine Cambon; restored by Adam Cuerden
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June 7
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Paratroopers at the Western Wall is a photograph taken on 7 June 1967 by the Israeli photographer and photojournalist David Rubinger. Shot from a low angle, the photograph depicts three Israeli paratroopers framed against the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, shortly after its capture from Arab forces in the Six-Day War. From left to right, the soldiers are Zion Karasenti, Yitzhak Yifat, and Haim Oshri, reservists of the 66th Battalion, 55th Paratroopers Brigade. The image engenders such a strong emotional component that it has become an icon of Israel. Mishael Cheshin, a justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, said in 2001 that the photograph had "become the property of the entire nation". Photograph credit: David Rubinger
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June 6
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The Monument to Alfonso XII is located in Buen Retiro Park (El Retiro) in Madrid, Spain. Measuring 30 m (98 ft) high, 86 m (282 ft) long, and 58 m (190 ft) wide, it has at its center an equestrian statue of King Alfonso XII, cast in bronze by the Spanish sculptor Mariano Benlliure in 1904. The monument is situated on the eastern edge of an artificial lake near the center of the park and was inaugurated on 6 June 1922. Architecture credit: José Grases Riera; photographed by Carlos Delgado
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June 5
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Quo Vadis is a 1913 Italian silent film directed by Enrico Guazzoni for Cines, based on a novel of the same name by Henryk Sienkiewicz. It was one of the first blockbusters in the history of cinema, with five thousand extras, lavish sets, and a lengthy running time of two hours. Set during the latter years of the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, the film depicts his persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire in the mid–1st century. This poster, produced for the American film producer George Kleine to advertise Quo Vadis, depicts the execution of Lygia, a young Christian woman, in the Circus of Nero in Rome: she is tied to the back of a bull, in imitation of the mythological princess Europa. Poster credit: The National Printing and Engraving Company; restored by Adam Cuerden
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June 4
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The Counting of the Omer is a commandment in Judaism of counting the days that pass between Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks). This mitzvah (commandment) derives from a commandment in the Torah to count 49 days beginning from the day on which the Omer, a sacrifice containing an omer-measure of barley, was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem, up until the day before an offering of wheat was brought to the Temple on Shavuot. The Counting of the Omer begins on the second day of Passover (the 16th day of Nisan) for Rabbinic Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform), and after the weekly Shabbat during Passover for Karaite Jews, and ends the day before the holiday of Shavuot, which is the 'fiftieth day'. This image depicts an Omer calendar for 1904 produced by Baruch Zvi Ring with ink, paint, pencil, and watercolor on cut-out paper. It is in the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York. Artwork credit: Baruch Zvi Ring
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June 3
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The crankset (also known as a chainset in the UK) of a bicycle is the component of the drivetrain that converts the reciprocating motion of the rider's legs into rotational motion used to drive the chain or belt, which in turn drives the rear wheel. The road-bicycle crankset depicted in this photograph was manufactured by Shimano, with two chainrings and 172.5 mm (6.79 in) cranks. Photograph credit: Petar Milošević
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June 2
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The white-plumed honeyeater (Ptilotula penicillata) is a species of small passerine bird endemic to Australia. The species is common around water, and they are often seen in backyards and suburbs with vegetation cover. First described by the English naturalist John Gould in 1837, the specimen he examined came from the "interior of New South Wales". The specific epithet penicillata derives from the Latin word penicillis, meaning 'brush tip', referring to the white plume across the side of the neck, its distinguishing characteristic. The rest of the bird is mainly olive-coloured. This white-plumed honeyeater was photographed in Glen Davis, New South Wales. Photograph credit: John Harrison
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June 1
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Desolation is the fifth in a series of five oil-on-canvas paintings entitled The Course of Empire, created by the American artist Thomas Cole between 1833 and 1836. The series, now in the collection of the New-York Historical Society, depicts the growth and fall of an imaginary city, situated at the lower end of a river valley. In this painting, the remains of the city are depicted decades after its destruction by invaders, with the landscape beginning to return to wilderness. Painting credit: Thomas Cole
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May 31
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The Federal Republic of Central America was a sovereign state in existence from 1823 to 1841 in Central America that consisted of the territories of the former Captaincy General of Guatemala of New Spain. The republic consisted of the present-day countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, as well as the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The republic's currency was the Central American Republic real; this photograph depicts the obverse and reverse of a four-escudo Central American Republic coin, minted in San José in 1835, and now in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Coin design credit: Federal Republic of Central America; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
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May 30
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In May 2021, water levels of Lake Oroville, a reservoir formed by the Oroville Dam in northern California, dropped significantly, exposing much of the lake's banks, as California headed into another drought year. Photograph credit: Frank Schulenburg
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May 29
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The Xiahe mandible is a hominin fossil jaw discovered in Baishiya Karst Cave, on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau in Xiahe County, Gansu, China. It was found in 1980 by a Buddhist monk who had entered the cave to meditate. This fossil discovery demonstrated that archaic hominins were present in a high-altitude, low-oxygen environment by around 160,000 years ago. Discover, Science News and Nova all named the discovery of the mandible in their lists of top science stories of 2019. Photograph credit: Dongju Zhang
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May 28
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Anna Bilińska (1854–1893) was a Polish Realist painter. Born in Zlatopil, she moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian. Bilińska is one of the first Polish female artists to receive professional artistic education and critical acclaim. Her paintings include A Negress and At the Seashore. This self-portrait of Bilińska, wearing an apron and holding a bundle of brushes, was painted in oil on canvas in 1887 and is now in the collection of the National Museum in Kraków. Painting credit: Anna Bilińska
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May 27
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Oldham's leaf turtle (Cyclemys oldhamii) is a species of turtle in the family Geoemydidae, found in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Indonesian regions of West Borneo, Sumatra and Java. This turtle was photographed in Kaeng Krachan National Park, Thailand. Photograph credit: Rushenb
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May 26
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A floating market is a market where goods are sold from boats. This photograph shows such a market in Banjarmasin, a city in South Kalimantan, Indonesia, in November 2016. The floating market is a reflection of the culture of the people of Banjarmasin and is a main attraction for tourists visiting South Kalimantan. Photograph credit: Muhammad Haris
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May 25
The Las Lajas Shrine is a Catholic minor basilica in Ipiales, Colombia, located within the canyon of the Guáitara River. The basilica was built between 1916 and 1949 in the Gothic architectural style to commemorate a apparition of the Virgin Mary. Measured from the base of the canyon, the basilica is 100 metres (330 ft) tall. Photograph credit: Diego Delso
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May 24
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Brigid Balfour (24 May 1914 – 1 March 1994) was a British scientist who studied cellular morphology and ultrastructure in relation to immune function. She advanced the study of dendritic cells, realising that they are derived from Langerhans cells and play an important role in initiating and promoting immune reactions. Photograph credit: National Institute for Medical Research; restored by Adam Cuerden
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May 23
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The eastern spinebill (Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris) is a species of honeyeater found in south-eastern Australia in forests, woodland and gardens. It is around 6 in (15 cm) long and has a distinctive black, white and chestnut plumage, a red eye and a long downcurved bill. It supplements its diet of nectar with small insects and other invertebrates. This male spinebill was photographed at the Mogo Campground, New South Wales. Photograph credit: John Harrison
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May 22
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This is a high-resolution topographic map of the surface of Mars, colored according to elevation, based on research led by Maria Zuber and David Smith on data collected by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on board the NASA space probe Mars Global Surveyor. North is at the top of the main map, accompanied by two insets for the northern and southern polar regions. Highlands (red and orange) dominate the southern hemisphere of Mars, while lowlands (blue) predominate in the north – a feature known as the Martian dichotomy. Notable large surface features visible on the map include Olympus Mons (the highest mountain on Mars) and the volcanoes of Tharsis in the west, the Valles Marineris to the east of Tharsis, and the Hellas basin in the southern hemisphere. Map credit: NASA/JPL/USGS; edited by WolfmanSF
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May 21
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Lucy Arbell (8 June 1878 – 21 May 1947) was a French mezzo-soprano whose operatic career was mainly centred in Paris and who was particularly associated with the composer Jules Massenet. She created the roles of Queen Amahelli in Massenet's opera Bacchus, inspired by Greek mythology, in which the gods appear in human form in ancient India to attempt to persuade the people away from the pervading Buddhist influence. This photograph, taken by the French photographer Nadar, depicts Arbell in the role of Queen Amahelli for the 1909 premiere of Bacchus at the Palais Garnier in Paris. Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Adam Cuerden
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May 20
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Heteractis magnifica, commonly known as the magnificent sea anemone, is a large species with a widespread distribution in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indo-Pacific. The pink anemonefish, seen here among the sea anemone's tentacles, is one of a number of species of small fish which use it as a host, finding safety from predators among the stinging tentacles. Photograph credit: Nick Hobgood
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May 19
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The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Much loved by its pilots, the Spitfire served in several roles, including interceptor, photo-reconnaissance, fighter-bomber, and trainer, and it continued to be used in these roles until the 1950s. This poster was produced between 1942 and 1945 by the Office of War Information. Poster credit: Office of War Information
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May 18
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Caroline Spencer (1861 – 1928) was an American physician and suffragist who campaigned vigorously for women's rights, both in her home state of Colorado and on the national level. Between 1917 and 1919, she was one of many women who became known as the Silent Sentinels, as they stood in front of the White House and carried pickets and banners for their cause. Although it was not illegal to picket, she was arrested on three occasions and imprisoned twice. Photograph credit: Edmonston, Washington, D.C.; restored by Adam Cuerden
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