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The City of Portsmouth War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the English city of Portsmouth, Hampshire. The city suffered significant losses during the war, and after the conflict a site close to the Town Hall and the railway station was selected as the location for a memorial. The architects James Gibson and Walter Gordon designed it, with sculptural elements by Charles Jagger. The memorial consists of a semi-circular sunken recess (an exedra) with a screen bearing bronze panels listing the names of the dead. Balustrades lead into Guildhall Square, terminating in sculptures of a life-size soldier and sailor with machine guns. In the centre is a cenotaph, surmounted by an urn and decorated on the sides with relief carvings of wartime scenes. The memorial was unveiled on 19 October 1921, before its completion. In the 1970s another wall was created, listing the names of casualties from the Second World War; a monument to that conflict was added in 2005. The memorial is a Grade II* listed building. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Cumbre Vieja erupting

... that more than 22,000 earthquakes occurred in the eight days before the 2021 Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption (pictured)?
... that English netball player Sophie Drakeford-Lewis was once the highest ranked British youth tennis player?
... that artist-activist group Suohpanterror remixed the "We Can Do It!" Rosie the Riveter poster to signify Sámi feminism?
... that Charles IV commanded the significant expansion of the fishponds of the Třeboň Basin "so that the kingdom would abound in fish and mist"?
... that when Gene Scott was forced to close San Francisco TV station KVOF-TV, he called its successor "the Tower of Babel religious brigade"—then proceeded to buy air time on it?
... that the Railroad and Bank Building was built with six miles (9.7 km) of pneumatic tubes used to send items anywhere within the building in under ten seconds?
... that in the Kelmscott Press's acclaimed Complete Works of Chaucer, illustrator Burne-Jones depicts a house "made of twigges" in an unusually literal style?
... that the country song "Beer Beer, Truck Truck" was based on a viral TikTok video by Erynn Chambers intended to satirize country music?

In the news

Alexei Navalny

Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny (pictured) is awarded the Sakharov Prize.
PAICV candidate José Maria Neves is elected President of Cape Verde.
British Member of Parliament Sir David Amess dies after being stabbed during a constituency meeting.
Severe Tropical Storm Kompasu kills 40 people in the Philippines and Hong Kong.

On this day

October 23: Mawlid (Shia Islam, 2021); Mole Day

Santos-Dumont 14-bis

1295 – The first treaty forming the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France against England was signed in Paris.
1850 – The inaugural National Women's Rights Convention, presided over by American activist Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis, began in Worcester, Massachusetts.
1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flew his biplane 14-bis (depicted) for 50 metres (160 ft) at a height of about four metres (13 ft).
1934 – Jeannette Piccard piloted a hot-air balloon flight that reached 57,579 feet (17,550 m), becoming the first woman to fly in the stratosphere.
1956 – The Hungarian Revolution began as a peaceful student demonstration that attracted thousands while marching through central Budapest to the parliament building.

Johan Gabriel Ståhlberg (b. 1832)
Emma Vyssotsky (b. 1894)
Josh Kirby (d. 2001)

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Today's featured picture

Wallace's flying frog (Rhacophorus nigropalmatus) is a moss frog found in tropical southeastern Asia. It is named after the British naturalist Alfred R. Wallace, who collected the first known specimen of the species. It lives almost exclusively in trees, and when threatened, or in search of prey, will leap from a branch and splay its four webbed feet; the membranes between its toes and the loose skin flaps on its sides catch the air as it falls, helping it to glide. This individual was photographed in Khao Sok National Park, Thailand.

Photograph credit: Rushenb

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