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Robert Kaske (1921–1989) was an American professor of medieval literature who founded the medieval studies program at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He published lengthy interpretations of Beowulf and of poems and passages by Dante and Chaucer. Kaske particularly enjoyed solving difficult, puzzling passages in works such as Pearl, Piers Plowman, the Divine Comedy, "The Husband's Message" and "The Descent into Hell". In 1975 he was appointed chief editor of the journal Traditio. Over the course of his career he collected what one former student termed "most of the awards and honors possible for a medieval scholar", including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies, and two Guggenheim Fellowships. In 1988 Kaske published Medieval Christian Literary Imagery: A Guide to Interpretation, which colleagues called a "magisterial work". (Full article...)
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On this day
- 1367 – Swa Saw Ke was crowned the ruler of the Kingdom of Ava in Upper Myanmar.
- 1816 – Facing rising discontent in France, Louis XVIII was forced to dissolve the Chambre introuvable, the legislature dominated by Ultra-royalists.
- 1887 – A fire that killed 186 people broke out at the Theatre Royal, Exeter.
- 1964 – Hurricane Cleo dissipated after causing 156 deaths, mainly in Haiti, and causing roughly US$187 million in damages across the Caribbean and southeastern United States.
- 1975 – Squeaky Fromme (pictured), a devotee of Charles Manson, attempted to assassinate U.S. president Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California.
- Katharina Zell (d. 1562)
- James Innes (d. 1759)
- Archie Jackson (b. 1909)
- Jean-Chrysostome Weregemere (b. 1919)
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In the news
- In Johannesburg, South Africa, a residential fire (damage pictured) kills 77 people.
- In Gabon, President Ali Bongo Ondimba is deposed by a military coup shortly after his re-election.
- A business jet crashes in Tver Oblast, Russia, killing Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine others.
- Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 lands near the lunar south pole, carrying the Pragyan rover.
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Did you know ...
Frock coat from Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims- ... that the clothing tags for Alexander McQueen's first collection, Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims (garment pictured), had McQueen's own hair encased inside?
- ... that Helene Ollendorff Curth was first to introduce a set of criteria for associating some rashes as possible indicators for internal cancers?
- ... that according to a popular legend, the tomb of Humayun Shah split open when he was interred?
- ... that the legal battle over awarding channel 9 in Orlando, Florida, the longest case in FCC history at the time, filled 55 volumes?
- ... that the Munich Mouser, Neville Chamberlain's pet, and Nelson, Winston Churchill's pet, had a rivalry during World War II?
- ... that circulation numbers for early comic books featuring Captain America remained close to a million copies per month, outstripping news magazines such as Time?
- ... that Blockchain Chicken Farm is about chicken farms run by people who have never heard of blockchain?
- ... that raw material waste from the West influenced a generation of rock music in China?
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Today's featured picture
$5: Abraham Lincoln
Silver certificates are a type of representative money issued between 1878 and 1964 in the United States as part of its circulation of paper currency. They were produced in response to silver agitation by citizens who were angered by the Coinage Act of 1873, which had effectively placed the United States on a gold standard. Since 1968 they have been redeemable only in Federal Reserve Notes and are thus obsolete, but they remain legal tender at their face value and hence are still an accepted form of currency. This is a complete set of the 1923 series of large-size silver certificates, designed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and comprising two denominations, one dollar and five dollars. On the obverse, each banknote bears the portrait of a US president (George Washington and Abraham Lincoln) and the engraved signatures of a register of the Treasury (W. O. Woods and H. V. Speelman) and a treasurer of the United States (H. T. Tate and Frank White).
Banknote design credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
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