From today's featured article
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Portrait of Monsieur Bertin is an 1832 oil-on-canvas painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It depicts Louis-François Bertin (1766–1841), a writer, art collector and director of the pro-royalist Journal des débats. Having achieved acclaim as a history painter, Ingres accepted portrait commissions with reluctance, regarding them as a distraction. The painting had a prolonged genesis; he agonised over the pose and made several preparatory sketches. The final work presents Bertin as a personification of the commercially minded leaders of the liberal reign of Louis Philippe I, emanating a restless energy. He is physically imposing and self-assured but his real-life personality shines through – warm, wry and engaging to those who had earned his trust. The portrait is an unflinchingly realistic depiction of aging; Ingres emphasises the furrowed skin and thinning hair of an overweight man who maintains his resolve and determination. Although Bertin's family worried that the painting might been seen as a caricature, it is widely regarded as Ingres' finest male portrait and has been at the Musée du Louvre since 1897. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
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 Close-up view of an Italian sandwich
- ... that the Italian sandwich (pictured) was invented after dockworkers in Portland, Maine asked a baker to slice his bread rolls and add vegetables, meat, and cheese?
- ... that the 1903 Jamaica hurricane destroyed five villages in Martinique established after the eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902?
- ... that the Electrophone relayed theatre shows, opera performances, and church services over telephone lines?
- ... that Augustinian nun Jacomijne Costers survived the plague in 1489 and wrote Visioen en exempel, recounting her vision of being led through hell and purgatory?
- ... that the common eagle ray feeds on shellfish which it crushes with flattened hexagonal teeth arranged in a mosaic fashion on its jaws?
- ... that the anti-forensic software USBKill was created to prevent data from being seized from logged-in computers, as happened in Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's arrest?
- ... that when the Hydraulic Press Channel, a YouTube channel, broadcast the folding of a piece of paper seven times using a hydraulic press, the paper exploded?
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In the news
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 Gordie Howe
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On this day...
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June 11: Queen's Official Birthday in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries (2016)
 Afonso of Brazil
- 1345 – Inspecting a new prison without being escorted by his bodyguard, Alexios Apokaukos, megas doux of the Byzantine Navy, was lynched and killed by the prisoners.
- 1847 – Afonso (pictured) died at age two, leaving his father Pedro II, the last emperor of Brazil, without a male heir.
- 1956 – The six-day Gal Oya riots, the first ethnic riots targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamils in post-independent Sri Lanka, began, eventually resulting in the deaths of at least 150 people and 100 injuries.
- 1963 – The University of Alabama was desegregated as Governor of Alabama George Wallace stepped aside after defiantly blocking the entrance to an auditorium.
- 2012 – Two earthquakes struck northern Afghanistan, triggering a massive landslide that buried a village and killed 75 people.
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