Castell Coch is a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle built above the village of Tongwynlais in South Wales. The first castle on the site was built by the Normans after 1081 to protect the newly conquered town of Cardiff. The castle's earth motte was reused by Gilbert de Clare as the basis for a new stone fortification, built between 1267 and 1277. John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, inherited the castle ruins in 1848. One of Britain's wealthiest men, he employed the architect William Burges to reconstruct the castle as a summer residence. Burges rebuilt the outside before his death in 1881, and the interior work was finished by his team in 1891; it featured elaborate decorations including extensive use of symbolism drawing on classical mythology and legendary themes. Crichton-Stuart planted a vineyard just below the castle, where wine production continued until the First World War. In 1950 his grandson, the 5th Marquess of Bute, placed the property into the care of the state. Castell Coch is considered to be one of the best surviving examples of Victorian architecture. (Full article...)
1624 – Cardinal Richelieu(pictured) became the chief minister to King Louis XIII, and under his supervision, France's feudal political structure transformed into one with a powerful central government.
1996 – Belgian man Marc Dutroux was arrested for the kidnapping of 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez, revealing a number of other victims and one of Belgium's biggest child molestation cases.
A lateral (left side) anatomical diagram of an adult-stage nematode hermaphroditeCaenorhabditis elegans (full size) with emphasis on the digestive and reproductive systems. C. elegans is a free-living, transparent nematode (roundworm) which measures about 1 millimetre (0.039 in) in length. The hermaphrodite form, as seen here, is the most common, although a male form is also found. When self-inseminated, the species will lay about 300 eggs, but when the hermaphrodite is inseminated by a male, the number of progeny can exceed 1,000.
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