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From today's featured article

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery (Ukrainian: Михайлівський золотоверхий монастир, Mykhaylivs’kyi zolotoverkhyi monastyr) is a functioning monastery in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The monastery is located on the right bank of the Dnieper River on the edge of a bluff northeast of the Saint Sophia Cathedral. The site is located in the historic administrative Uppertown and overlooks the city's historical commercial and merchant quarter, the Podil neighbourhood.

Originally built in the Middle Ages by Sviatopolk II Iziaslavych, the monastery comprises the Cathedral itself, the Refectory of St. John the Divine, built in 1713, the Economic Gates, constructed in 1760 and the monastery's bell tower, which was added c. 1716–1719. The exterior of the structure was rebuilt in the Ukrainian Baroque style in the 18th century (Full article...)

Did you know...

• ... that Lord Minginish is the first Gaelic-speaking Chairman of the Scottish Land Court?
• ... that the Battle of Hampton Roads was perhaps the most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies?
• ... that the name Zoroaster possibly means "he who manages camels"?
• ... that there were 31 ancient Egyptian dynasties?
• ... that Jupiter is considered a Substellar object?
• ... that NuScale Power has designed a line of small, modular nuclear reactors?
• ... that the United States Navy has ten Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in service?

In the news (from Infogalactic News)

• After Thousands Of Parents Refused To Comply Another CA School District Vax Mandate Falls
  Judge Ruled Schools Have No Authority To Mandate Medical Procedures For Children
• Ghislaine Maxwell Found Guilty of 5 Of 6 Charges
  Will She Be Epsteined?
• Aaron Rodgers: "If Science Can't Be Questioned, It's Not Science Anymore"
  "It's Propoganda"
  

• Jake Tapper's Producer Resigns From CNN
  Amid Pedo Scandal
• Israel Orders 100 Million Eggs Due To Bird Flu Outbreak
  Eggs And Hens Must Be Destroyed To Contain The Outbreak
• Twitter Suspends mRNA Tech Inventor Dr. Robert Malone
  Ran Counter To Covid Narrative
• Life Expectancy In 2020 Fell 2.3% To 77 Years
  Does This Justify The Covid Panic?
  

On this day...

December 25

• 333 – Roman Emperor Constantine the Great elevates his youngest son Constans to the rank of Caesar.
• 1000 – The foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary: Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary.
• 1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
• 1946 – The first European self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is initiated within the Soviet Union's F-1 nuclear reactor.
• 1963 – Turkish Cypriot Bayrak Radio begins transmitting in Cyprus after Turkish Cypriots are forcibly excluded from Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.
• 2000 – Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a bill into law that officially establishes a new National Anthem of Russia, with music adopted from the anthem of the Soviet Union that was composed by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov.
• 2003 – The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe, released from the Mars Express spacecraft on December 19, stops transmitting shortly before its scheduled landing.

• More anniversaries:
  • December 24
  • December 25
  • December 26

December 26

• 1489 – The forces of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, take control of Almería from the Nasrid ruler of Granada, Muhammad XIII.
• 1793 – Second Battle of Wissembourg: France defeat Austria.
• 1825 – Advocates of liberalism in Russia rise up against Czar Nicholas I and are put down in the Decembrist revolt in Saint Petersburg.
• 1919 – Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox is sold to the New York Yankees by owner Harry Frazee, allegedly establishing the Curse of the Bambino superstition.
• 1975 – Tu-144, the world's first commercial supersonic aircraft, surpassing Mach 2, went into service.
• 2004 – A 9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000.
• 2006 – An oil pipeline in Lagos, Nigeria explodes, killing at least 260.

• More anniversaries:
  • December 25
  • December 26
  • December 27

• 1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate his theory of evolution.
• 1911 – "Jana Gana Mana", the national anthem of India, is first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress.
• 1939 – The 7.8 Mw Erzincan earthquake shakes eastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). At least 32,700 people were killed.
• 1945 – The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
• 1949 – Indonesian National Revolution: The Netherlands officially recognizes Indonesian independence. End of the Dutch East Indies.
• 1985 – Palestinian guerrillas kill eighteen people inside the airports of Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria.
• 2001 – China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.

• More anniversaries:
  • December 26
  • December 27
  • December 28

Today's featured picture

Oscar-Claude Monet (/moʊˈneɪ/; French: [klod mɔnɛ]; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.

Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883 Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property, and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life. (Full article...)

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