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The Seri Rambai

The Seri Rambai is a 17th-century Dutch cannon displayed at Fort Cornwallis in George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site city and capital of the Malaysian state of Penang. It is a fertility symbol, the subject of legends and prophecy, and the largest bronze gun in Malaysia. The cannon's history in the Malacca Straits began in the early 1600s when Dutch East India Company officers gave it to the Sultan of Johor in return for trading concessions. Less than a decade later, after Johor was destroyed and the sultan captured, the Seri Rambai was taken to Aceh. Near the end of the eighteenth century the cannon was sent to Selangor and mounted next to one of the town's hilltop forts. In 1871 pirates seized a Penang junk, murdered its passengers and crew, and took the stolen vessel to Selangor. The British colonial government responded by burning the town, destroying its forts and confiscating the Seri Rambai. Originally displayed on Penang's Esplanade, the gun was moved in the 1950s to the ramparts at Fort Cornwallis. (Full article...)

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Chuck Berry in 1957
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March 19

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Clara Zetkin

Wyatt Earp (b. 1848) · Albert Speer (b. 1905) · Bun Cook (d. 1988)

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Hermia and Lysander

Hermia and Lysander is a watercolour painting using gouache created in 1870 by the British illustrator John Simmons. Based on events in Act II, Scene II of William Shakespeare's comedy play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, it depicts Hermia and her lover Lysander lost in an enchanted wood and surrounded by fairies. Hermia and Lysander, which measures 89 by 74 centimetres (35 by 29 in), set a record sales price for a Simmons painting in 2012, when it was auctioned for £42,470 by Sotheby's.

Painting: John Simmons

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