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From today's featured article

Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Parinda (Bird) is an Indian crime drama film produced and directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra (pictured), and released on 3 November 1989. In the film, Kishan (Jackie Shroff), who works for the underworld don Anna Seth (Nana Patekar), faces off against his brother Karan (Anil Kapoor) in gang warfare after Karan decides to avenge his friend's death. The script was co-written by Chopra, Shiv Kumar Subramaniam and Imtiyaz Husain. R. D. Burman composed the music and Khurshid Hallauri wrote the lyrics. Parinda received critical acclaim when released, and is considered by several critics and scholars to be the turning point in the introduction of realism in Hindi cinema. It won two National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards, and was India's official selection for the 1990 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, although it was not nominated. In 2015, Chopra remade Parinda as a Hollywood film titled Broken Horses starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Anton Yelchin and Chris Marquette. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Brants's whistling rat

... that Brants's whistling rat (illustration shown) seldom ventures more than 30 cm (12 in) from one of the many entrances to its burrow?
... that Khema, one of the Buddha's chief female disciples, attained enlightenment before even becoming a nun?
... that North Carolina radio station WVSP began operations from a former doctor's office?
... that Hungarian pianists Márta Kurtág and her husband performed together for 60 years, often from his collection entitled Játékok ('Games')?
... that Brazil was the only country with an exhibit at the 1918 Bronx "World's Fair"?
... that Rabbi Shimon Baadani, a senior leader of Israel's Shas party, once said that those who did not vote for the party would go to hell?
... that the Sierra de Ajusco-Chichinauhtzin mountain range in Mexico is made up of more than one hundred volcanic cones?
... that Ernest Graves Jr. was one of four generations of his family to go to West Point, all of whom graduated first or second in their class?

In the news

Stephen Strasburg

A fire on a passenger train near Liaquatpur, Pakistan, kills at least 75 people.
In baseball, the Washington Nationals defeat the Houston Astros to win the World Series (MVP Stephen Strasburg pictured).
In motor racing, Estonians Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja win the World Rally Championship.
At least 67 people are killed in protests and inter-ethnic clashes in Ethiopia's Oromia Region and surrounding areas.

On this day

November 3: Culture Day in Japan

George II of Greece

1534 – The English parliament passed the first Act of Supremacy, making King Henry VIII head of the Church of England, supplanting the pope and the Catholic Church.
1898 – After several months of military stalemate between French and British forces in Fashoda (now in South Sudan), the French withdrew, ending the Fashoda Incident.
1935 – Almost 98 percent of reported votes in a Greek referendum supported the restoration of George II (pictured) as King of the Hellenes.
1956 – Suez Crisis: During an invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers shot dead hundreds of Palestinian refugees and local inhabitants in Khan Yunis.
1969 – U.S. president Richard Nixon made a plea for support from the "silent majority", referring to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time.

Carlo Fornasini (b. 1854) · Olav Aukrust (d. 1929) · Anna Wintour (b. 1949)

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Today's featured picture

Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. The term ukiyo-e translates as 'picture[s] of the floating world'.

This picture is a colour woodblock print (chūban) entitled Two Lovers Beneath an Umbrella in the Snow, produced by ukiyo-e artist Suzuki Harunobu around 1767 and now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. His delicate, romantic prints were amongst the first to realize expressive and complex colour designs, printed with up to a dozen separate blocks to handle the different colours and half-tones. His restrained, graceful prints invoked the classicism of waka poetry and Yamato-e painting. The prolific Harunobu was the dominant ukiyo-e artist of his time. The success of his colourful nishiki-e from 1765 on led to a steep decline in demand for the limited palettes of benizuri-e and urushi-e, as well as hand-coloured prints.

Print credit: Suzuki Harunobu

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