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Lord Mountbatten

On 27 August 1979 Lord Mountbatten was assassinated off the coast of Mullaghmore, Ireland. A bomb was planted on Mountbatten's boat by Thomas McMahon during Mountbatten's annual summer trip to Classiebawn Castle. McMahon was an Irish republican and volunteered for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), which planned the attack for several months. A bomb team built a device that contained fifty pounds (23 kg) of gelignite. The bomb killed Mountbatten along with his grandson Nicholas, Nicholas's grandmother Doreen, and crew member Paul Maxwell. Three other passengers were severely injured. McMahon was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the assassination. The event caused Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, to change the United Kingdom's strategy towards Northern Ireland, including implementing a more active role for intelligence agencies. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Interior of an Em train car

... that a new type of train car (interior pictured) had to be designed for the Leningrad Metro's platform screen doors?
... that Hilda Dajč volunteered to enter a Nazi concentration camp as a nurse, against her family's wishes?
... that The Angry Birds Movie was written by a former writer for The Simpsons?
... that American colonial pastor Matthew Wilson answered criticism that he was too engaged in politics by writing "Liberty" on his hat and naming his son "James Patriot"?
... that Reaching Out has been described as "decidedly ordinary" while also reframing "the ordinary as extraordinary"?
... that Esmeralda Agoglia revived a ballet based on her own memories of performing it more than forty years earlier?
... that the Brazilian online newspaper Migalhas published a book by Supreme Court justice Luís Roberto Barroso under its own publishing house?
... that Haredi rabbi David Leibel has sparked fierce debate by urging ultra-Orthodox men to serve in the military and enter the high-tech workforce while maintaining traditional religious practices?
... that William Shakespeare, the "Merchant of Menace", threw the game-winning pass for the 1935 Notre Dame football team in the "Game of the Century"?

In the news

Dolly Parton in 1977

At least 335 people are killed and over a thousand are missing after flash flooding in the Rasuwa and Nuwakot Districts of Nepal and along the China–Nepal border.
American singer-songwriter and actress Dolly Parton (pictured) dies at the age of 80.
The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria ends its autonomous rule following its full integration into Syria.
President Hakainde Hichilema wins the Zambian general election for a second consecutive term.

On this day

August 27: Ghost Festival in China (2026); Independence Day in Moldova

Wreckage of Comair Flight 5191

1656 – The Netherlands and the Ahanta people signed the Treaty of Butre, creating a Dutch protectorate over the country of Upper Ahanta in modern-day Ghana.
1859 – Edwin Drake successfully drilled for oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, resulting in the Pennsylvania oil rush, the first oil boom in the United States.
1896 – In the shortest recorded war in history, the Sultanate of Zanzibar surrendered to the United Kingdom after less than an hour of conflict.
2006 – Comair Flight 5191 crashed (wreckage pictured) while inadvertently attempting to take off from the wrong runway at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49 of the 50 people on board, and causing the Federal Aviation Administration to modify air traffic control rules.
2013 – Religious violence between Hindus and Muslims erupted in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, India, leaving 62 people dead.

Josquin des Prez (d. 1521)
Giorgio Mitrovich (b. 1795)
Rebecca Clarke (b. 1886)
Zhang Zifeng (b. 2001)

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Today's featured picture

Pedro II (1825–1891) was the second and final emperor of Brazil, reigning from 1831 until his deposition in a military coup in 1889. He became emperor aged five after the abdication of his father, Pedro I, and was declared of age in 1840. His reign saw political stability, greater freedom of speech, economic growth and victories in the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the Paraguayan War. Pedro supported the abolition of slavery in Brazil, and promoted education, science and culture. After being overthrown, he was sent into exile in Europe, where he lived modestly. He died in Paris in 1891, and his remains were returned to Brazil in 1921. This photograph of Pedro was taken in 1891, the year of his death, by the French photographer Nadar.

Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Adam Cuerden

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