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Shigi Qutuqu (c. 1178 – 1260) was a high-ranking official during the early decades of the Mongol Empire. The adopted son of the empire's founder Temüjin (later titled Genghis Khan) and his wife Börte, Shigi Qutuqu played an important role in the codification of Mongol law, serving with distinction as an administrator in northern China. He was brought up in Temüjin's household and was one of the first Mongols to become literate. The Secret History exaggerates Shigi Qutuqu's role in the years after the empire's foundation, but he was nevertheless appointed to several high-ranking legal positions, in which he served during the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty. He was the commander during the only Mongol defeat in the western campaign against Khwarazmia, being overcome by Jalal al-Din at the 1221 Battle of Parwan. Shigi Qutuqu continued his career as an official during the reign of his adopted brother Ögedei Khan, Genghis's successor. (Full article...)

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Holly Waddington

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In the news

José Jerí

José Jerí (pictured) is removed as the president of Peru by Congress, and replaced by José María Balcázar.
American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson dies at the age of 84.
The Nationalist Party, led by Tarique Rahman, wins the Bangladeshi general election.
In the Barbadian general election, the Labour Party wins a third term and every seat in the House of Assembly.

On this day

February 21

Lucy Hobbs Taylor

1828 – The inaugural issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper in a Native American language, was published.
1866 – Lucy Hobbs Taylor (pictured) became the first woman to receive a doctorate from a dental college.
1919 – Bavarian socialist Kurt Eisner, who had organized the German Revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy and established Bavaria as a republic, was assassinated.
1929 – Nanjing decade: In the first battle of the Warlord Rebellion in northeastern Shandong against the Nationalist government of China, a 24,000-strong rebel force led by Zhang Zongchang was defeated at Zhifu by 7,000 NRA troops.
1973 – After accidentally straying into the airspace of the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two Israeli fighter aircraft, killing 108 of the 113 people on board.

Goscombe John (b. 1860)
Rhonda Sing (b. 1961)
Helen Hooven Santmyer (d. 1986)
Margot Fonteyn (d. 1991)

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Today's featured picture

The masked trogon (Trogon personatus) is a species of bird in the family Trogonidae, the trogons. Fairly common in humid highland forests in South America, mainly in the Andes and on tepuis, it is resident in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Venezuela. It is a mid-sized trogon, averaging 27 centimetres (11 in) in length and 56 grams (2.0 oz) in mass. Like all members of its family, it displays sexual dimorphism. The male has upperparts, head and upper chest of variously green or reddish-bronze colouring, with a red belly and lower breast, while the female is brown above, with a pinkish to red belly and breast. Like all trogons, it feeds on both fruits and insects. It makes its nest by excavating into the soft wood of a rotting vertical tree trunk. This masked trogon of the subspecies T. p. temperatus (the highland trogon) was photographed at San Isidro Lodge near Cosanga in Napo Province, Ecuador.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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