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From today's featured article

K. Michelle

"Mindful" is a hip-hop and R&B song by American singer K. Michelle (pictured) from her third studio album More Issues Than Vogue (2016). T-Pain wrote and produced the song. Footage of Michelle recording the song was used in an episode of her reality television series K. Michelle: My Life. "Mindful" was released by Atlantic Records as the album's third single on February 19, 2016. Throughout the track, Michelle raps the lyrics and warns critics to be "mindful" of her. Some reviewers noted that its uptempo production differed from Michelle's previous singles, and she stated that it was one of the first times she recorded a more light-hearted song. Critics praised Michelle's rapping on "Mindful" and called it a highlight of her singles. The song's music video, released on March 10, 2016, portrays Michelle arguing with women in a trailer park, and was described by reviewers as colorful. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Baháʼí House of Worship in Delhi

... that Baháʼí Houses of Worship (example pictured) are nine-sided, with nine gardens and nine pathways, because the number nine is symbolically significant in the Baháʼí Faith?
... that Carl Laubin makes paintings of imaginary cities, each consisting of real buildings from a single architect?
... that the hard sci-fi anime Mighty Space Miners was cancelled after two out of a planned six episodes?
... that Francisco Menéndez's 1885 revolution overthrew a liberal government and installed another liberal government?
... that according to his mother, Hotmangaradja Pandjaitan's decision to join the army was influenced by a lot draw?
... that the 2014 Isla Vista killings led to California enacting a red flag law, allowing family members to petition courts to remove weapons from persons deemed a threat?
... that Ezekiel Hughes, who built a church and designed a road, was also a clockmaker, farmer, and justice of the peace?
... that most individuals with O'Donnell-Luria–Rodan syndrome have a larger than average head size, unless they have a more severe form of the condition in which case it might be smaller than average?
... that the three Bethke brothers separately escaped from East Germany using an air mattress, a zip line and ultralight aircraft?

In the news

Yoon Suk Yeol

Former president of South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol (pictured) is sentenced to life imprisonment for orchestrating a failed insurrection in 2024.
José Jerí 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.

On this day

February 19

Flag of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia

1600 – Huaynaputina, a stratovolcano in present-day Peru, produced the largest recorded volcanic explosion in South America.
1931 – The Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia (flag pictured) was dissolved and reformed as the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union within Georgia.
1942 – A book-burning was held and politicians were arrested in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, as part of a simulated Nazi invasion.
2006 – A methane explosion in a coal mine in Nueva Rosita, Mexico, trapped and killed 65 miners.
2011 – Items from the Belitung shipwreck, the largest single collection of Tang-dynasty artefacts found in one location, were first exhibited in Singapore.

Dorothe Engelbretsdatter (d. 1716)
Mary Dilys Glynne (b. 1895)
György Kurtág (b. 1926)
Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama (b. 1938)

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Today's featured picture

The Stolen Kiss is an oil painting on canvas historically attributed to the French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Painted in the late 1780s in a style characteristic of the French Rococo period, it depicts a passionate kiss between two lovers. The composition is diagonal, made up by an axis composed through the woman's leaning figure, the shawl, and the balcony door opening from the outside, ending with the table over which the shawl is draped. The painting is in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Painting credit: Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Marguerite Gérard

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