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Today's featured article

Aftermath of the Brinks Hotel bombing

The Brinks Hotel bombing occurred in Saigon on December 24, 1964, during the Vietnam War. Two Viet Cong operatives detonated a car bomb under the hotel, which housed United States Army officers. The explosion killed two Americans and injured approximately 60 other people. The Viet Cong commanders had two objectives: to demonstrate their ability to strike in South Vietnam should the United States decide to launch air raids against North Vietnam, and to show the South Vietnamese that the Americans could not be relied upon for protection. The bombing prompted debate within United States president Lyndon B. Johnson's administration. Most of his advisers favored retaliatory bombing of North Vietnam and the introduction of American combat troops, while Johnson preferred the existing strategy of training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam to protect South Vietnam from the Viet Cong. In the end, Johnson decided not to take retaliatory action. (Full article...)

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Today's featured picture

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is an American silent film directed by Stuart Paton and released on December 24, 1916. Based primarily on the 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne, the film also incorporates elements from Verne's 1875 novel The Mysterious Island. This was the first motion picture filmed underwater. Actual underwater cameras were not used, but a system of watertight tubes and mirrors allowed the camera to shoot reflected images of underwater scenes staged in shallow sunlit waters in the Bahamas. For the scene featuring a battle with an octopus, cinematographer John Ernest Williamson devised a viewing chamber called the "photosphere", a 6-by-10-foot (1.8-by-3.0-metre) steel globe in which a cameraman could be placed. The film was made by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company (now Universal Pictures), not then known as a major motion picture studio, and took two years to make, at the cost of $500,000.

Film credit: Stuart Paton

Did you know...

Voltairine de Cleyre

... that Voltairine de Cleyre (pictured), despite losing her ability to move or speak due to illness, refused to accept last rites by scowling at the priest?
... that tourte de blettes, a sweet pie made with Swiss chard, is traditionally eaten in Nice on Christmas Eve?
... that Casanova's friend Edoardo Tiretta built a bazaar in India?
... that Christmas: A Biography states that, despite its Christian origins, Christmas has been mostly secular since its inception in the fourth century?
... that Oh Hee-ok was the last surviving female Korean independence activist?
... that the Christmas carp traditionally swims in a bathtub for a few days before becoming Christmas Eve dinner?
... that Italian anti-Mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri survived three assassination attempts within three weeks?
... that in 2016 two thieves stole $350,000 worth of rare books in Oakland, California, and tried to sell some of them to Moe's Books nearby?
... that energy executive Chris Wright once drank fracking fluid to prove that it was not dangerous?

In the news...

Aftermath of the Magdeburg car attack

A car attack (aftermath pictured) at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, kills five people and injures more than two hundred others.
In France, Dominique Pelicot and 49 other men are convicted of the serial rape of his then-wife Gisèle Pelicot.
A 7.3-magnitude earthquake hits Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, leaving at least sixteen people dead.
Cyclone Chido leaves more than 160 people dead in southeast Africa.

On this day...

December 24

Christmas Island (Kiritimati)

759 – The Tang-dynasty poet Du Fu departed for Chengdu, where he lived for the next five years and composed poems about life in his thatched cottage.
1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island (pictured), the largest coral atoll in the world.
1814 – The United Kingdom and the United States signed a peace treaty in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812.
1987 – About 20,000 protesters marched in a civil rights demonstration in Forsyth County, Georgia, United States.
1999 – Jihadists linked to al-Qaeda hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 to force the release of Islamist figures held in prison in India.

Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik (d. 738)
George Crabbe (b. 1754)
Adam Exner (b. 1928)
Turid Birkeland (d. 2015)

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