From today's featured article
al-Muti' was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 946 to 974, ruling under the tutelage of the Buyid emirs. Al-Muti's reign represented the nadir of the Abbasid Caliphate's power and authority. In previous decades, the secular authority of the caliphs had shrunk to Iraq, and even there had been curtailed by powerful warlords; with the Buyid conquest of Baghdad, it was now abolished entirely. Al-Muti' was raised to the throne by the Buyids and was effectively reduced to a rubber-stamp figurehead, albeit with some vestiges of authority over judicial and religious appointments in Iraq. The very fact of his subordination and powerlessness helped restore some stability to the caliphal institution: in stark contrast to his short-lived and violently deposed predecessors, al-Muti' enjoyed a long and relatively unchallenged tenure, and was able to hand over the throne to his son al-Ta'i'. Al-Muti's prestige as the nominal leader of the Muslim world sharply declined during his tenure. ( Full article... )
Did you know ...
- ... that the face of the goddess Hera in The Birth of the Milky Way (pictured) was modelled after Peter Paul Rubens's wife?
- ... that cameras of the Canon EOS series were used to film portions of House , Dexter , and Iron Man 2 ?
- ... that Laurence J. Lesh worked on the aerodynamics of horse-drawn gliders, sailboats, and throwing knives?
- ... that a volcano in Ethiopia had its first recorded explosive eruption in 2025?
- ... that the buttocks of the fictional character Elastigirl inspired various memes, GIFs, and YouTube videos in 2018?
- ... that a young Donald Trump was sent to military school after his father found that he had been purchasing smoke bombs and switchblades in Manhattan?
- ... that Taylor Swift wrote a song about Elizabeth Taylor after learning that the late actress's son compared the two of them?
- ... that political strategist Morris Katz stated that any Democrat "who's scared to congratulate" Zohran Mamdani "is very unlikely to be the nominee for president in 2028"?
- ... that the painting The Death of Khan Jahan Lodi features six severed heads, and another in the midst of decapitation?
In the news
- French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot (pictured) dies at the age of 91.
- Thirteen people are killed when a train derails in Oaxaca, Mexico.
- Israel becomes the first country to officially recognise Somaliland as an independent state.
- Nasry Asfura is elected president of Honduras, after one month of controversy surrounding the vote counting process.
- A jet crash near Ankara, Turkey, kills all eight people on board, including Libyan Army chief of staff Mohammed al-Haddad.
On this day
January 1 : Independence Day in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (1993); Public Domain Day ; Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Roman Rite Catholicism)
- 1726 – J. S. Bach led the first performance of Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16 , his church cantata for New Year's Day to a libretto by Georg Christian Lehms (pictured).
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The town of Norfolk, Virginia, was burned and destroyed by the combined actions of British and Whig forces.
- 1785 – The Times began publication in London as The Daily Universal Register.
- 1926 – Ireland's first broadcaster, 2RN , began broadcasting.
- 2011 – A suicide bombing took place outside a Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria, Egypt, following a New Year service, killing 23 people.
- Wilhelm Canaris (b. 1887)
- Maria Frisé (b. 1926)
- Eiichiro Oda (b. 1975)
- Shou Zi Chew (b. 1983)
Today's featured picture
 |
The World Clock , located in Alexanderplatz in Berlin, Germany, is a large world clock displaying the local time in 148 locations across the world. It consists of a 24-sided column, each side of which represents a time zone on Earth and is engraved with the names of various cities. A row of numbers, from 1 to 24, revolve around the outside of the clock during the day, indicating the local time in each time zone. Once per minute, an artistic sculptural rendering of the Solar System made of steel rings and spheres rotates above the clock. Including the sculpture, the World Clock is 10 metres (33 feet) high. It was erected in 1969 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the German Democratic Republic in 1969, and was designed by Erich John, a lecturer at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. In July 2015, the German federal government declared the clock to be a historically and culturally significant monument. This long-exposure photograph shows the World Clock at night. Photograph credit: Diego Delso Recently featured: |