From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From today's featured article
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The Roman and Han empires saw an exchange of trade goods, information, and occasional travelers, as did the later Eastern Roman Empire and various Chinese dynasties. These empires inched progressively closer in the course of the Roman expansion into the ancient Near East and simultaneous Han Chinese military incursions into Central Asia. Mutual awareness remained low and firm knowledge about each other was limited. Only a few attempts at direct contact are known from records. Several alleged Roman emissaries to China were recorded by ancient Chinese historians. The indirect exchange of goods along the Silk Road and sea routes included Chinese silk, Roman glassware (example pictured) and high-quality cloth. Roman coins minted since the 1st century AD have been found in China. A coin of Maximian and medallions from the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were found in Vietnam. Roman glasswares and silverwares have been discovered at Chinese archaeological sites dated to the Han period. Roman coins and glass beads have also been found in Japan. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
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- ... that Jadwiga Szubartowicz (pictured aged 110), the oldest living Pole, witnessed the October Revolution?
- ... that in 1957 no fewer than 13 variations of the NWA World Tag Team Championship were in use across the U.S.: in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kansas/Missouri, Chicago, Ohio/New York, Georgia, Iowa/Nebraska, Indianapolis, Idaho/Utah, West Texas, East Texas, Minneapolis, and Alabama/Tennessee?
- ... that voice actress and singer Machico made a cameo as herself in the anime television series Seiyu's Life!?
- ... that in 1894, a flash flood trapped seven cave explorers in the Lurgrotte karst cave of Austria for ten days?
- ... that for failing to collect their quotas of Congo rubber, many people lost their hands?
- ... that Michael I of Wallachia was still the co-ruler with his father Mircea I when in 1417 he refused to send the tribute that Mircea had promised to pay to the Ottoman Empire?
- ... that the feathers of birds are considered the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates, and a premier example of a complex evolutionary novelty?
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In the news
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![Sergio García in 2008](http://178.128.105.246/cars-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/SergioGarciaTPCChampion2008_2_%28cropped%29.jpg/100px-SergioGarciaTPCChampion2008_2_%28cropped%29.jpg) Sergio García
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On this day...
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Today's featured picture
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Allie Mae Burroughs, Wife of a Cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama, a 1936 photograph taken by Walker Evans during his work for the Farm Security Administration. Much of Evans's work documenting the effects of the Great Depression, including this photograph, used a large-format, 8x10-inch camera. Evans described his goal as making pictures that are "literate, authoritative, transcendent".
Photograph: Walker Evans
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