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The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia resulted in the deportation, dispossession, and murder of most of the pre–World War II population of Jews in the Czech lands that were annexed by Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945. From the pre-war population of 118,310 some 30,000 Jews managed to emigrate. Most of the remaining Jews were deported to other Nazi-controlled territories, starting in October 1939 as part of the Nisko Plan. In October 1941, mass deportations of Protectorate Jews began. Beginning in November 1941, the transports departed for Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Protectorate which was a stopping-point before deportation to other ghettos, extermination camps, and other killing sites. About 80,000 Jews from Bohemia and Moravia were murdered in the Holocaust. After the war, many Jews faced obstacles in regaining their property and pressure to assimilate into the Czech majority. Most Jews emigrated; a few were deported as part of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Pair of Brachyrhaphis roseni fish

... that Brachyrhaphis roseni (examples pictured) and B. rhabdophora are difficult to breed because they voraciously eat their own young?
... that Mirza Muhammad Amin Shahristani served in the royal courts of the Golconda Sultanate, Safavid Iran, and the Mughal Empire?
... that one writer criticized the College Football Playoff system before its first edition had even begun?
... that the Nicaraguan nun Dorotea Wilson joined a guerrilla group, renounced her vows, and became a women's rights activist and politician?
... that a U.S. government official ordered that "It Was on a Friday Morning" be removed from a hymnal within 24 hours?
... that after the failure of the Tiepolo conspiracy of 1310, the houses of the chief conspirators were torn down, and their families were forced to change their coats of arms?
... that Coscinodon lawianus is one of only two species of moss only found in continental Antarctica?
... that LGBTQ activist Alexey Davydov became the first person to be charged with violating Russia's 2013 anti-gay law after he displayed a sign that read "being gay is normal" at a children's library?
... that stars have been depicted in fiction since the 1600s as locations that can be visited?

In the news

Gloria Romero

Filipino actress Gloria Romero (pictured) dies at the age of 91.
A fire at a ski resort hotel in Kartalkaya, Turkey, leaves at least 78 people dead and 51 others injured.
A series of attacks by the National Liberation Army in the Catatumbo region of Colombia leaves more than 80 people dead.
A ceasefire agreement suspends the Israel–Hamas war, involving the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

On this day

January 27

Map of Indian Territory

945 – The brothers Stephen and Constantine Lekapenos, having deposed their father as Byzantine emperor a few weeks earlier, were themselves overthrown by Constantine VII, their co-emperor.
1825 – On the advice of John C. Calhoun, President James Monroe asked Congress to organize Indian Territory (map pictured) west of the Mississippi River, laying the groundwork for Indian removal in the United States.
1869 – Former members of the overthrown Tokugawa shogunate proclaimed Japan's second-largest island, Hokkaido, to be the independent Republic of Ezo.
1945 – The Soviet Red Army liberated about 7,000 prisoners left behind by the Nazis in Auschwitz concentration camp.
2010 – Porfirio Lobo Sosa became the new president of Honduras, ending a constitutional crisis that had begun in 2009 when Manuel Zelaya was forcibly removed from office.

Angela Merici (d. 1540)
John Perkins (d. 1812)
Perfecto Yasay Jr. (b. 1947)
Zelda Rubinstein (d. 2010)

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From today's featured list

Pilosa species of different families

There are ten extant pilosans, species in the order Pilosa, which consists of placental mammals. They include anteaters and sloths and are found in South and Central America, generally in forests, though some species are found in shrublands, grasslands, and savannas. Pilosans primarily eat insects and leaves. The ten extant species of Pilosa are divided into two suborders: Folivora, the sloths; and Vermilingua, the anteaters. Folivora contains two families: Bradypodidae, containing four species in one genus; and Choloepodidae, containing two species in one genus. Vermilingua also contains two families: Cyclopedidae, containing a single species, and Myrmecophagidae, containing three species in two genera. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Paris Peace Accords, officially the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam, was a peace agreement signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The agreement was signed by the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the United States, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (representing South Vietnamese communists). The Paris Peace Accords removed the remaining United States forces, and fighting between the three remaining powers temporarily stopped. The agreement's provisions were immediately and frequently broken by both North and South Vietnamese forces with no official response from the United States. Open fighting broke out in March 1973, and North Vietnamese offensives enlarged their territory by the end of the year. The war continued until the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces in 1975. This photograph shows William P. Rogers, United States Secretary of State, signing the accords in Paris.

Photograph credit: Robert Knudsen; restored by Yann Forget

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