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The Dance of the Twisted Bull is the nineteenth collection by British designer Alexander McQueen (pictured), made for the Spring/Summer 2002 season of his fashion house. It was inspired by Spanish culture and art, especially flamenco and bullfighting. Its sharp tailoring emphasises femininity and sexuality. It is McQueen's first collection after leaving Givenchy and the sale of his company to the Gucci Group in 2001. The runway show was staged during Paris Fashion Week in 2001 at the headquarters of Stade Français. It was simple compared to previous shows, and the designs were commercial and intended to drive sales for his first season under Gucci. The collection's sales were reportedly strong. Twisted Bull was received mostly positively, especially by British journalists; American writers were less impressed, particularly with the dressmaking. Dresses from the collection appeared in retrospective exhibitions: in the 2011 and 2015 stagings of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, and in 2022. (Full article...)

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Cover page of Maatamees

... that during the July Days, the Estonian Bolshevik rural newspaper Maatamees (pictured) could continue to appear whilst its urban counterparts were banned?
... that M. Farooqui, who had been expelled from his studies for having organized a strike in 1940, received his Delhi University degree in a special convocation in 1989?
... that the director of House of Ashes included both American and Iraqi protagonists because he felt that movies about conflicts tend to dehumanise people?
... that David Gerard is the author of Attack of the 50-foot Blockchain, a "'no holds barred' attack" on cryptocurrency?
... that the 75/24 Split in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has been one of the worst bottlenecks for trucks in the United States?
... that Harold Ingrams said that Yemeni philanthropist Sayyid Abubakr bin Shaikh Al-Kaff could be an embarrassment for wanting Hadhramaut to be ruled by the British like Singapore?
... that Les Avariés was temporarily banned in England and France for its focus on syphilis?
... that, in her second season in the SDHL, ice hockey defenseman Ebba Berglund scored no points but accrued 20 penalty minutes?

In the news

Jair Bolsonaro

In Brazil, the Superior Electoral Court bars former president Jair Bolsonaro (pictured) from running for political office until 2030 for abuse of power before the 2022 general election.
Riots break out across France after a 17-year-old is fatally shot by police in Paris.
In Russia, the Wagner mercenary group stands down after rebelling against the government.
In China, an explosion at a restaurant in Yinchuan kills 31 people.

On this day

July 12

Saint Basil's Cathedral

1561 – Saint Basil's Cathedral (pictured), located in Red Square, Moscow, was consecrated.
1918 – An explosion in the ammunition magazine of the Japanese battleship Kawachi resulted in the deaths of more than 600 officers and crewmen.
1963 – Sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade, the first victim of serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, disappeared in Gorton, England.
1979 – Rowdy fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago stormed the field during a Major League Baseball promotional event at which a crate of disco records was blown up.
2006 – Hezbollah forces crossed the Israel–Lebanon border and attacked Israeli military positions while firing rockets and mortars at Israeli towns, sparking a five-week war.

Bertrada of Laon (d. 783)
John Komnenos (d. 1067)
Malala Yousafzai (b. 1997)
Mau Piailug (d. 2010)

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Today's featured picture

The atmosphere of Mars is a layer of gases surrounding Mars, which is composed primarily of carbon dioxide (95%), along with molecular nitrogen (2.8%), and argon (2%) and trace levels of other compounds. The Martian atmosphere is much thinner than Earth's, its average surface pressure of 610 pascals (0.088 psi) being less than 1% of the Earth's value. This prohibits the existence of liquid water on the surface of Mars, but many studies suggest that the Martian atmosphere was much thicker in the past. The effective temperature at the surface is around 210 K (−63 °C; −82 °F), and it has a large daily temperature range due to the low thermal inertia; in some regions it can vary from −75 °C (−103 °F) to near 0 °C (32 °F). Dust devils and dust storms are prevalent on Mars, which are sometimes observable by telescopes from Earth, and can threaten the operation of Mars rovers. Planet-encircling dust storms occur on average every 5.5 Earth years (3 Martian years), but the mechanism responsible for these storms is not well understood. This small dust devil was captured by NASA's Curiosity rover in 2020.

Animation credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Studies Institute

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