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These featured pictures, as scheduled below, appeared as the picture of the day (POTD) on the English Wikipedia's Main Page in October 2020. Individual sections for each day on this page can be linked to with the day number as the anchor name (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Picture of the day/October 2020#1]] for October 1).
You can add an automatically updating POTD template to your user page using {{Pic of the day}} (version with blurb) or {{POTD}} (version without blurb). For instructions on how to make custom POTD layouts, see Wikipedia:Picture of the day.Purge server cache
October 1
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The white-necked laughingthrush (Garrulax strepitans) is a species of passerine bird in the family Leiothrichidae, native to Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and the Chinese province of Yunnan. It is about 32 cm (13 in) long and has a chestnut-coloured crown, a brownish-black face and throat, and a rather diffuse white collar separating these from the body. Typically birds of forest and woodland, laughingthrushes are difficult to observe in the dense vegetation they prefer. They are noisy birds, and their characteristic laughing calls are often the best indication that these birds are present. This white-necked laughingthrush was photographed in Mae Wong National Park, in Thailand's Nakhon Sawan Province. Photograph credit: John Harrison
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October 2
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Lake Palčje is an intermittent lake in a karst basin in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia, north of the settlement of Palčje. It is the largest among the seasonal lakes of Pivka, with an average maximum water area of around 1 km2 (0.39 sq mi). The lake bed is at groundwater level, so the amount of water depends on current hydrological conditions. Usually, the lake fills after the heavy rains in late autumn and again in spring, with water present for around three months every year. This photograph shows Lake Palčje filled in early winter. See also: Lake Palčje drained in autumn Photograph credit: Jernej Polajnar
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Lake Palčje is an intermittent lake in a karst basin in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia, north of the settlement of Palčje. It is the largest among the seasonal lakes of Pivka, with an average maximum water area of around 1 km2 (0.39 sq mi). The lake bed is at groundwater level, so the amount of water depends on current hydrological conditions. Usually, the lake fills after the heavy rains in late autumn and again in spring, with water present for around three months every year. This photograph shows Lake Palčje drained in autumn. See also: Lake Palčje filled in early winter Photograph credit: Jernej Polajnar
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October 3
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Frederick Douglass (c. 1818 – 1895) was an escaped slave who became an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was separated from his mother as an infant, raised by his grandmother till the age of six, and was then owned and hired by a succession of masters. Escaping by railroad in 1838, he settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, then an abolitionist center full of former slaves. He became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. This photograph of Douglass was taken around 1879. Photograph credit: George Kendall Warren
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October 4
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Steamboat Bill, Jr. is a 1928 silent comedy film starring Buster Keaton and co-directed by Charles Reisner. The film found humour from the relationship between a husky riverboat captain and his gawky, college-student son, who meet for the first time. Keaton performed his own stunts, and the film is known for the most famous of them all: the facade of an entire house falls on top of him while he stands in the perfect spot to survive unscathed as the frame of an open attic window lands around him. The film inspired the title of Walt Disney's cartoon Steamboat Willie, which was released six months later. Film credit: Charles Reisner and Buster Keaton
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October 5
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The Tortoise Trainer is an oil-on-canvas painting created by the Turkish artist Osman Hamdi Bey between 1906 and 1907. It depicts a dervish contemplating several tortoises roaming the floor of an upper-storey room in what may be the Green Mosque in Bursa. He wears a skullcap wrapped round with a sash, and a long, red robe with embroidered border. In his left hand he holds a ney and on his back hangs a small kettledrum; he is attempting to train the animals with these musical instruments rather than by the use of force. In the painting, Hamdi satirises the slow and ineffective attempts at reform in the Ottoman Empire. The work is now located in the Pera Museum in Istanbul. Painting credit: Osman Hamdi Bey
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October 6
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An aerospike engine is a type of rocket engine that maintains its aerodynamic efficiency across a wide range of altitudes. A rocket engine directs a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid in one direction, generating thrust in the opposite direction. An aerospike engine differs from a conventional one in that, instead of firing the gases out of a small hole in the middle of a bell-shaped nozzle extension, it fires them along the outside edge of a wedge-shaped protrusion, the "spike". This 2001 photograph shows a Rocketdyne XRS-2200 linear aerospike engine for the Lockheed Martin X-33 program being tested at the Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi. Photograph credit: NASA; retouched by Papa Lima Whiskey
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October 7
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La Schiavona ('the woman from Dalmatia') is a 1510–1512 oil-on-canvas portrait of an unknown woman. At first attributed to Giorgione, it is now accepted as a work by the young Titian, as attested by the "T. V." (Tiziano Vecellio) inscribed on the parapet. The subject was probably a member of the nobility of the Republic of Venice. The raised portion of the parapet, with its cameo-like relief, was probably added in a later revision of the painting, the woman's drapes still being visible through subsequent layers of paint. The painting is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London. Painting credit: Titian
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October 8
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Eucalyptus is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Its foliage is relatively immune to attack by plant-eating animals because of the toxins found in the essential oil present in the leaves. Different species of Eucalyptus contain a range of differing compounds; koalas, possums and other marsupial herbivores make food choices based on the smell of the leaves. This photograph shows sawfly larvae from the family Pergidae feeding on Eucalyptus leaves in the Bogong High Plains in Victoria, Australia. The larvae are naturally gregarious, and some species can cause serious damage to Eucalyptus by defoliation. Photograph credit: Fir0002
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October 9
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Pierre Gaveaux (9 October 1761 – 5 February 1825) was a French operatic tenor and composer. He is notable for creating the role of Jason in Cherubini's Médée and for composing Léonore; ou, L'amour conjugal, the first operatic version of the story that later found fame as Beethoven's Fidelio. Early in his career, he was a conductor at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, but later moved to Paris, taking on various operatic roles and composing several operas that were performed throughout Europe. During the French Revolution, he composed a hymn to the Supreme Being. This illustration of Gaveaux by Edmé Quenedey was produced through the use of a physiognotrace, an instrument designed to trace a person's physiognomy and make semi-automated portrait aquatints. Illustration credit: Edmé Quenedey des Ricets; restored by Adam Cuerden
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October 10
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Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, and the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. He had a unique improvisational style and famously remarked, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes". He made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", and a wide range of other compositions. He was renowned for a distinctive dress style, which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a few appearances during the final decade of his life. This 1947 photograph of Monk was taken by the American photographer William P. Gottlieb in Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club in New York. Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden
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October 11
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Agrius convolvuli, the convolvulus hawk-moth, is a common moth found in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia, in the family Sphingidae. The larvae feed on the leaves of convolvulus and a range of other plants, and can be a pest of cultivated sweet potato. Mostly active around dusk, the adult moth can use its proboscis, which is longer than its body, to sip nectar from flowers while hovering nearby, transferring pollen between blooms. This A. convolvuli moth, seen here feeding with its proboscis extended, was photographed in Rila Monastery Nature Park in Bulgaria. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
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October 12
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Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas entitled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the Ring cycle. The work's title originates from Norse mythology and refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world. This painting is an 1894 reproduction of the final scene from Götterdämmerung, showing Valhalla in flames, by Max Brückner, one of the original set designers for the opera. Painting credit: Max Brückner; restored by Adam Cuerden
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October 13
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Joséphine Fodor (13 October 1789 or in 1793 – 10 August 1870) was a French lyrical artist (soprano) with Hungarian and Dutch ancestors. Her family moved to Saint Petersburg when she was an infant, probably because of the French Revolution. After marrying in 1812, Fodor and her husband moved back to France when Saint Petersburg came under attack during the French invasion of Russia. She performed roles for the Opéra-Comique in Paris, later being engaged by the Comédie-Italienne, and also appeared in London, Venice, Naples and Vienna. Experiencing problems with her voice, she gradually ended her operatic career and withdrew from the stage. This lithograph depicts her in 1815. Lithograph credit: Jean-Baptiste Singry; restored by Adam Cuerden
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October 14
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Jessie Bonstelle (November 1871 – October 14, 1932) was an American theater director, actress, and drama company manager. She started performing at a young age and went on to become a famous leading lady on Broadway. She later became a director, managing many stock companies, directing Broadway productions and training many young performers who went on to successful careers. From 1906 she managed stock companies at the Star Theater in Buffalo, and from 1910 also at Detroit's Garrick Theater, moving weekly between the two cities. Later, she founded the Bonstelle Playhouse in Detroit, which opened in 1925 and was one of America's first civic theaters. Photograph credit: Bain News Service; restored by CAPTAIN MEDUSA
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October 15
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Wheat fields were a fascination of Vincent van Gogh, and this 1889 work, Landscape from Saint-Rémy, is one of many oil-on-canvas paintings that included them. From his studio room at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, southern France, Van Gogh worked on a group of paintings of the view from his window. During his stay, he made about twelve paintings showing the enclosed wheat field and the distant mountains in varying aspects. In this series, he expresses through symbolism and use of colour his deeply felt spiritual beliefs, appreciation of manual labourers and connection to nature. This painting is now part of the collection of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark. Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh
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October 16
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Notre-Dame Basilica is a Catholic basilica in the historic district of Old Montreal, in Montreal, the most populous city in Quebec, Canada. The main construction work took place between 1824 and 1829; the sanctuary was finished in 1830, the first tower in 1841, and the second in 1843. The Irish-American architect James O'Donnell designed the towers to be traditionally Gothic, and intended them to be visible from any point in the city. On its completion, the church was the largest in North America, and remained so for over fifty years. The interior of the church, shown here, is amongst the most dramatic in the world and regarded as a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture. The vaults are coloured deep blue and decorated with golden stars, and the rest of the sanctuary is decorated in blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold. It is filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. Photograph credit: David Iliff
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October 17
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This picture is an engraved vignette of the American artist John Trumbull's 1821 oil-on-canvas painting Surrender of General Burgoyne, depicting the surrender of British troops under John Burgoyne on October 17, 1777, at the end of the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The work is one of eight historical paintings that hang in the rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The American victory at Saratoga had dramatic consequences on the war. Although some foreign states, notably France, had been supporting the American cause in the form of financial and material provisions, the French wished for no further involvement until the capture of a British army at Saratoga by American forces made them reconsider their level of commitment. This line engraving was produced for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) for use on United States banknotes. Engraving credit: Frederick Girsch, Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva
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October 18
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Trichoglottis atropurpurea, the dark purple trichoglottis, is a species of orchid endemic to the Philippines. Orchids have developed highly specialized pollination systems to achieve cross-fertilisation, insects often being visually attracted by the shape and colours of the lip, which guides them to the centre of the flower for their reward. The lip is actually the upper medial petal, but as the flower develops, its pedicel rotates through 180 degrees. This photograph of T. atropurpurea was taken at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City. The fleshy whitish structures visible on the left and behind are aerial roots that are able to collect nutrients from the surroundings. Photograph credit: Rhododendrites
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October 19
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Tsjuder is a Norwegian black-metal band founded in 1993. The band's membership has varied over time; it split up in 2006 and reformed in 2010. The lyrics are written prior to the music, and are based on topics such as darkness, death, evil, hatred, demons, antireligious themes, Satanism, horror films, and the fictional book Necronomicon. The music is mainly written by the founding members, Nag and Draugluin. This photograph shows Nag, whose real name is Jan-Erik Romøren, in performance at the 2013 Party.San Metal Open Air music festival in Schlotheim, Germany. Photograph credit: Jonas Rogowski
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October 20
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101955 Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project in 1999. Bennu has a roughly spheroidal shape, an effective diameter of about 484 m (1,588 ft), and a rough, boulder-strewn surface. It is a potentially hazardous object, with a cumulative 1-in-2,700 chance of impacting Earth between 2175 and 2199. It is named after the Bennu, an ancient Egyptian bird deity associated with the Sun, creation, and rebirth. This mosaic image of Bennu consists of twelve PolyCam images taken by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from a range of 24 km (15 mi). The primary goal of the mission is to collect a sample from the asteroid's surface, which is scheduled to take place on October 20, 2020, and return the sample to Earth for analysis. Photograph credit: NASA / OSIRIS-REx
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October 21
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Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1869–1956) was an American photographer of architecture, landscape, and design. In 1901, she met Frances Benjamin Johnston, already an established photographer, and started a correspondence with her; she moved to New York to work and live with Johnston in 1909. They established a firm called the Johnston–Hewitt Studio in New York City, with Johnston working as the photographer while Hewitt was the darkroom assistant. Their partnership broke up in 1917, after which Hewitt set up a commercial photography studio of her own, taking pictures for designers and architects, and recording interior and exterior views of homes, commercial premises, and gardens, primarily on the East Coast. This photograph of Hewitt was taken by Johnston. Photograph credit: Frances Benjamin Johnston; restored by Adam Cuerden
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October 22
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Venus and Adonis is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian artist Paolo Veronese, created in the early 1580s. The work illustrates a scene from the Metamorphoses, a narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid. It portrays Venus, the goddess of love, with Adonis sleeping on her lap. She has foretold that her lover will be killed during a hunt, and she is looking down at her son Cupid, who is restraining a sighthound in a vain endeavour to prevent Adonis from hunting and thus precipitating his death. The painting is now in the collection of the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Painting credit: Paolo Veronese
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October 23
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The écu was a gold and silver coinage system introduced in France in 1266 by Louis IX, so called because the coins featured the French coat of arms. The silver coin proved popular but the gold did not, because of the unrealistic ratio of 1:10 used, which did not properly reflect the metals' exchange rate. The écu remained in use for 500 years. Depicted here are two écu coins, the first made of gold and minted in 1641, in the reign of Louis XIII, and the second made of silver and minted in 1784, in the reign of Louis XVI. Between these two dates, exchange rates were unstable, new coins were issued, and existing ones revalued periodically. Coin design credit: Kingdom of France; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
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October 24
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This picture is an illustration by Édouard Manet for a French publication of Edgar Allan Poe's narrative poem "The Raven". In the poem, a raven flies into the narrator's home through the window and perches on a bust of Pallas Athena. The narrator asks the bird a series of questions, to which the bird's only reply is "Nevermore". Eventually, the narrator falls into despair and ends with his final admission that his soul is trapped beneath the raven's shadow and shall be lifted "nevermore". Originally published in 1845, the poem was widely popular and made Poe famous, although it did not bring him much financial success. "The Raven" has influenced many modern works and is referenced throughout popular culture in films, television, music, and more. Illustration credit: Édouard Manet; restored by Lise Broer
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October 25
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Johann Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899) was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. Part of the Strauss dynasty, his father demanded that none of his sons pursue music as a career, despite their display of musical talent. It was only after his father had abandoned the family for a mistress that the younger Strauss was able to develop his skills as a composer, with the encouragement of his mother. He eventually attained greater fame than his father, and became one of the most popular waltz composers of the era, conducting extensive tours of Austria, Poland and Germany with his orchestra. Photograph credit: Fritz Luckhardt; restored by Adam Cuerden
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October 26
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Naqsh-e Rostam is an ancient Persian necropolis located about 12 km (7.5 mi) northwest of Persepolis in Iran. The site includes rock reliefs from the Achaemenid and Sassanid periods, and four tombs of Achaemenid kings. The oldest relief, dating from around 1000 BC, is thought to be Elamite in origin. The tombs carved into the rock, as seen from left to right in this panoramic photograph, are thought to belong to Darius II (423–404 BC), Artaxerxes I (465–424 BC), Darius I (522–486 BC), and Xerxes I (486–465 BC), respectively. An inscription on the facade of Darius I's tomb mentions his conquests and achievements. In the far left of the image is the Cube of Zoroaster, belonging to the Achaemenid era (5th century BC); its purpose is unclear. Inscriptions on its walls in three languages have been described as the "most important historical documents from the Sassanian era". Photograph credit: Diego Delso
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October 27
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The Accolade is an oil-on-canvas painting by the British artist Edmund Leighton, created in 1901. The painting depicts an accolade, a ceremony of the Middle Ages in which a knighthood is conferred on a worthy recipient. The man to be knighted kneels in front of the monarch on a cushion, and the monarch lays the side of the sword's blade first onto the candidate's right shoulder and then onto the left. In the painting, the ceremony is being performed by a young queen, with the knight bowed before her feet in a position of submission and fealty. An audience is gathered on the queen's left, serving as witnesses to the ceremony. The painting is currently in a private collection. Painting credit: Edmund Leighton
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October 28
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The Australian raven (Corvus coronoides) is a passerine bird in the crow family Corvidae, native to much of southern and northeastern Australia. Measuring about 50 cm (20 in) in length, with a 100 cm (40 in) wingspan, it is Australia's largest species of corvid. The bird's white iris contrasts with the entirely black plumage. Feeding largely on insects and other invertebrates, it also consumes eggs, nestlings, roadkill and carrion, as well as vegetable material. Farmers sometimes persecute it on the grounds that it kills lambs, but a healthy lamb is probably beyond its capabilities, although it does eat lamb faeces and stillborn animals. This Australian raven, perched on a rock encrusted with barnacles, was photographed at Doughboy Head in New South Wales. Photograph credit: John Harrison
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October 29
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Lord Ribblesdale is an oil-on-canvas portrait painted in 1902 by the American artist John Singer Sargent, depicting Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale. The painting portrays him in his hunting clothes as Master of the Queen's Buckhounds, and is said to epitomise the British aristocrat. The tall hat and the fluted pilaster of the wall behind, the clear silhouette of his long coat, and subtle changes that Sargent made to the sitter's physiognomy – such as an elongated nose, and the head disproportionately small in comparison to the body – emphasise Ribblesdale's thinness and height. The portrait is in the collection of the National Gallery in London. Painting credit: John Singer Sargent
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October 30
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The brown hairstreak (Thecla betulae) is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae, with a range spanning most of the Palearctic. It is difficult to observe, spending most of its time in groups in the tops of trees (often tall European ashes on the edge of woodland, known as "master trees"), where they feed on the honeydew of aphids. The females come down to lower levels to lay their eggs on blackthorn twigs, and can sometimes be seen feeding on nectar from flowers such as hemp-agrimony, common fleabane, yarrow and bramble. The species is on the wing in late summer and early autumn; the eggs overwinter and hatch in the spring when the blackthorn buds burst. This brown hairstreak was photographed in Rila National Park, Bulgaria. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
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October 31
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Candy apples (also known as toffee apples outside North America) are whole apples covered in a sugar candy coating, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts, with a stick inserted as a handle. These are a common treat at autumn festivals in Western culture in the Northern Hemisphere, such as Halloween, because these festivals occur in the wake of annual apple harvests. According to one source, candy apples were invented by Newark candy maker William W. Kolb in 1908 while experimenting in his candy shop with red cinnamon candy for the Christmas trade. This photograph shows a candy apple coated with red caramel and covered in chopped peanuts. Photograph credit: Evan Amos
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