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The Aineta aryballos is an Ancient Greek aryballos (a small, spherical flask or vase), made between approximately 625 and 570 BCE in the city of Corinth in southern Greece. Approximately 6.35 centimetres (2.50 in) in both height and diameter, it was intended to contain perfumed oil or unguent, and is likely to have been owned by a high-class courtesan (hetaira) by the name of Aineta. The vase's illegal sale to the British Museum in 1865 led to the prosecution of its seller, the Athenian professor and art dealer Athanasios Rhousopoulos, and exposed his widespread involvement in antiquities crime. The vase is inscribed with a portrait, probably that of Aineta, who is named in the inscription on the vase. The aryballos is likely to have been found in a grave, probably that of Aineta. In 1877, Rhousopoulos was fined for selling the vase in contravention of Greek law. The case represented a relatively rare successful use of state power against the illegal trade in Ancient Greek artefacts. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

April 23: National Sovereignty and Children's Day in Turkey (1920)

Liberation of Flossenbürg

1467 – Ottoman wars in Europe: Albanian leader Skanderbeg defeated an Ottoman army under Ballaban Badera to raise the siege of Krujë.
1945 – World War II: The US Army's 90th Infantry Division liberated Flossenbürg concentration camp (pictured) in Germany, freeing 1,500 prisoners.
1976 – The American band the Ramones released their debut album, which became highly influential on the emerging punk rock movement.
1979 – Blair Peach, a New Zealand teacher, was fatally injured after being knocked unconscious during an Anti-Nazi League demonstration against a National Front election meeting in Southall, London.
2018 – A man intentionally struck pedestrians with a van on Yonge Street in Toronto, Canada, leading to 11 deaths.

Joan of France (b. 1464)
Pandita Ramabai (b. 1858)
Satyajit Ray (d. 1992)

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In the news

Pope Francis

Pope Francis (pictured) dies at the age of 88.
Daniel Noboa is re-elected president of Ecuador.
Peruvian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa dies at the age of 89.
A nightclub roof collapse in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, kills 232 people.
In basketball, the UConn Huskies win the NCAA Division I women's championship and the Florida Gators win the men's championship.

Did you know...

George Frazier Miller

... that George Frazier Miller (pictured) raised and spent $10 during his election campaign for a seat in the United States Congress in 1918?
... that, near the ending of the 2005 interactive storytelling video game Façade, two characters portrayed through AI chatbots ask the player for relationship advice?
... that Lebanese actress Cynthya Karam volunteers as a clown doctor in children's hospitals?
... that a Wisconsin TV station claimed the first-ever broadcast of a lunar eclipse, which it captured by moving a studio camera into its parking lot?
... that Khujand gained independence just a year before it was conquered by the Russian Empire?
... that Prince Louis of Wales is the first British prince to be ranked behind an elder sister in the line of succession?
... that Klingenheben's law is usually referred to in the singular, but in fact comprises four independent sound changes?
... that Aquilegia vulgaris was associated with a fertility goddess in ancient Greece, symbolized sacredness for Flemish painters, and was an omen of death in Hamlet?
... that Edwin Rist stole hundreds of rare birds to make into fishing lures?

Today's featured picture

Picture of the day

The Chandos portrait is the most famous of the portraits that are believed to depict William Shakespeare (c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616). Painted between 1600 and 1610, it may have served as the basis for the engraved portrait of Shakespeare used in his First Folio in 1623. John Taylor (c. 1580–1653) is thought by several scholars to have painted the portrait. It is named for the 3rd Duke of Chandos, who formerly owned the painting. The portrait was given to the National Portrait Gallery, London, on its foundation in 1856, and it is listed as the first work in its collection.Painting credit: John Taylor; image retouched by Dcoetzee

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