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Edgar Towner (19 April 1890 – 18 August 1972) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, awarded for his actions during an attack on Mont Saint-Quentin during World War I. Born in Queensland, Towner enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1915. He served in Egypt with the 25th Battalion until his unit was sent to the Western Front. He then transferred to the 2nd Machine Gun Battalion where he was commissioned as a lieutenant. In June 1918, Towner led a machine gun section attack near Morlancourt while under heavy fire, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. In September, he was involved in the Allied counteroffensive that broke the German lines at Mont Saint-Quentin and Péronne. Towner returned to Australia after being discharged in August 1919. He was appointed a director of the Russleigh Pastoral Company and re-enlisted during World War II, when he was promoted to major. He was awarded the Dr Thomson Foundation Gold Medal in 1956 for his geographical work. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

April 19: Primrose Day in London

Aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing

1713 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issued the Pragmatic Sanction, allowing the Habsburg hereditary possessions to be inherited by a daughter.
1809 – War of the Fifth Coalition: French general Louis-Nicolas Davout defeated an Austrian force in Lower Bavaria, allowing him to rejoin the main French army.
1987 – The fictional Simpson family made their first appearance in the short "Good Night", aired in a segment of the The Tracey Ullman Show.
1995 – A truck bombing destroyed much of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building (aftermath pictured) in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring more than 680 others.
2015 – Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American, died of injuries sustained while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department.

Uesugi Kenshin (d. 1578)
Elizabeth Dilling (b. 1894)
Denis O'Brien (b. 1958)

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In the news

Daniel Noboa

Daniel Noboa (pictured) 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 231 people.
In basketball, the UConn Huskies win the NCAA Division I women's championship and the Florida Gators win the men's championship.
In the National Hockey League, Alexander Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky's record for most goals scored.

Did you know...

Alejandro Finisterre

... that Alejandro Finisterre (pictured), the inventor of table football, threatened to blow up a plane with a bar of soap?
... that Liv.e wrote her debut album Couldn't Wait to Tell You while working in Urban Outfitters?
... that F. B. J. Kuiper, after no longer being able to drive due to his failing vision, underwent eye surgery and then immediately bought a BMW?
... that Adolf Hitler received more than 300 visitors during his Festungshaft (fortress confinement) in Landsberg Prison?
... that St. Thomas Church and Howard–Flaget House was the site of the first Catholic seminary on the American frontier?
... that voice actress Rika Hayashi brought a golf club to the recording studio for Tonbo!, a golf-themed anime series?
... that Prunus cathybrownae, an extinct relative of plums, was named after three different Catherines?
... that Jiang Xiaoxuan set her debut film, To Kill a Mongolian Horse, in her homeland of Inner Mongolia?
... that Baltimore County Police Department leader Carroll E. Stansbury assigned officers to combat chicken theft?

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Picture of the day

The African hawk-eagle (Aquila spilogaster) is a large bird of prey. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. The species's feathered legs mark it as a member of the subfamily Aquilinae. The African hawk-eagle breeds in tropical sub-Saharan Africa. It is a bird of assorted woodland, including both savanna and hilly areas, but they tend to occur in typically dry woodland. The species tends to be rare in areas where their preferred habitat type is absent. The African hawk-eagle is powerfully built and hunts small to medium-sized mammals and birds predominantly, occasionally taking reptiles and other prey as well. This African hawk-eagle perching on a branch was photographed in Damaraland, Namibia.Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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