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Today's featured article

The word bædlingas in the Cleopatra Glossaries

Bæddel and bædling are Old English terms referring to non-normative sexual or gender categories. Occurring in a small number of medieval glossaries and penitentials (guides for religious penance), the exact meaning of the terms (and their distinction, if any) are debated by scholars. Both terms are often connected to effeminacy and adultery. Bæddel is glossed as 'hermaphrodite' and a 'man of both sexes' in its two extant glosses, while bædling is often glossed with terms associated with effeminacy and softness. The Oxford English Dictionary supports bæddel as the etymological root of the English adjective bad, although scholars propose alternative origins, including a shared root with both bæddel and bædling. The term bædlings may have included people assigned female at birth who took on masculine social roles or referred to intersex people. Scholars suggest that bædlings could represent a third gender outside the gender binary or a form of gender nonconformity in Anglo-Saxon society. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

April 17: Evacuation Day in Syria (1946)

Artist's impression of Kepler-186f

1080 – Canute IV became King of Denmark upon the death of his brother Harald III.
1809 – Napoleonic Wars: After a three-day chase, the French ship D'Hautpoul was captured off Puerto Rico by a British squadron under Alexander Cochrane.
1951 – The Peak District was designated the first national park in the United Kingdom.
1975 – The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the capital of the Khmer Republic, ending the Cambodian Civil War and establishing the socialist state of Democratic Kampuchea.
2014 – NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-186f (pictured), the first exoplanet with a radius similar to Earth's discovered in the habitable zone of another star.

Marino Faliero (d. 1355)
Hannah Webster Foster (d. 1840)
Karen Blixen (b. 1885)
Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (d. 1954)

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In the news

Daniel Noboa

Daniel Noboa (pictured) is re-elected as 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...

Gil Hovav

... that Gil Hovav (pictured) reads announcements at Ben Gurion Airport for free because he was annoyed by previous small grammatical errors?
... that the creator of Pop was part of the German techno scene?
... that during the Hail Larry game, Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jeff Janis recorded 145 of his career total of 345 receiving yards and two of his three career touchdowns?
... that actor Xavier Molyneux worked as an event paramedic between his acting roles?
... that United States president Joe Biden began his political career by unseating an incumbent county councilman?
... that the sole athlete representing Kiribati at the 2024 Summer Paralympics impressed the International Paralympic Committee through his eye mask?
... that the founder of a Mississippi radio station compared selling advertising time to campaigning for political office?
... that Šediváčkův long is considered one of Europe's most challenging dog sled races, with teams climbing more than 7,500 metres (24,600 feet) during the event?
... that Senator James A. Reed asked "Who the hell is Webb?" when he was nominated to be Webb's vice-presidential nominee?

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