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Scene from the play's opening run

The Importance of Being Earnest is a drawing-room comedy by Oscar Wilde. Premiered on 14 February 1895 in London, it depicts the affairs of two young men about town who lead double lives to evade unwanted social obligations, both assuming the name Ernest to woo two young women. Other characters are the formidable Lady Bracknell, the fussy governess Miss Prism and the benign and scholarly Canon Chasuble. The play, celebrated for its wit and repartee, parodies contemporary dramatic norms and comically satirises late-Victorian manners. The triumphant opening night was followed within weeks by Wilde's downfall and imprisonment for homosexual acts and the closure of the production, and Wilde wrote no more comic or dramatic works. From the early 20th century onwards, the play has been revived frequently and adapted for radio, television, film, operas and musicals. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Charles J. M. Gwinn

... that Charles J. M. Gwinn (pictured) was the first state's attorney of Baltimore elected under the Maryland Constitution of 1851, which he had helped to draft?
... that "Every Night", released ten years ago today, was called "the smartest dumb music out there"?
... that Bishop John Dunn continued to celebrate Mass after a fire broke out in the choir loft of St. Cecilia Cathedral during the Sixth National Eucharistic Congress?
... that over the opening weekend of Florentina Holzinger's first opera, eighteen audience members required medical treatment for severe nausea?
... that the apricot dress of Jacqueline Kennedy kept its shape in India's hot weather?
... that weightlifter Oun Yao-ling was asked to compete in the South African Games, but the invitation was swiftly rescinded once the organisers learned that he was Chinese, not white?
... that the opening of Salmon n' Bannock led to the owner reconnecting with her long-lost family?
... that Władysław Umiński's 1914 novel Czarodziejski okręt was described as being a "grotesque" treatment of the robinsonade?
... that Ross Mihara "didn't know a yorikiri from hara-kiri" when he was hired as a sumo commentator by NHK?

In the news

Yoav Gallant

The International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant (pictured), and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif in its investigation of war crimes in Palestine.
Forty-five pro-democracy activists are sentenced under the Hong Kong national security law for their participation in the 2020 pro-democracy primaries.
In motorcycle racing, Jorge Martín wins the MotoGP World Championship.

On this day

November 24: Feast day of the Vietnamese Martyrs (Catholicism)

Hibiscus Rising

1542 – Anglo-Scottish Wars: English forces captured about 1,200 Scots at the Battle of Solway Moss.
1859 – British naturalist Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was first published, and sold out its initial print run on the first day.
1976 – A magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck eastern Turkey, destroying 80 per cent of buildings in the region and causing at least 4,000 casualties.
2009 – The Avdhela Project, an Aromanian digital library and cultural initiative, was launched in Bucharest, Romania.
2023 – Hibiscus Rising (pictured), a sculpture commemorating the life of David Oluwale, was unveiled in Leeds.

Zachary Taylor (b. 1784)
Eileen Barton (b. 1924)
Tarō Yamamoto (b. 1974)
Goo Hara (d. 2019)

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Today's featured picture

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was a NASA space mission aimed at testing a method of planetary defense against near-Earth objects. The target object, Dimorphos, is a 160-meter-long (525-foot) minor-planet moon of the asteroid Didymos. DART was launched on 24 November 2021 and successfully collided with Dimorphos on 26 September 2022 while about 11 million kilometers (6.8 million miles) from Earth. The collision shortened Dimorphos's orbit by 32 minutes and was mostly achieved by the momentum transfer associated with the recoil of the ejected debris, which was larger than the impact. This video is a timelapse of DART's final five and a half minutes before impacting Dimorphos, and was compiled from photographs captured by the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO), the spacecraft's 20-centimeter-aperture (7.9-inch) camera, and transmitted to Earth in real time. The replay is ten times faster than reality, except for the last six images, which are shown at the same rate at which the spacecraft returned them. Both Didymos and Dimorphos are visible at the start of the video, and the final frame shows a patch of Dimorphos's surface 16 meters (51 feet) across. DART's impact occurred during transmission of the final image, resulting in a partial frame.

Video credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL

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