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Ada Wong is a fictional character in Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), a survival horror video game series created by the Japanese company Capcom. Ada was first mentioned in the original Resident Evil (1996), before being introduced as a supporting character and antiheroine in Resident Evil 2 (1998). The character was initially conceived as a researcher named Linda for the prototype of the second game, but her name was changed to Ada and she was rewritten as a spy and mercenary for the final build to connect its story to that of the original. Over the course of the series, Ada is often hired to steal biological weapons for various organizations, although she betrays her employers on numerous occasions to save protagonist Leon S. Kennedy from dire situations. Ada is featured in several Resident Evil games, novelizations, and films, and has also appeared in other game franchises such as Project X Zone, Teppen, and Dead by Daylight. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Bread stapled to a tree

... that there is a subreddit for photographs of bread stapled to trees (example pictured)?
... that Bob Fernandez, one of the last known survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor, was then just 17 years old and serving as a Navy mess cook?
... that the city of al-Suqaylabiyah was founded in the 19th century by Christian villagers from the Hauran and the Syrian coastal mountains?
... that Oscar Goodman was the tournament MVP for the first New Zealand under-17 basketball team to reach the FIBA Under-16 Asia Cup championship game?
... that the retelling of stories can focus on female characters to reflect the feminist perspective?
... that William, a medieval bishop of Acre, "met a strange and undeserved fate" at the hands of a mentally ill young priest?
... that the music video for "Step by Step" stars a 12-year-old professional skateboarder?
... that Ryusei Nishioka broke the world record difficulty score in trampoline gymnastics by performing seven triple somersaults?
... that Disney+ released a promotional poster for the Doctor Who Christmas special "Joy to the World" with the title spelled incorrectly?

In the news

Grand Kartal Hotel

A fire in a ski resort hotel (pictured in 2007) in Kartalkaya, Turkey, leaves at least 66 people dead and injures 51 others.
A series of attacks by the National Liberation Army in the Catatumbo region of Colombia leaves more than a hundred people dead.
A ceasefire agreement suspends the Israel–Hamas war, involving the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
Two Sharia judges are assassinated in a shooting at the Supreme Court of Iran in Tehran.

On this day

January 21: National Hugging Day (United States)

Eruption of Mount Lamington

1793 – French Revolution: After being found guilty of high treason by the National Convention, Louis XVI was guillotined in Paris.
1919 – The First Dáil convened at the Mansion House in Dublin and adopted a declaration of independence calling for the establishment of the Irish Republic.
1951 – Mount Lamington, a volcano in Papua New Guinea, erupted (pictured) and killed more than 2,900 people.
1972 – Tripura, formerly part of the independent Twipra Kingdom, became a state of India.
2017 – Millions of people participated in the Women's March in Washington, D.C., and around the world to advocate for legislation and policies on human rights and other issues.

Eusapia Palladino (b. 1854)
Trương Tấn Sang (b. 1949)
Jeff Koons (b. 1955)
Frances Gertrude McGill (d. 1959)

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Today's featured picture

In the Loge, also known as At the Opera, is an 1878 Impressionist painting by the American artist Mary Cassatt. The oil-on-canvas work depicts a bourgeois woman in a box at an opera house looking through her opera glasses, while a man in the background looks at her from a different box. The woman's costume and fan identify her upper-class status. Art historians see the painting as a commentary on the role of gender, looking, and power in the social spaces of the 19th century. The painting is now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which also holds a preliminary drawing for the work.

Painting credit: Mary Cassatt

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