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From today's featured article

Bust of Scipio

The siege of Utica took place from 204 to 201 BC when a Roman army under Publius Cornelius Scipio (bust pictured) attempted to seize the port city to use as a secure base from which to defeat the Carthaginian Empire in its North African homeland. This was part of the Second Punic War, fought between Carthage and Rome for 17 years from 218 BC. In 205 BC Scipio, the Romans' most successful general, was assigned to Sicily with the intention of invading North Africa. Scipio's army landed there in 204 BC, pillaged a large area and laid siege to Utica. Scipio expected the city to surrender readily, but despite being attacked fiercely from land and sea it held out. Meanwhile the Romans won the battle of Utica outside the city followed by victory in three further major pitched battles. After the last of these the Carthaginians sued for peace and accepted the harsh terms imposed by the Romans in 201 BC. (This article is part of a featured topic: Roman invasion of Africa (204–201 BC).)

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Did you know ...

Veronika scratching herself with tools

... that Veronika the cow can scratch herself using brooms (depicted)?
... that a popular series interviews celebrities without an interviewer?
... that a Mexican vice admiral who exposed radioactive milk imports was accused of treason and sent to the Revillagigedo Islands?
... that "King Scum" escaped from prison by pretending to be a solicitor?
... that a psychiatrist expressed concern about a patient's paranoia to a colleague the day before the patient killed him?
... that Sarah, Lady Holte, owned hundreds of slaves in Barbados, but only ever met one?
... that the socialist newspaper Radenik was banned after it referred to Jesus as a "socialist, communist, and revolutionary"?
... that Lorenzo Dow Thompson threw Abraham Lincoln in a wrestling match?
... that A Taxonomy of Office Chairs applies evolutionary classification to furniture?

In the news

Tô Lâm

A winter storm causes widespread damage across North America and leaves at least 137 people dead.
Vietnam's communist party congress re-elects Tô Lâm (pictured) as general secretary, the most powerful position in the one-party state.
Iliana Iotova becomes the first female president of Bulgaria following the resignation of Rumen Radev.
The United States leaves the World Health Organization.

On this day

February 1: Imbolc / Saint Brigid's Day in Ireland; National Freedom Day in the United States; Black History Month begins in the United States

Medvėgalis hillfort in 2010

1329 – The Teutonic Knights successfully besieged the hillfort of Medvėgalis (pictured) in Samogitia, Lithuania, and baptised the defenders in the Catholic rite.
1884 – The first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary, a 352-page volume that covered words from A to ant, was published.
2001 – The Timor-Leste Defence Force was established from the erstwhile anti-Indonesian independence movement Falintil.
2004 – During the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, Janet Jackson's breast was exposed by Justin Timberlake in what was later referred to as a "wardrobe malfunction", resulting in an immediate crackdown and widespread debate on perceived indecency in U.S. broadcasting.

Francesco Maria Veracini (b. 1690)
Thomas Campbell (b. 1763)
George Whipple (d. 1976)
Sheila Heaney (d. 1991)

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Today's featured picture

Yarrow Mamout was an African-American freedman of Guinean origin. Born into the Fula people in around 1736, Mamout was raised as a Muslim and learned to read and write in Arabic as well as his native Fula language. Captured and enslaved in 1752, he was brought to Maryland on the slave ship Elijah and was sold to Samuel Beall, a plantation owner in Takoma Park, Maryland. Mamout was enslaved there for 44 years, being manumitted when Beall died in 1796; he immediately purchased and freed his 7-year-old son, Aquilla. Mamout then became a successful businessman. He remained a devout Muslim, refusing to eat pork or drink alcohol and praying regularly. This 1819 portrait of Mamout was created by painter Charles Willson Peale and is now in the Philadelphia Art Museum.

Painting credit: Charles Willson Peale

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