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The siege of Baghdad took place in early 1258 when a large army under Hulegu, a prince of the Mongol Empire, attacked Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Hulegu had been sent by his brother, the Mongol khan Möngke, to conquer Persia. He expected Baghdad's ruler, Caliph al-Musta'sim, to reinforce his army, but this did not happen. Provoked by al-Musta'sim's arrogance, Hulegu decided to overthrow him. The Mongol army routed a sortie by flooding their camp, and besieged the city. After Mongol siege engines breached Baghdad's walls, al-Musta'sim surrendered on 10 February, and was later executed. The Mongol army pillaged the city for a week. The number of deaths was inflated by epidemics of disease, but Hulegu estimated his soldiers killed 200,000. The siege, often seen as the end of the Islamic Golden Age, was in reality not era-defining: Baghdad later prospered under Hulegu's Ilkhanate. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Maurice Grau

... that Metropolitan Opera director Maurice Grau (pictured) was "important in the growth of popular musical theatre in America"?
... that televangelist Gene Scott went 65 hours without sleep when he barricaded himself in the studios of his Connecticut TV station to protest an order to pay taxes?
... that a train station in Singapore repeatedly had issues with the design of its stairs?
... that the Olympic shooter Ho Chung Kin translated more than 150 Tang-dynasty and Song-dynasty poems, maintaining a rhyme structure that mirrors the original classical Chinese texts?
... that most or all of the inhabitants of Moneka, Kansas, were abolitionists?
... that David of Sassoun has been called the most recognized symbol of Armenia, along with Mount Ararat?
... that the deaths of five teenagers in Poland in the ToNiePokój escape room fire led to inspections of escape rooms in Lithuania and Czechia?
... that Thomas M. Robins was responsible for the construction of the Bonneville Dam?
... that according to one school of epistemology, nobody knows anything?

In the news

Aga Khan IV

The 49th imam of Nizari Isma'ilism, Aga Khan IV (pictured), dies at the age of 88 and is succeeded by his son, Aga Khan V.
Eleven people are killed in a mass shooting at an adult education centre in Örebro, Sweden.
At the Grammy Awards, "Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar wins Record of the Year and Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter wins Album of the Year.
A Learjet 55 crashes into multiple buildings in Philadelphia, United States, killing at least 7 people and injuring 24 others.

On this day

February 10: Feast day of Saint Scholastica (Christianity); National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe in Italy

Delegates at the Inter-Allied Women's Conference

1355 – A tavern dispute between students of the University of Oxford and townspeople in Oxford became a riot that left about 90 people dead.
1919 – The Inter-Allied Women's Conference (delegates pictured) opened as a counterpart to the Paris Peace Conference, marking the first time that women were allowed formal participation in an international treaty negotiation.
1939 – Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists concluded their conquest of Catalonia and sealed the border with France.
2009 – The Russian satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 destroyed each other in the first accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact satellites in low Earth orbit.

Ira Remsen (b. 1846)
Edith Clarke (b. 1883)
Joseph Lister (d. 1912)
Joan Curran (d. 1999)

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Andrew Luck

The 2012 NFL draft was the 77th annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible American football players for their rosters. The draft was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City from April 26 to April 28, 2012. There were 253 draft selections: 221 regular selections and 32 compensatory selections. The Indianapolis Colts, who compiled the league's worst season in 2011 with a 2–14 record, had the right to the first selection. They chose quarterback prospect Andrew Luck (pictured), who was highly touted as one of the best quarterback prospects in years and widely regarded as the top overall prospect in the draft. The draft was highly regarded for its quarterback talent, with six of the eleven quarterbacks selected named to at least one Pro Bowl. Besides its quarterbacks, the draft overall is considered one of the best of all-time with numerous prospects showing Hall of Fame talent throughout their careers. (Full list...)

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Male
Female

The Alpine ibex (Capra ibex), also known as the steinbock, is a species of goat that lives in the Alps of Europe. Its closest living relative is the Iberian ibex. Alpine ibex have brownish-grey coats and sharp hooves adapted to steep, rough terrain. Found at elevations as high as 3,300 metres (10,800 feet), they are active throughout the year, primarily feeding on grass in open alpine meadows. Adult males, which are larger than females, segregate from them for most of the year, coming together only during the breeding season, when they fight for access to the females using their long horns. The Alpine ibex has been successfully reintroduced to parts of its historical range, but all individuals living today descend from a population bottleneck of fewer than 100 individuals from Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy. The species has few predators and is not threatened, but it has very low genetic diversity. These Alpine ibex, a male in winter and a female in summer, were photographed at Creux du Van in Switzerland.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

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