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Today's featured article

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is a 2000 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It makes use of enhanced 3D graphics and features several gameplay changes, but reuses elements and character models from Ocarina of Time (1998). It follows Link, who arrives in a parallel world, Termina, and becomes embroiled in a quest to prevent the moon from crashing in three days' time. The game introduces gameplay concepts revolving around a perpetually repeating three-day cycle and the use of various masks that transform Link into different forms, and requires the Expansion Pak add-on for the Nintendo 64, which provides additional memory for more refined graphics. Majora's Mask was acclaimed by critics, and generated a cult following. It was rereleased for the GameCube in 2003, and for the online services of the Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch. An enhanced remake for the Nintendo 3DS was released in 2015. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

April 27: Koningsdag in the Netherlands

Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn

630 – Shahrbaraz usurped the throne of the Sasanian Empire from Ardashir III, but was himself killed six weeks later.
1650 – Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Covenanter forces defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Carbisdale near the village of Culrain, Scotland.
1945 – World War II: The photograph Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn (pictured) was taken after German troops withdrew to Norway at the end of the Lapland War.
1965 – Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation: British forces repelled a surprise Indonesian attack on a base at Plaman Mapu in Sarawak.
2005 – The Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner, made its maiden flight from Toulouse, France.

Ulysses S. Grant (b. 1822)
Sheila Scott (b. 1922)
Olivier Messiaen (d. 1992)

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In the news

Pope Francis

Militants attack a group of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 26 people.
Pope Francis (pictured) dies at the age of 88.
Daniel Noboa is re-elected president of Ecuador.
Peruvian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa dies at the age of 89.

Did you know...

Flag of Angola

... that the machete in the flag of Angola (pictured) symbolizes peasants, agriculture, and the country's war of independence?
... that ratings for The Bard range from A− by The A.V. Club to being the second-worst episode of The Twilight Zone by /Film and Paste?
... that Jon Haukeland established a "Polar Bear model" for Norwegian children?
... that Statistics House partially collapsed in the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake even though the building was once assessed as not being earthquake-prone?
... that Lady Gaga's Living Dress was designed by the creator of the Batsuit?
... that the name of the Maendeleo horseshoe bat refers to its discovery representing progress in understanding Tanzanian bats?
... that Philadelphia's Washington Monument was unveiled at its dedication in 1897 by the president of the United States?
... that Finland won its first Olympic ice hockey medal under the leadership of Kai Hietarinta?
... that to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the BBC soap opera EastEnders, viewers were given the opportunity to vote on the outcome of a love triangle storyline?

Today's featured picture

Picture of the day

Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz II–Birkenau from the Auschwitz Album, a photographic record of the Holocaust during World War II. It and the Sonderkommando photographs are among the small number of visual documents that show the operations of Auschwitz II–Birkenau, the German extermination camp in occupied Poland. Originally titled "Resettlement of the Jews from Hungary" (Umsiedlung der Juden aus Ungarn), it shows a period when the Nazis accelerated their deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The images were taken by photographers from the camp's Erkennungsdienst ("identification service"). Among other things, the Erkennungsdienst was responsible for fingerprinting and taking photo IDs of prisoners who had not been selected for extermination. The identity of the photographers is uncertain, but it is thought to have been Bernhard Walter or Ernst Hoffmann, two SS men who were director and deputy director of the Erkennungsdienst. The camp's director, Rudolf Höss, also may have taken several of the photographs himself.Photograph credit: Unknown Auschwitz Erkennungsdienst photographer; restored by Yann Forget

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