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From today's featured article
[[File:|180px|Ceilings of the Central Hall at the Natural History Museum, London ]]
The decorated ceilings of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, were designed by the museum's architect Alfred Waterhouse, and were unveiled at the building's opening in 1881. The ceiling of the large Central Hall (pictured) consists of 162 panels, 108 of which depict plants considered significant to the history of the museum, to the British Empire or to the museum's visitors. The remaining 54 are highly stylised decorative botanical paintings. The ceiling of the smaller North Hall consists of 36 panels, 18 of which depict plants growing in the British Isles. Both ceilings make extensive use of gilding for visual effect. Built of lath and plaster to save costs, the ceilings are unusually fragile and require extensive maintenance and restoration. Since 2016 the skeleton of a blue whale has been suspended from the ceiling of the Central Hall. (Full article...)
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On this dayJune 4: Trianon Treaty Day in Romania (1920)
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HMS Malabar was a 74-gun ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1818 at Bombay Dockyard. In 1838, Malabar ran aground off Prince Edward Island in British North America and was damaged, with the loss of two crew members. She was refloated later that year and towed into Three Rivers in Lower Canada. In August 1843, Malabar, under the command of Sir George Sartorius, assisted in fighting a fire that destroyed the United States Navy sidewheel frigate USS Missouri at Gibraltar, taking aboard about 200 of that ship's survivors. Malabar was converted to a hulk in 1848, eventually becoming a coal hulk, and was renamed Myrtle in 1883. The hulk was sold out of the navy in 1905. This lithograph from around 1843 shows the crew of Malabar watching as Missouri explodes and burns in the distance. Lithograph credit: Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton, after Edward Duncan and George Pechell Mends; restored by Adam Cuerden
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