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Freedom from Want is the third of the Four Freedoms, a series of four oil paintings by American artist Norman Rockwell. The works were inspired by the Four Freedoms articulated in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address. The painting was published in the March 6, 1943, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It depicts a group of people gathered around a dinner table for a holiday meal, all of whom were friends and family of Rockwell; they were photographed individually and painted into the scene. Freedom from Want has become an iconic representation of Thanksgiving and family gatherings in general, and has had a wide array of adaptations and other uses. Popular then and now in the United States, it caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship. The work is highly regarded as an example of mastery of the challenges of painting in white on a white background and as one of Rockwell's most famous works. (Full article...)

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The derailed Kawasaki Heavy Industries C151 train on the MRT tracks

... that fixing a "Null ID" error could have prevented a train derailment and a six-day disruption (pictured)?
... that Michael Gardener preached a sermon in Inuktitut even though he did not yet understand the language?
... that the East River Generating Station in New York City was opened by the Queen of Romania?
... that Prince Thagara was so handsome that the future Queen Supayalat disguised herself as a man just to get a glimpse of him?
... that a women's association in Japan used linens hung up to dry to monitor pollution from a nearby power station?
... that the owner of more than 2,000 pornographic films is the most prolific filer of copyright lawsuits in the US?
... that The New York Times likened the design of Storer House to The Matrix?
... that physician Signe Salén was denied a pension because she treated fewer than 18,000 patients per year?
... that Caltech students called their calculus books "Tommy 1" and "Tommy 2"?

In the news

Tai Po apartment fire

An apartment complex fire (pictured) in Hong Kong leaves at least 44 people dead.
In Guinea-Bissau, armed forces seize power in a military coup, arresting President Umaro Sissoco Embaló.
Cyclone Senyar leaves more than 100 people dead across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
More than 300 students are kidnapped in Papiri, Niger State, Nigeria.

On this day

November 27: Thanksgiving in the United States (2025)

Alfred Nobel

1895 – Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel (pictured) signed his last will and testament, setting aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death.
1945 – A consortium of twenty-two U.S. charities founded CARE with the mission of delivering food aid to Europe in the aftermath of World War II.
1950 – Korean War: The Chinese People's Volunteer Army launched multiple attacks against United Nations forces, beginning the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.
1989 – A bomb placed by the Medellín Cartel in an attempt to kill Colombian presidential candidate César Gaviria destroyed Avianca Flight 203, killing all 107 people on board, excluding Gaviria, who was not on the flight.
2020 – Nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, regarded as the chief of Iran's nuclear program, was assassinated, allegedly by Mossad.

Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon (b. 1635)
Rachel Brooks Gleason (b. 1820)
Helmut Lachenmann (b. 1935)
Ciputra (d. 2019)

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Today's featured picture

The 1884 United States presidential election was held in November 1884 between Grover Cleveland of the Democratic Party, James G. Blaine of the Republican Party, and two third-party candidates. The election was narrowly won by Cleveland, who won 219 Electoral College votes to Blaine's 182, ending a run of of six consecutive Republican victories. The issue of personal character featured strongly during the 1884 campaign. Blaine had been prevented from getting the Republican presidential nomination during the previous two elections because of the stigma of a set of letters that he had written, while Cleveland was perceived as having high personal integrity. This campaign advertisement for Blaine, captioned "Another voice for Cleveland", was published in the New York magazine The Judge on September 27, 1884, and aimed to shift this balance and attack Cleveland's morals by alleging that he had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo, New York. The chromolithograph illustration depicts a weeping woman holding a baby who cries out "I want my pa!" as Cleveland walks past. Cleveland's campaign responded that he had formed a connection with the woman in question and had assumed responsibility for the child, but that his paternity was unproven.

Illustration credit: Frank Beard; restored by Adam Cuerden

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