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Today (April 27)

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April 27

After the Deluge is an oil painting by English artist George Frederic Watts. Completed in 1891, it shows a scene from the story of Noah's Flood, in which Noah opens the window of his Ark to see that after 40 days the rain has stopped. The Symbolist painting is a stylised seascape, dominated by a bright sunburst breaking through clouds. Watts intended to evoke a monotheistic God in the act of creation, without depicting the Creator directly. The unfinished painting was exhibited at a church in Whitechapel in 1886, under the intentionally simplified title of The Sun. The completed version was shown for the first time at the New Gallery in 1891 and was admired by Watts's fellow artists. It influenced many painters who worked in the two decades following. Between 1902 and 1906 the painting was exhibited around the United Kingdom. It is now in the collection of the Watts Gallery in Compton, Guildford, Surrey. (Full article...)

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On this day

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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Picture of the day

April 27

Benjamin Franklin Tilley (1848–1907) was a career officer in the United States Navy who served from the end of the American Civil War through the Spanish–American War. He is best remembered as the first acting governor of American Samoa as well as the territory's first naval governor.

Photograph credit: unknown photographer; Naval History and Heritage Command; restored by Adam Cuerden

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