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Wilfred Arthur (7 December 1919 – 23 December 2000) was a fighter ace and senior officer of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. Commonly known as "Woof", he was credited with ten aerial victories and led combat formations at squadron and wing level, becoming the youngest group captain in RAAF history. Arthur first saw action in the Middle East and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for shooting down four aircraft in a single sortie. He was then posted to New Guinea, where he received the Distinguished Service Order for continuing to lead an attack after discovering his guns were inoperable. As wing leader of No. 71 Wing, he was severely burned in a runway collision. Upon recovery, he was posted to the Dutch East Indies and played a leading part in the Morotai Mutiny when eight RAAF officers attempted to resign. Following his discharge, he pursued business interests in Australia and Vietnam before settling in Darwin, Northern Territory. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Regulus

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... that Annie Huggett, aged 103, was the oldest living suffragette at the time of her death in 1996?
... that cellist Rohan de Saram's background as a geta bera drummer inspired Luciano Berio's Sequenza XIV?
... that a priest canceled 1,600 subscriptions to The Catholic Bulletin over a front-page photograph of nuns dancing?
... that comic-opera performer Celie Ellis Turner pursued a stage career against her family's wishes?
... that the oldest surviving wooden lightship, dating to 1840, is now an Airbnb property?
... that Henry Parnell was the youngest British parliamentarian to die in the First World War?
... that after signing a peace agreement in 1919, Azerbaijan prepared another invasion of southern Armenia that was foiled by a rebellion in Nagorno-Karabakh?
... that schoolteacher Thomas Curnow used a red scarf to stop a train from derailing, leading to the capture of notorious outlaw Ned Kelly?

In the news

Notre-Dame de Paris in April

Notre-Dame de Paris (pictured) reopens following reconstruction after the 2019 fire.
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah wins the presidency in the Namibian general election.
Fianna Fáil wins the most seats in the Irish general election but their ruling coalition with Fine Gael and The Greens does not achieve a majority.
Protests erupt in Georgia after its government announces the country will suspend its application for EU membership.

On this day

December 7: Feast day of Saint Ambrose (Christianity); National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in the United States (1941)

Jack Fingleton

1936 – Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton (pictured) became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings.
1942 – Second World War: A small unit of Royal Marines launched Operation Frankton, in which they damaged six ships in the port of Bordeaux in German-occupied France.
1975 – The Indonesian military began a lengthy occupation of East Timor under the pretext of anti-colonialism.
2015 – The JAXA space probe Akatsuki entered into orbit around Venus to study the planet's atmosphere, five years after its first attempt failed.

Charles Saunders (d. 1775)
Hamilton Fish III (b. 1888)
Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
Barbara Howard (d. 2002)

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Today's featured picture

The Ugandan kob (Kobus kob thomasi) is a subspecies of the kob, a type of antelope. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa, in South Sudan, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Ugandan kob is distinguished from other kob subspecies by its reddish-brown colour. It is similar in appearance to the impala but is more sturdily built. Only the males have horns, which are lyre-shaped, strongly ridged and divergent. Males are slightly larger than females, being 90 to 100 centimetres (3.0 to 3.3 ft) at the shoulder, with an average weight of 94 kilograms (207 lb), while females are 82 to 92 centimetres (2.7 to 3.0 ft) at the shoulder and on average weigh about 63 kilograms (139 lb). This photograph shows two Ugandan kobs mating in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.

Photograph credit: Giles Laurent

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