"A Rugrats Chanukah" (titled onscreen as simply "Chanukah" and sometimes called the "Rugrats Chanukah Special") is the first episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series Rugrats (and the sixty-sixth episode overall). It first aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on December 4, 1996. The special tells the story of the Jewish holiday Chanukah through the eyes of the Rugrats, who imagine themselves as the main characters. Meanwhile, Grandpa Boris and his long-time rival, Shlomo, feud over who will play the lead in the local synagogue's Chanukah play. While many American children's television programs have Christmas specials, "A Rugrats Chanukah" is one of the first Chanukah specials of an American children's television series. (Full article...)

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the University of Cambridge before studying music in Leipzig and Berlin. He was instrumental in raising the status of the Cambridge University Musical Society, attracting international stars to perform with it. (Full article...)

The Mummy is a 1999 American action-adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah and Arnold Vosloo in the title role as the reanimated mummy. It is a remake of the 1932 film of the same name. The film follows adventurer Rick O'Connell as he travels to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, with librarian Evelyn Carnahan and her older brother Jonathan, where they accidentally awaken Imhotep, a cursed high priest with supernatural powers. (Full article...)

"The Body" is the sixteenth episode of the fifth season of the supernatural drama television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode was written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon and originally aired on The WB in the United States on February 27, 2001. In the series, Buffy Summers is a teenager chosen by mystical forces and endowed with superhuman powers to defeat vampires, demons, and other evils in the fictional town of Sunnydale. She is supported in her struggles by a close circle of friends and family, nicknamed the "Scooby Gang". In "The Body", Buffy is powerless as she comes upon her lifeless mother, who has died of a brain aneurysm. (Full article...)

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is a novel by the British writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in July 1957. It is Waugh's penultimate full-length work of fiction, which the author called his "mad book"—a largely autobiographical account of a period of hallucinations caused by bromide intoxication that he experienced in the early months of 1954, recounted through his protagonist Gilbert Pinfold. (Full article...)

Jane Grigson (born Heather Mabel Jane McIntire; 13 March 1928 – 12 March 1990) was an English cookery writer. In the latter part of the 20th century she was the author of the food column for The Observer and wrote numerous books about European cuisines and traditional British dishes. Her work proved influential in promoting British food. (Full article...)

"No Such Thing as Vampires" is the pilot episode of the American paranormal romance television drama Moonlight, which premiered on CBS on September 28, 2007. It was written by series creators/executive producers Trevor Munson and Ron Koslow, and directed by executive producer Rod Holcomb. The pilot introduces Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin), a private investigator who has been a vampire for over 50 years; Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), St. John's love interest; Josef Kostan (Jason Dohring), St. John's mentor and friend; and Coraline Duvall (Shannyn Sossamon), St. John's ex-wife and sire. (Full article...)

The London and North Western Railway War Memorial is a First World War memorial located outside Euston station in London, England. The memorial was designed by Reginald Wynn Owen, architect to the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), and commemorates employees of the LNWR who were killed in the First World War. Some 37,000 LNWR employees left to fight in the war—around a third of the company's workforce—of whom over 3,000 were killed. As well as personnel, much of the company's infrastructure was turned over to the war effort. Of the £12,500 cost of the memorial, £4,000 was contributed by the employees and the company paid the remainder. (Full article...)

Free and Candid Disquisitions is a 1749 pamphlet written and compiled by John Jones, a Welsh Church of England clergyman, and published anonymously. The work promoted a series of specific reforms to the Church of England and its mandated book for liturgical worship, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Through these proposed changes, Jones hoped that the more Protestant independent Dissenters – who had largely broken with the Church of England in 1662 and been legally tolerated since 1689 – could be reintegrated into the church. (Full article...)

The Olmec colossal heads are stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. They range in height from 1.17 to 3.4 metres (3.8 to 11.2 ft). The heads date from at least 900 BC and are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. All portray mature individuals with fleshy cheeks, flat noses, and slightly-crossed eyes; their physical characteristics correspond to a type that is still common among the inhabitants of Tabasco and Veracruz. The backs of the monuments often are flat. The boulders were brought from the Sierra de Los Tuxtlas mountains of Veracruz. Given that the extremely large slabs of stone used in their production were transported over large distances (over 150 kilometres (93 mi)), requiring a great deal of human effort and resources, it is thought that the monuments represent portraits of powerful individual Olmec rulers. Each of the known examples has a distinctive headdress. The heads were variously arranged in lines or groups at major Olmec centres, but the method and logistics used to transport the stone to these sites remain unclear. They all display distinctive headgear and one theory is that these were worn as protective helmets, maybe worn for war or to take part in a ceremonial Mesoamerican ballgame. (Full article...)

Pattern Recognition is a novel by science fiction writer William Gibson published in 2003. Set in August and September 2002, the story follows Cayce Pollard, a 32-year-old marketing consultant who has a psychological sensitivity to corporate symbols. The action takes place in London, Tokyo, and Moscow as Cayce judges the effectiveness of a proposed corporate symbol and is hired to seek the creators of film clips anonymously posted to the internet. (Full article...)

The Widows of Culloden (Scottish Gaelic: Bantraich de cuil lodair) is the twenty-eighth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, made for the Autumn/Winter 2006 season of his eponymous fashion house. It was inspired by his Scottish ancestry and is regarded as one of his most autobiographical collections. It is named for the widows of the Battle of Culloden (1746), often seen as a major conflict between Scotland and England. Widows makes extensive use of the McQueen family tartan and traditional gamekeeper's tweeds, as well as other elements taken from Highland dress. Historical elements reflected the fashion of the late Victorian era and the 1950s. (Full article...)

Benedetto Pistrucci (29 May 1783 – 16 September 1855) was an Italian gem-engraver, medallist and a coin engraver, probably best known for his Saint George and the Dragon design for the British sovereign coin. Pistrucci was commissioned by the British government to create the large Waterloo Medal, a project which took him thirty years to complete. (Full article...)

Tenebrae (lit. '"darkness"', also known as Tenebre) is a 1982 Italian giallo film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Anthony Franciosa as American author Peter Neal, who – while in Rome promoting his latest murder-mystery novel – becomes embroiled in the search for a serial killer who may have been inspired to kill by his novel. John Saxon and Daria Nicolodi co-star as Neal's agent and assistant respectively, while Giuliano Gemma and Carola Stagnaro appear as detectives investigating the murders. John Steiner, Veronica Lario, and Mirella D'Angelo also feature in minor roles. The film has been described as exploring themes of dualism and sexual aberration, and has strong metafictional elements; some commentators consider Tenebrae to be a direct reaction by Argento to criticism of his previous work, most especially his depictions of murders of women. (Full article...)

Homer Calvin Davenport (1867 – May 2, 1912) was a political cartoonist and writer from the United States. He is known for drawings that satirized figures of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, most notably Ohio Senator Mark Hanna. Although Davenport had no formal art training, he became one of the highest paid political cartoonists in the world. Davenport also was one of the first major American breeders of Arabian horses and one of the founders of the Arabian Horse Club of America. (Full article...)