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Today's featured article

Foxboro Stadium, host venue of MLS Cup 1999

MLS Cup 1999 was the fourth edition of the MLS Cup, the championship match of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top-level soccer league of the United States. It took place on November 21, 1999, at Foxboro Stadium (pictured) in Foxborough, Massachusetts, and was contested by D.C. United and the Los Angeles Galaxy in a rematch of the inaugural 1996 final played at the same venue. Both teams finished atop their respective conferences during the regular season under new head coaches and advanced through the first two rounds of the playoffs. D.C. United won 2–0 with first-half goals from Jaime Moreno and Ben Olsen for their third MLS Cup victory in four years; Olsen was named the most valuable player of the match for his winning goal. The final was played in front of 44,910 spectators – a record for the MLS Cup – and drew 1.16 million viewers on its ABC television broadcast. It was also the first MLS match to be played with a standard game clock and without a tiebreaker shootout. (Full article...)

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In the news

Hong Kong pro-democracy activists

Forty-five pro-democracy activists (some pictured) are sentenced under the Hong Kong national security law for their participation in the 2020 pro-democracy primaries.
The National People's Power, led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake, wins the Sri Lankan parliamentary election.
Samantha Harvey wins the Booker Prize for her novel Orbital.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby announces his resignation as a result of the John Smyth abuse scandal in the Church of England.

On This Day

November 21: Armed Forces Day in Bangladesh

Alan Freed

1894 – First Sino-Japanese War: After capturing the Chinese city of Port Arthur, the Japanese army began a massacre of the city's soldiers and civilians.
1959 – American disc jockey Alan Freed (pictured), who popularized the term rock and roll, was fired from WABC-AM for his role in the payola scandal.
1964 – The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City, opened to traffic as the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time.
1974 – Bombs exploded in two pubs in central Birmingham, England, killing 21 people and leading to the imprisonment of six people who were later exonerated.
2009 – An explosion in a coal mine in Heilongjiang, China, killed 108 miners.

Voltaire (b. 1694)
Hetty Green (b. 1834)
Milka Planinc (b. 1924)
Catherine Bauer Wurster (d. 1964)

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Did you know...

Song Zhenzhong

... that Song Zhenzhong (pictured), the son of Song Qiyun and Xu Linxia, was detained by the Kuomintang before his first birthday and executed at the age of eight?
... that Napoleon III was buried in St Mary's Church, Chislehurst, before his remains were moved to Farnborough Abbey 15 years later?
... that Sankar Montoute became the first NFL player from Trinidad and Tobago in 1987?
... that a San Francisco–area radio station sometimes had to be quiet to avoid disturbing patients at a nearby dentist's office?
... that Bethwel Henry was the first Micronesian to receive a degree in his field, and served as a United Nations delegate at the age of 25?
... that the novel Bloody Bread, about the struggles of Polish immigrants in the US, was briefly criticized by communist censors for "glorifying the United States"?
... that Leonardo DiCaprio was set to star in the film adaptation of Leonardo da Vinci?
... that the fishing cat mainly inhabits wetlands and preys predominantly on fish?
... that Ewa Ligocka cooked another mathematician's goose?

Featured Pictures

Commons picture of the day

This technical illustration shows early hot air balloon designs. The first untethered manned hot air balloon flight was performed by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes on this day in 1783.

Picture of the day

The red-lored whistler (Pachycephala rufogularis) is one of nine species of whistler occurring in Australia and a member of the family Pachycephalidae. It resides in the low mallee, spinifex, cypress pine and broombush woodland in the desert of central New South Wales, north-western Victoria and adjacent south-eastern South Australia, preferring low mallee woodlands or shrublands with open canopy, above a moderately dense but patchy scrub layer. The male bird has an orange or buff face and throat, a grey breastband extending around the neck and over the head, and rufous underparts with pale yellow or olive edging to primaries. The female is similar but with a paler throat and underparts. While it is often seen perched in trees and shrubs, the red-lored whistler feeds, for the most part, on the ground. Little is known about the movement of this species, although it is thought to be sedentary, with some movement possibly after breeding. It builds a substantial, cup-shaped nest made mostly of coarse bark and mallee leaves, neatly woven around the rim in low shrubs and lays two or three eggs. The species's limited range has seen it listed nationally as a vulnerable species. This red-lored whistler was photographed in the Nombinnie Nature Reserve in New South Wales.Photograph credit: John Harrison

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Todays featured list

Today's featured list is: November 21.

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