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From today's featured article

Daughters of Jacob Geriatric Center

Louis Abramson (August 1, 1887 – January 15, 1985) was an American architect who practiced mostly in New York City, specializing in hospitals, nursing homes, and restaurants. He is best known for designing the Daughters of Jacob Geriatric Center (pictured). Early in his career, he designed several Jewish Centers, a new type of building which filled the religious, cultural, educational, and often fitness needs of the community in a single structure. Abramson had little formal schooling in architecture; he took courses at Cooper Union, the Mechanics Institute, and Columbia University but did not complete a degree. Most of his training was on-the-job in junior positions at well-known New York City architecture firms, after which he started his own firm. He employed a variety of styles, including Neo-Renaissance, Moorish Revival, Neo-Classical, Tudor, Art Deco, and Art Moderne. Several of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

A male Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana) walks along a cliff side

... that Nubian ibex (pictured) have special desert adaptations compared to other wild goats, including thicker skin to protect from solar radiation and water loss?
... that Mike Soutar went viral on TikTok for his forensic investigations of business plans?
... that Aram Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance", a classical piece, was turned into a UK rock hit?
... that Craig Claiborne believed if he wrote an article on shrimp, Myra Waldo would soon be contacted by "every publisher in New York to write the definitive shrimp cookbook"?
... that the Jermyn Street showroom of Andrew Grima has been described as "pure Barbarella meets Bond villain lair"?
... that Eratosthenes, the librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria, was nicknamed "Beta" ('Second') because he wasn't considered the best at anything?
... that a rejected sculpture at Federal Way Downtown station would have had a circus elephant balancing on a tree trunk?
... that Brandon Arrington broke track meet records held by Olympic gold medalists Noah Lyles and Michael Norman?
... that "Guest Starring John Noble" guest stars John Noble as Australian actor John Noble?

In the news

An APD.20 train

Thirty-two people are killed when a crane falls onto a passenger train (similar train pictured) in Sikhio district, Thailand.
Following a Saudi-led offensive, Yemeni government forces take control of Aden, the capital of the Southern Transitional Council.
Faustin-Archange Touadéra is re-elected as the president of the Central African Republic.
Delcy Rodríguez is sworn in as the interim president of Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro during United States strikes on the capital.

On this day

January 15: John Chilembwe Day in Malawi

Fragment of the Derveni papyrus

1867 – In Regent's Park, London, the ice on the lake broke, plunging skaters into the water and causing 40 deaths from drowning or hypothermia.
1910 – Construction was completed on the Buffalo Bill Dam, then the tallest dam in the world, on the Shoshone River in the U.S. state of Wyoming.
1951 – Ilse Koch, wife of Karl-Otto Koch, the Nazi commander of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a West German court.
1962 – The Derveni papyrus (fragment pictured), the oldest surviving manuscript in Europe, was discovered in Macedonia in northern Greece.
1970 – The Republic of Biafra surrendered following a failed attempt at secession from Nigeria, ending the Nigerian Civil War.
2001 – The first edit to the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia was made.

Eliza McCardle Johnson (d. 1876)
Tsegaye Kebede (b. 1987)
Grace VanderWaal (b. 2004)
David Lynch (d. 2025)

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Today's featured picture

The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago in October 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles (9 km²) of the city (including more than 17,000 structures), and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. It began in a neighborhood southwest of the city center and spread rapidly, amid a long period of hot, dry, windy weather. The fire leapt the south branch of the Chicago River and destroyed much of central Chicago before crossing the main stem of the river and consuming the Near North Side. This Currier and Ives lithograph, titled Chicago in Flames, shows an artist's rendering of the Great Chicago Fire, facing northeast across the Randolph Street Bridge, with thousands of people fleeing on foot and by carriage.

Lithograph credit: Currier and Ives

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