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Gadsden Purchase half dollar

Gadsden Purchase half dollar.
The Gadsden Purchase half dollar was a proposed commemorative coin to be issued by the United States Bureau of the Mint. El Paso coin dealer L. W. Hoffecker (pictured) wanted a coin issued he could control and distribute. He gained the support of several members of Congress, and a bill was introduced. Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon sent a letter and two officials in opposition to the bill at its committee hearing, but it passed both houses of Congress without dissent. On April 21, 1930, President Herbert Hoover vetoed the bill, deeming commemorative coins abusive; the House of Representatives sustained his veto. No commemorative coins were struck during the remainder of the Hoover administration, and although they began again after Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated, in 1938, Roosevelt vetoed one, citing Hoover's action, as would Truman and Eisenhower. No commemorative coins were struck from 1955 until after the Treasury Department changed its position in 1981.

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Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents

Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents.
Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents is the collective name for two late-15th-century portrait panels by the German painter Albrecht Dürer. They show his parents, Barbara Holper and Albrecht Dürer the Elder, when she was around 39 and he was 63, and are among four paintings or drawings Dürer made of the couple. The portraits are unflinching records of the physical and emotional effects of ageing, which Dürer may have intended either to display his skill to his parents or as keepsakes while he travelled as a journeyman painter. His father's panel is considered the superior work and has been described as one of Dürer's most exact and honest portraits. The Dürer family was close, and his later writings show the love and respect he felt toward his parents. The panels, separated since at least 1628, were reunited in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum's 2012 exhibition "The Early Dürer".

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Siberian accentor

Siberian accentor.
The Siberian accentor (Prunella montanella) is a small passerine bird that breeds in northern Russia from the Ural Mountains eastwards across Siberia. It is migratory, wintering in Korea and eastern China. Typically breeding in subarctic deciduous forests and open coniferous woodland, often near water, it is also found in bushes and shrubs in winter, frequently near streams. It has brown upperparts and wings, with bright chestnut streaking on its back and a greyish-brown rump and tail. The head has a dark brown crown and a long pale yellow "eyebrow". All plumages are similar. The nest is an open cup into which the female lays four to six eggs that hatch in about ten days. Adults and chicks feed mainly on insects, typically picked off the ground, and may also eat seeds in winter. Breeding over a huge area, this accentor has a large and apparently stable population. October and November 2016 saw an unprecedented influx of this species into western Europe as far west as the UK.

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