Rastafari

Rastafari.
Rastafari is a religion that developed among impoverished and socially disenfranchised Afro-Jamaican communities in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is both a new religious movement and a social movement. There is no central authority and much diversity among practitioners. Rasta beliefs are based on a specific interpretation of the Bible; a belief in a single God, Jah, who partially resides within each individual, is integral. Rastas accord central importance to Haile Selassie (pictured), Emperor of Ethiopia between 1930 and 1974; many regard him as the Second Coming of Jesus and Jah incarnate; others see him as a human prophet. Rastafari is Afrocentric and focuses on the African diaspora. In the 1960s and 1970s, it gained increased respectability and greater visibility abroad through the popularity of Rasta-inspired reggae musicians, most notably Bob Marley. There are an estimated 700,000 to 1,000,000 Rastas across the world, the majority of whom are of black African descent.

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Francesco Caracciolo-class battleship

Francesco Caracciolo-class battleship.
The Francesco Caracciolo-class battleships were a group of four battleships designed for the Royal Italian Navy in 1913 and ordered in 1914. The first ship of the class, Francesco Caracciolo, was laid down in late 1914; the other three ships followed in 1915. Armed with a main battery of eight 381 mm (15 in) guns and possessing a top speed of 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph), the four ships were intended to be the equivalent of fast battleships such as the British Queen Elizabeth class. The class was never completed due to material shortages and shifting construction priorities following the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Only the lead ship was launched, in 1920, and several proposals to convert her into an aircraft carrier were considered, but budgetary problems prevented any work being done. She was sold to an Italian shipping firm for conversion into a merchant vessel, but this also proved to be too expensive, and she was broken up for scrap, beginning in 1926.

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Gigantorhynchus

Gigantorhynchus.
Gigantorhynchus is a genus of thorny-headed worms that parasitize marsupials, anteaters, and possibly baboons by attaching themselves to the intestines using their hook-covered proboscis. The life cycle includes a larval stage in an intermediate host such as termites. In addition to the proboscis, the body is characterized by pseudosegmentation, filiform lemnisci, and ellipsoid testes. The largest known specimen is a female G. ortizi (example pictured) with a length of around 240 millimetres (9.4 in) and a width of 2 millimetres (0.079 in). Genetic analysis on one species of Gigantorhynchus places it with the related Mediorhynchus genus in the Giganthorhynchidae family. There are six species in this genus distributed across Central and South America and possibly Zimbabwe. Infestation by a Gigantorhynchus species can cause potentially fatal partial obstructions of the intestines or severe lesions of the intestinal wall.

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Æthelred I, King of Wessex

Æthelred I, King of Wessex.
Æthelred I (845 or 848 – 871) was King of Wessex from 865 until his death. He was the fourth of five sons of King Æthelwulf. He succeeded his elder brother Æthelberht and was followed by his youngest brother, Alfred the Great. Æthelred's two infant sons were passed over for the kingship. Æthelred's accession coincided with the arrival of the Viking Great Heathen Army in England. Over the next five years the Vikings conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, before launching a full-scale attack on Wessex in late 870. In early January 871, Æthelred was defeated at the Battle of Reading. Four days later he scored a victory in the Battle of Ashdown, but this was followed by two defeats at Basing and Meretun. He died shortly after Easter. Alfred was forced to buy off the Vikings, but decisively defeated them seven years later. Æthelred's reign was important numismatically, as he adopted the Mercian Lunettes design, creating a unified coinage design for southern England for the first time.