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From today's featured article In the news

Karl Nehammer
Caroline Johnson
The 2016 Sleaford and North Hykeham by-
election took place on 8 December, triggered by the
resignation of Member of Parliament (MP) Stephen
Phillips, a Conservative, who left Parliament due to
policy differences with Theresa May over Brexit. The
constituency had been held by the Conservatives
since it was first contested in the 1997 general
election and was considered a safe seat for the party.
Sleaford and North Hykeham was estimated to have
had a vote share of more than 60 per cent in favour of
leaving the EU in the June 2016 EU membership
referendum and Brexit was a key issue in the by-
election campaign. The Conservatives nominated
Caroline Johnson (pictured), a paediatrician; she won
the by-election with more than 50 per cent of the
vote. The UK Independence Party came second with Ongoing:
13 per cent of the vote, followed by the Liberal
 Karl Nehammer (pictured)
becomes Chancellor of Austria
following the resignation of
Alexander Schallenberg.
 Violent confrontations between a
unit of the Indian army and
civilians leave 15 people dead in
Nagaland.
 Adama Barrow is re-elected
President of the Gambia.
 On the Indonesian island of Java,
Mount Semeru erupts, killing at
least 34 people and injuring more
than 160 others.
Democrats with 11 per cent and Labour with 10 per
cent. The result was widely seen as poor for the
Labour Party, whose vote share decreased by 7 per
cent. (Full article...)
Recently featured:
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Did you know ...
Table setting at an Outstanding in the Field event
 ... that on an average night, between 130 and
200 people can be found Outstanding in the
Field (example pictured) for about five
hours?
 ... that Norman Colville renovated a manor to
house his growing art collection?
 ... that the Chile Ridge has a slab window?
 ... that before starring in the Pedro Almodóvar
film Parallel Mothers, Milena Smit worked
as a model, waitress, shop assistant,
babysitter, subway information assistant, and
hotel receptionist?
 ... that a "North Dakota joke of the mornin'"
was a feature on Montana radio station
KGRZ because the station's owner and
morning show host hailed from that state?
 ... that when Margaret de Longvillers
married into the House of Neville, her wealth
consolidated its position in English society?
 COVID-19 pandemic
Recent deaths:
 Fred Hiatt
 Medina Spirit
 Françoise Delord
 Mary Maher
 Christine Haidegger
 Marie-Claire Blais
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On this day
December 8: Feast of the Immaculate
Conception (Roman Rite Catholicism);
Rōhatsu in Japan
Margaret Hughes
 1660 – Margaret Hughes
(pictured) appeared professionally
on the English stage; she is
thought to have been the first
woman to do so.
 1854 – Pope Pius IX promulgated
the apostolic constitution
Ineffabilis Deus, proclaiming the
dogmatic definition of the
Immaculate Conception, which
holds that the Virgin Mary was
conceived free of original sin.
 1941 – The Holocaust: The
Chełmno extermination camp in
occupied Poland, the first such

 ... that the front of the 11th-century River
Laune Crozier contains a figure with oval
eyes, a thin nose, spiral ears and a handlebar
moustache that radiates out around him?
 ... that Mr. Bean accurately predicted the
results of many American elections?
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More anniversaries:
Today's featured picture
Nazi camp to kill Jews, began
operations.
 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War:
Following their successful attack
three days earlier, a small Indian
Navy strike force attacked the
Port of Karachi again and created
a de facto blockade.
 1991 – Belarusian, Russian and
Ukrainian leaders signed the
Belovezh Accords, agreeing to
dissolve the Soviet Union and
establish the Commonwealth of
Independent States.
 Maria Josepha of Austria
(b. 1699)
 Jean Sibelius (b. 1865)
 Betty Holberton (d. 2001)
 December 7
 December 8
 December 9
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 List of days of the year
 Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (8 December 1832 – 26 April
1910) was a Norwegian writer who received the 1903
Nobel Prize in Literature "as a tribute to his noble,
magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always
been distinguished by both the freshness of its
inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit". The first
Norwegian Nobel laureate, he was a prolific polemicist
and extremely influential in Norwegian public life and
Scandinavian cultural debate. Bjørnson is considered
to be one of the four great Norwegian writers,
alongside Ibsen, Lie, and Kielland, and is also
celebrated for his lyrics to the Norwegian national
anthem, "Ja, vi elsker dette landet".

Photograph credit: Erwin Raupp; restored by Adam Cuerden

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