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Photograph:The Simpsons (from left: Lisa, Maggie, Marge, Homer, and Bart) fleeing Springfield in the dark of �

Homer & Gang: From TV to Film

The Simpsons is the longest-running animated television series in U.S. history (1989– ), but have the show and its characters lost their subversive edge? That's the question asked recently at the Britannica Blog. As the much-anticipated Simpsons movie debuts this week, review the origins of this highly influential and groundbreaking show and its impact on popular culture around the world. Features Archive

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John Winston Howard.Liberal leader John Howard, born this day in 1939, became prime minister of Australia in 1996, and his policies, including his strict immigration stance, proved popular with voters, who elected him to a fourth term in 2004.

This Day in History

Cargo ship in the Suez Canal near Ismailia, Egypt.On this day in 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal and nationalized it, sparking a crisis that later resulted in French, British, and Israeli forces briefly occupying parts of Egypt.
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Mount Tirich Mir, in Pakistan, is the highest peak of which mountain system?

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Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
George Bernard Shaw, The Rejected Statement
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ImageA complete set of Jay�s Journal of Anomalies, the very popular quarterly publication by Britannica contributor and sleight-of-hand artist Ricky Jay, is available here in a single illustrated volume of the same name. As the publisher states, it�s �a brilliant excursion into the history of bizarre entertainments.� Learn more about the book, and read Britannica�s entry on conjuring written by Ricky Jay.

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Conjuring


Food BookHere's a fascinating collection of readings that view food in a novel way�as a vehicle for understanding broad themes in history, anthropology, literature, and economics. Fast food, sushi, food scares, contamination�all are covered in The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating, a book edited by Melissa L. Caldwell and James Watson, author of Britannica�s entry on globalization.

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Globalization

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