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Today's featured article

Ken "Snakehips" Johnson (10 September 1914 – 8 March 1941) was a swing band leader and leading figure in black British music of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in British Guiana, he was educated in Britain and travelled to New York to immerse himself in the Harlem jazz scene. He returned to Britain and established the Aristocrats (or Emperors) of Jazz, a mainly black swing band, with Leslie Thompson. In 1937 Johnson took control of the band through a legal loophole, causing the departure of Thompson and several musicians. Johnson filled the vacancies with Caribbean musicians, the band's popularity grew, and it changed its name to the West Indian Dance Orchestra. In 1938 the band broadcast on BBC Radio, recorded their first discs and appeared in an early television broadcast. Johnson was considered a pioneer for black musical leaders in the UK. Employed as the house band at the Café de Paris, a German bombing raid in 1941 hit the nightclub, killing Johnson. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

September 10

Portland Vase

1724 – Johann Sebastian Bach led the first performance of Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78, a chorale cantata based on a passion hymn by Johann Rist.
1779 – American Revolutionary War: Captain William Pickles of the Continental Navy boarded and captured the British sloop HMS West Florida at the Battle of Lake Pontchartrain.
1845 – John Doubleday completed a "masterly" restoration of the Portland Vase (pictured), which had been smashed into hundreds of pieces seven months prior.
1974 – After centuries of Portuguese rule, the country of Guinea-Bissau was formally recognized as independent.
2000 – British forces freed soldiers and civilians who had been held captive by the militant group the West Side Boys, contributing to the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War.

Mary Wollstonecraft (d. 1797)
Mortimer Wheeler (b. 1890)
Boyd K. Packer (b. 1924)
Jack Ma (b. 1964)

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Two people in an Electriquette

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