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Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) was an American baseball outfielder and pitcher who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1914 to 1935. Born in Baltimore, Ruth was sent at age seven to St. Mary's, a reformatory where he learned baseball skills. In 1914, Ruth was signed to play minor-league baseball for the Baltimore Orioles. He began his MLB career as a stellar left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth established many MLB batting (and some pitching) records, including 714 career home runs. In his fifteen years with the Yankees, Ruth helped them win seven American League pennants and four World Series championships. His big swing led to escalating home run totals that boosted baseball's popularity and made home runs a major factor in the sport. Ruth's unprecedented power and carousing lifestyle made him a larger-than-life figure in the "Roaring Twenties". One of the first five inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture, and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. (Full article...)

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A photograph of a marble relief under an arch in a wall between two vertical pillars with eight white candles in the foreground

Approximately 100 papal tombs are at least partially extant, representing less than half of the 264 deceased popes. In the first few centuries in particular, little is known of the popes and their tombs, and available information is often contradictory. As with other religious relics, multiple sites claim to house the same tomb. Furthermore, many papal tombs that recycled sarcophagi and other materials from earlier tombs were later recycled for their valuable materials or combined with other monuments. For example, the tomb of Pope Leo I was combined with Leos II, III, and IV circa 855, and then removed in the seventeenth century and placed under his own altar, below Alessandro Algardi's relief, Fuga d'Attila (pictured). The style of papal tombs has evolved considerably throughout history, tracking trends in the development of church monuments. Notable papal tombs have been commissioned from sculptors such as Michelangelo and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Most extant papal tombs are located in St. Peter's Basilica, other major churches of Rome, or other churches of Italy, France, and Germany. (Full list...)

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In the Conservatory

In the Conservatory is an 1879 oil painting by Édouard Manet which depicts a married couple, Manet's friends the Guillemets, in a conservatory in Paris then owned by painter Otto Rosen. Despite a hint of intimacy from the proximity of their hands, the couple appear separated from both each other and the conservatory around them. First exhibited in the 1879 Paris Salon, the painting is now held at the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

Painting: Édouard Manet

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