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From today's featured article Sibelius in 1939 The Eighth Symphony was Jean Sibelius's final major compositional project, occupying him intermittently from the mid-1920s until around 1938. How much of the symphony was completed is unknown; Sibelius repeatedly refused to release it for performance, though he promised the premiere to several leading conductors. Following the success of his Seventh Symphony of 1924, it was expected that his symphonic flow would continue, but after the tone poem Tapiola of 1926, his published output was confined to minor pieces and revisions to earlier works. The Eighth Symphony's destruction was made known after Sibelius's death in 1957, but in the 1990s, while cataloguing the composer's many notebooks and sketches, scholars speculated that fragments of music from the lost symphony may have survived. Several short manuscript sketches have been tentatively identified with the Eighth, three of which (comprising less than three minutes of music) were recorded by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in 2011. The prospect of further reconstruction has generally been discounted; the propriety of publicly performing music that Sibelius himself had rejected has also been questioned. (Full article...) Recently featured: George Macaulay A Contract with God Battle of Sio Did you know... Mai Pokhari wetland ... that Mai Pokhari (pictured), a wetland in the Ilam District of Nepal, designated a Ramsar site in October 2008, is a pilgrimage center for both Hindus and Buddhists? ... that Vera Fedorovna Gaze, who discovered around 150 emission nebulae, had a minor planet and a crater on Venus named for her? ... that SC Union 06 Berlin was formed in 1950 when players of the East Berlin club SG Oberschöneweide moved to the western half of the city? ... that the victory of Sultan al-Atrash over French forces in the Battle of al-Kafr commenced the Great Syrian Revolt? ... that J. S. Guleria and his son Randeep Guleria are both doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences Delhi and were both awarded the Padma Shri? ... that the Floriana Lines are considered to be among the most complicated and elaborate of the Hospitaller fortifications of Malta? ... that the 1996 Andhra Pradesh cyclone resulted in more than 1,000 fatalities, and damaged more than 600,000 houses? ... that the ant species Myrmecia inquilina does not have a worker caste, and is parasitic on M. nigriceps and M. vindex colonies?

In the news Roch Marc Christian Kaboré The JAXA probe Akatsuki enters orbit around Venus at the second attempt. In Venezuela, the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable wins an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections. At least 29 workers die as a result of fire at the Azerbaijani Gunashli oilfield in the Caspian Sea. Flooding across southern India kills at least 300 people and displaces approximately 1.8 million others since November. Fourteen people are killed and twenty-one others injured in a shooting in San Bernardino, California. Roch Marc Christian Kaboré (pictured) is elected the first president of Burkina Faso since the 2014 Burkinabé uprising. Ongoing events: Syrian Civil War European migrant crisis Recent deaths: Scott Weiland Joseph Engelberger On this day... December 8: Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Roman Catholic Church); Constitution Day in Romania (1991); Rōhatsu in Japan Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Allegretto movement 1660 – A woman appeared on stage as a professional actress in England for the first time, most often credited to Margaret Hughes. 1813 – Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 (audio featured) premiered in Vienna with the composer himself conducting. 1963 – After being hit by a lightning strike while in a holding pattern, Pan Am Flight 214 crashed near Elkton, Maryland, US, killing all 81 people on board. 1987 – A man shot and killed eight people at the Australia Post building in Melbourne, before jumping to his death. 2013 – After a fatal car accident in the Little India region of Singapore, angry mobs of passersby attacked the bus involved and emergency vehicles, the first riot in the country in over 40 years. More anniversaries: December 7 December 8 December 9

Today's featured picture One of the Kasubi Tombs in Kampala, Uganda. The burial grounds of four kabakas (kings of Buganda), the tombs were first built in 1881 but destroyed in a fire on 16 March 2010. The Bugandan and Ugandan administration have vowed to rebuild this World Heritage Site. Photograph: not not phil Recently featured: Events in ballooning Egon Schiele Mars rovers

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