On January 7th, 1558, Calais, the last English possession in France, was retaken by French troops under Duc de Guise. (The Pale of Calais had been an exclave and parliamentary borough of England across the Strait of Dover from 1347 to 1558.) The painting above, The Siege of Calais was completed by François-Édouard Picot in 1838.
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January 7th, 1610, Galileo Galilei discovered the first three moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa and Ganymede.
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And on January 7th, 1930, French physicist Marguerite Perey discovered Francium (Fr), the last naturally occurring element to be found.
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Today’s feature article is a guest post that was written by one of our writing contest prize sponsors.
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We need more entries for Round 122 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $978,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 122 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.