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Statue of a nymph and satyr once held in the Secretum

The Secretum was a British Museum collection of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that held artefacts and images deemed sexually graphic. Many of the items were from pre-Christian traditions and covered wide ranges of human history and geography. Many of the early artefacts with erotic or sexually graphic images acquired by the museum were not put on public display. Modern scholars believe this segregation was probably motivated by a paternalistic stance from the museum to keep what they considered morally dangerous material away from the public. By the 1860s there were around 700 such items held by the museum. In 1865 the antiquarian George Witt donated his phallocentric collection of 434 artefacts to the museum, which led to the formal setting up of the Secretum. Beginning in 1912 items were gradually transferred from the Secretum into departments appropriate for their time frame and culture. The last remaining items were moved out of the collection in 2005. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

October 3

Battle of the Narrow Seas

1392 – Muhammad VII became the twelfth sultan of the Emirate of Granada.
1602 – Anglo-Spanish War: An English fleet intercepted and attacked six Spanish ships at the Battle of the Narrow Seas (pictured).
1849 – American author Edgar Allan Poe was found semi-conscious and delirious in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances; it was the last time he was seen in public before his death four days later.
1952 – The United Kingdom successfully conducted its first nuclear test, becoming the world's third state with nuclear weapons.
1991 – Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Ermengarde of Hesbaye (d. 818)
Louise Lehzen (b. 1784)
George Ripley (b. 1802)
Fakih Usman (d. 1968)

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Did you know...

Lion sculpture by Anders Årfelt

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... that former Commonwealth Games diver Nicky Cooney became a police officer?
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... that attractions at the 1939 World's Fair included a roller coaster, a ski slope, and scantily clad women?

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