The Principality of Andorra, located in the Pyrénées Mountains between France and Spain, was founded by the Emperor Charlemagne. The people of Andorra celebrate their National Day by honoring Jungfrau von Meritxell, their patron saint. Pilgrims climb to her hilltop sanctuary near the villages of Encamp and Canillo, where her statue was found by a shepherd under an almond tree blooming out of season. The pilgrims stop to refresh themselves with drinks that have been cooled in the nearby springs, and after the sermon they celebrate by dancing and eating lamb grilled on slabs of slate. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Jarry was a French writer. After exhausting the inheritance that had allowed him to move to Paris at 18, he led a life of calculated buffoonery. His 1896 farce, Ubu Roi, is considered a forerunner of theatre of the absurd and of Surrealism. It featured the grotesque Père Ubu, a repulsive and cowardly hero based on one of his former teachers. The brilliant imagery and wit of his works usually lapse into unintelligible symbolism. A heavy drinker, he died at 34. What was his last request? 
Considered a masterpiece of British art, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is a 1768 oil-on-canvas painting by Joseph Wright. Portraying a scientific subject in the reverential manner formerly reserved for historical or religious scenes, the painting depicts a natural philosopher—a forerunner of the modern scientist—recreating an experiment in which a bird is deprived of oxygen before a group of onlookers. How does Wright effectively draw the viewer into the scene? 
In 1996, Shakur, an American rap star and actor, was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting while stopped at a red light on the Las Vegas strip. He died six days later. The 25-year-old Shakur had been involved in a violent rivalry between the East and West Coast rap scenes and had survived another shooting less than two years earlier. His killer has never been identified. However, some suspect that it was a man who had been in a public altercation with Shakur hours before the shooting—who? 
Lawrence was a leading black artist who portrayed African-American life, experience, and history with vivid, stylized realism. He was only in his twenties when his series depicting the migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North thrust him into the national spotlight. His use of somber browns and black for shadows and outlines in an otherwise vibrant palette lends his work a distinctive overtone, as does his flat painting style. Where can one view his last public work? 
The Amboyna massacre involved the torture and killing of 20 men—including 10 British East India Company employees—by agents of the Dutch East India Company in 1623. The companies were intense rivals who competed for dominance in the Maluku Islands spice trade. When the Dutch at the Amboyna trading post began to suspect the British of planning an attack, they tortured several men until they obtained confessions and then beheaded the accused for treason. What torture methods did the Dutch employ?