Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed is a painting by English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1830. It shows a scene from the Histories by Herodotus, in which Candaules, king of Lydia, invites his bodyguard Gyges to hide in the couple's bedroom and watch his wife Nyssia undress. After Nyssia notices Gyges, he kills Candaules and takes his place as king. The painting shows the moment at which Nyssia, unaware of Gyges, removes the last of her clothes. Etty hoped to impart the moral that women are not chattels and that men violating their rights should be punished, but he made little effort to explain this to audiences. The painting was immediately controversial, seen as a cynical combination of pornography and a violent unpleasant narrative, and critics condemned it as an immoral work of the type they would not expect from a British artist. In 1929 it was among several artworks transferred to the newly expanded Tate Gallery, where it remains. Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candaules,_King_of_Lydia,_Shews_his_Wife_by_Stealth_to_Gyges,_One_of_his_Ministers,_as_She_Goes_to_Bed> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1556: The deadliest earthquake in history killed about 830,000 people in Shaanxi Province, China. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1556_Shaanxi_earthquake> 1793: The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for the second time. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Partition_of_Poland> 1915: The Chilembwe uprising, regarded as a key moment in the history of Malawi, began as rebels, led by a minister, attacked local plantation owners. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilembwe_uprising> 1942: World War II: Japan began its invasion of the island of New Britain in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rabaul_(1942)> 1968: USS Pueblo was seized by North Korean forces, who claimed that it had violated their territorial waters while spying. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2)> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: glossolalia: 1. Speaking a language one does not know, or speaking elaborate but apparently meaningless speech, while in a trance-like state (or, supposedly, under the influence of a deity or spirits); speaking in tongues. 2. Xenoglossy (“knowledge of a language one has never learned”). <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/glossolalia> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   He had never seen a "Fallout," and he hoped he'd never see one. A consistent description of the monster had not survived, but Francis had heard the legends. … Brother Francis visualized a Fallout as half- salamander, because, according to tradition, the thing was born in the Flame Deluge, and as half-incubus who despoiled virgins in their sleep, for, were not the monsters of the world still called "children of the Fallout"? That the demon was capable of inflicting all the woes which descended upon Job was recorded fact, if not an article of creed.   --Walter M. Miller, Jr. <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller,_Jr.>