Course on the Great Ouse

The Boat Race 2021 comprised two side-by-side rowing races that took place on 4 April. The Boat Race is contested annually between crews from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Traditionally held on the Championship Course in London, the 2021 race instead took place on the River Great Ouse near Ely (course map pictured). This was the 75th women's race and the 166th men's race; the 2020 race was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the 2021 races, Cambridge led 84–80 in the men's race and 44–30 in the women's. For the first time, both races were officiated by female umpires, Judith Packer and Sarah Winckless. Cambridge's women were strong favourites; Oxford took an early lead but Cambridge responded to win. Oxford were slight favourites in the men's race, but Cambridge won by just under one length. Cambridge completed a clean sweep in the reserve races on 25 April 2021 when their Goldie won the men's event and their Blondie won the women's race. ( Full article...)

Joséphine Pagnier

• ... that ski jumper Joséphine Pagnier (pictured), who competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics, won two medals at the Winter Youth Olympics two years ago?
• ... that a wolf and lion cub were raised together since they were five weeks old to film The Wolf and the Lion?
• ... that in their first operation, Japan's Special Security Response Team participated in humanitarian activities after the 2021 Atami landslide?
• ... that playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer is said to "deal with serious, existential questions in seriously hilarious ways"?
• ... that the 1980 bibliography The Old French Tristan Poems was praised for indexing the fragments of Tristan, a 12th-century poem?
• ... that American root doctor Valerie Boles was the inspiration for the character Minerva in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and its film adaptation?
• ... that following its victory over Bologna in the 1229 battle of San Cesario, the city of Modena returned the enemy's captured carroccio to prevent an escalation of the conflict?
• ... that LD has been called the "godfather of UK drill"?

Mudslide in Petrópolis, Brazil

• Russia launches an invasion of Ukraine.
• The Winter Olympics conclude in Beijing, China.
• At least 176 people are killed due to mudslides and floods (aftermath pictured) in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• In American football, the Los Angeles Rams defeat the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl.

February 24: Fat Thursday (Western Christianity, 2022); Independence Day in Estonia ( 1918)

The Drury Lane theatre in 1809

• 1525 – A Habsburg army defeated French forces at the Battle of Pavia, the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–1526.
• 1720 – War of the Quadruple Alliance: Spanish forces began a failed assault on the British settlement of Nassau in the Bahamas.
• 1809 – After standing only 15 years, London's Drury Lane theatre (pictured), the third building of that name, burned down.
• 1968 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese forces led by Ngô Quang Trưởng recaptured the citadel of Huế.
• 1978 – Five men disappeared after attending a college basketball game in Chico, California; the bodies of four of them were discovered four months later.