Lichfield Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral in Lichfield, in the English county of Staffordshire. A cathedral was first built on the site in 700, by Bishop Headda, to house the bones of St Chad. The original wooden building was replaced by a Norman cathedral made from stone, which in turn was replaced by the present Gothic structure, begun in 1195. The fabric of the cathedral suffered in the English Civil War, when it was used as a defensive structure. In the 18th century the interior was extensively remodelled, with major structural work organised by James Wyatt; this involved removing the high altar to make a single worship area consisting of the choir and lady chapel, and adding a massive stone screen at the entrance to the choir. This photograph shows the choir of the cathedral, which was built around 1200.

Photograph credit: David Iliff

The Madagascar stonechat (Saxicola sibilla) is a species of stonechat endemic to Madagascar. It is a small bird, closely similar to the African stonechat in both plumage and behaviour, but distinguished from it by the more extensive black on the throat and minimal orange-red on the upper breast of the males. This male Madagascar stonechat perching on a branch was photographed in Analamazaotra National Park, near Andasibe.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

Luis Walter Alvarez (1911–1988) was an American experimental physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for his discovery of resonance states in particle physics using the hydrogen bubble chamber. After receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1936, Alvarez went to work for Ernest Lawrence at the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined MIT Radiation Laboratory in 1940, where he contributed to a number of World War II radar projects and worked as a test pilot, before joining Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project in 1943. He moved back to Berkeley as a full professor after the war, going on to use his knowledge in work on improving particle accelerators. This 1969 photograph shows Alvarez with a magnetic monopole detector at Berkeley.

Photograph credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory / Department of Energy

Bistorta officinalis, also known as he common bistort, is a species of flowering plant in the dock family Polygonaceae. It is native to Europe and northern and western Asia, but has also been cultivated and become naturalized in other parts of the world such as in the United States. It is typically found growing in moist meadows, nutrient-rich wooded swamps, forest edges, wetlands, parks, gardens and disturbed ground. A herbaceous perennial, it grows to a height of 20 to 80 centimetres (8 to 31 inches). It blooms from late spring into autumn, producing tall, erect, unbranched and hairless stems ending in single terminal racemes that are club-like spikes, 5 to 7 centimetres (2 to 3 inches) long, of rose-pink flowers. This B. officinalis inflorescence was photographed in the Austrian Alps.

Photograph credit: Uoaei1

Pelophylax cypriensis, commonly known as the Cyprus water frog, is a species of frog in the family Ranidae, the true frogs. It is endemic to Cyprus. It is a medium-sized frog, with females (body length up to 75 mm, 3.0 in) being larger than males (up to 65 mm, 2.6 in). The skin is rather warty and colouration varies widely. There are four unwebbed toes on the front legs and five webbed toes on the hindlegs. Males have paired external vocal sacs. This Cyprus water frog was photographed under the Elia Bridge in Limassol District, Cyprus.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

Walter White (1893–1955) was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a quarter of a century, from 1929 until his death. He directed a broad program of legal challenges to racial segregation and disfranchisement. Under his leadership, the NAACP oversaw the plans and organizational structure of the fight against public segregation in the United States. He worked with President Harry S. Truman on desegregating the armed forces after World War II and gave him a draft of Executive Order 9981 to implement this. Under White's leadership, the NAACP set up its Legal Defense Fund, which conducted numerous legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement, and achieved many successes. This photograph of White was taken by Clara Sipprell around 1950, and is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Photograph credit: Clara Sipprell; restored by Adam Cuerden

Tarazona is a town and municipality, and the capital of the comarca Tarazona y el Moncayo in Aragon, Spain. It is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarazona. Located on the river Queiles, a tributary of the Ebro, Tarazona was an important regional centre of ancient Rome, known as Turiaso, located around 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Bilbilis. The city later came under the rule of the Visigoths, who called it Tirasona. This view of Tarazona was taken from the city's episcopal palace, and shows Tarazona Cathedral and its seminary, the Old Bullfight Arena, and the Sanctuary of the Lady of the River.

Photograph credit: Diego Delso

Picea omorika, commonly known as the Pančić spruce or the Serbian spruce, is a species of coniferous tree endemic to the valley of the Drina in western Serbia, and eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a total range of only about 60 hectares (150 acres) at altitudes of 800 to 1,600 metres (2,625 to 5,249 ft). The species was originally discovered near the Serbian village of Zaovine on Mount Tara in 1875, and named by the Serbian botanist Josif Pančić. It is a medium-sized evergreen tree that generally grows to a height of around 20 metres (66 ft), with a trunk diameter of up to 1 metre (3 ft). It has buff-brown shoots with dense hair coverage and needle-like leaves. Its cones are fusiform in shape and grow to a length of 4 to 7 centimetres (2 to 3 in). They are dark purple when young, maturing to dark brown, and have stiff scales. This young female P. omorika cone, with a length of 22 millimetres (0.87 in), was photographed near Keila, Estonia.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

A basso porto (At the Lower Harbour) is an opera in three acts by the Italian composer Niccola Spinelli. The opera sets an Italian-language libretto by Eugene Checchi, based on Goffredo Cognetti's 1889 play O voto. It premiered to critical success at the Cologne Opera on April 18, 1894, sung in a German translation by Ludwig Hartmann and Otto Hess. This watercolour illustration depicts the set design by Riccardo Salvadori for act 1 of the opera's premiere. A basso porto is set in the slums of Naples, and Spinelli included mandolins and guitars in his orchestral score.

Set design credit: Riccardo Salvadori

The American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) is a large aquatic soaring bird from the order Pelecaniformes. It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Costa Rica, in winter. Along with the trumpeter swan, it is one of the longest birds native to North America, with an overall length of about 50 to 70 inches (130 to 180 cm). The beak measures 11.3 to 15.2 inches (290 to 390 mm) in males and 10.3 to 14.2 inches (260 to 360 mm) in females, while its wingspan is around 95 to 120 inches (240 to 300 cm). The American white pelican does not dive for its food as some other pelican species do, instead catching its prey while swimming. Each bird eats more than 4 pounds (1.8 kg) of food a day, predominantly fish, which ranges from the size of minnows to 3.5-pound (1.6 kg) pickerels. This adult American white pelican in non-breeding plumage was photographed at Las Gallinas Wildlife Ponds in San Rafael, California.

Photograph credit: Frank Schulenburg