Bing Images archive 2022/03

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  2022-03-01Women s History Month

  To celebrate the start of Women"s History Month, our homepage photo features a candid shot of members of the US Army Nurse Corps in 1944. The women are shown in between training exercises while they await deployment to the South Pacific near the end of World War II. At the time, all who served in the Army Nurse Corps were women, and the units were all segregated. And though the need for nurses was urgent, the army had set a quota for just 160 Black nurses. By the end of the war, that number had increased to nearly 500.

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  2022-03-02Mount Rainier National Park

  Mount Rainier is the crown jewel of its namesake national park, designated March 2, 1899, by President William McKinley. It was just the fifth national park in the United States. Beyond the mountain, the 369-square-mile park also includes valleys, waterfalls, old-growth forest, and pristine alpine meadows famous for summer wildflowers.

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  2022-03-03World Wildlife Day

  Today is World Wildlife Day, the UN-sponsored tribute to efforts that protect the plants and animals that make our world so special. This year"s WWD theme is "recovering key species for ecosystem restoration"—key species like the greater one-horned rhinoceroses you see here in northeastern India"s Kaziranga National Park. These unique creatures have staged a remarkable comeback from the verge of extinction in the early 20th century, when their numbers had dwindled to a precarious low of around 100 animals. But with the concerted efforts of Indian and Nepalese wildlife authorities, the population of greater one-horned rhinos has slowly built back up to around 3,700 today.

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  2022-03-042022 Winter Paralympics

  The 2022 Winter Paralympics begins today in Beijing, as the Chinese capital becomes the first city to host both the summer and winter editions of the Paralympic Games. Over the next 10 days, about 600 athletes will compete in 78 different events across six sports—alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, snowboarding, para ice hockey, and wheelchair curling. All the events will take place in a strict Covid "bubble" system to ensure safety at the Games.

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  2022-03-05Mont-Saint-Michel

  Rising majestically out of the bay, Mont-Saint-Michel is once again a true island, at least during high tides. A crude, elevated causeway built in the 19th century once connected Mont-Saint-Michel to the mainland, allowing visitors to walk across to the spectacular rock. But in 2014, the causeway was removed and replaced by an elegant, curving bridge above the tidal flats. Now water flows freely around the monument at high tide, making the tiny island fortress a real island for the first time in more than a century.

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  2022-03-06Great cormorants

  Great cormorants are among the great anglers of the avian world. Found in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and North America, they"re expert at diving under the water"s surface to catch bottom-dwelling fish.

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  2022-03-07Lake Tekapo, New Zealand

  Here on New Zealand"s rugged South Island, the waters of Lake Tekapo display such striking electric-blue colors because of glacial silt flowing into the lake, carried by the braided Godley and Macauley Rivers, seen at the bottom of our image. These rivers are themselves fed by the melted waters of glaciers in the nearby Southern Alps. As these active glaciers slowly bulldoze the mountainsides, they pulverize rocks along valley floors and walls. All that grinding eventually produces a fine-grained powder of silt, sometimes called glacial flour. Meltwater picks up the silt, carrying it downstream and into lakes like Tekapo. The particles are so light and fine, they"re slow to sink to the bottom, remaining suspended in the water column instead.

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  2022-03-08International Women s Day

  This famous feisty girl stands her ground in front of the New York Stock Exchange in lower Manhattan, a striking reminder as we celebrate International Women"s Day that we still have work to do in the quest for gender equality. Kristen Visbal"s bronze sculpture "Fearless Girl" took up her power pose in 2017 facing down the iconic Wall Street bronze statue called "Charging Bull." For the 2021 observance of International Women"s Day, the corporate sponsor of "Fearless Girl" added broken glass around her, with a plaque that read: "Today"s broken glass ceilings are tomorrow"s stepping stones."

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  2022-03-09Flower of Life symbol drawn in snow

  German artist Michael Uy created this "Flower of Life" geometric pattern in the snow in Brandenburg. Preparations began about a week before the snow"s arrival, when Uy hammered 19 wooden posts into a field, carefully measuring the space between each post. After the snowfall, he walked near-perfect circles around all 19 pillars, using a string to keep an equal distance from the posts. The artist then used a broom to further remove the snow from his footprints and reveal the lines of the flower nearly 200 feet across. Uy"s piece was fully visible only when the sun was low. And only until the next snow or warm day. Luckily, a drone was dispatched to snap this photograph.

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  2022-03-10Bobbio, Italy

  Between the metropolis of Milan—the fashion and design capital of Italy—and the fabled seaport city of Genoa, you"ll find this small river town in northern Italy. People have resided here since ancient times, at least as far back as the Roman era, but the town really began to flourish when the abbey was constructed in the 7th century. For much of the Middle Ages, the Bobbio Abbey and its vast library made the town a center of religion, culture, and learning.

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  2022-03-11We stand with Ukraine

  Ukraine grows so many sunflowers they"ve become regarded as the country"s national flower—and recently, as a symbol of resistance. Just like sunflowers standing tall against a blue sky, the people of Ukraine are holding strong while an unlawful invasion threatens their democracy. As Ukrainians battle for their nation"s existence, millions of people have been forced to flee their homes to an uncertain future.

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  2022-03-12The Girl Scouts celebrate 110 years

  Today we"re celebrating 110 years of the Girl Scouts! Sure, we enjoy their cookies every year, but with so much history behind the organization, the Girl Scouts deserve merit badges for more than just the Thin Mint. On March 12, 1912, founder Juliette Gordon Low brought an outfit called the Girl Guides stateside from England after befriending the founder of the scouting movement there. The first American troop had 18 girls participating. Low designed activities to allow girls to serve their communities, experience the outdoors, and develop self-reliance and resourcefulness. Those skills would be useful on the camping expedition seen in today"s photo. These girls can be seen along the shore of Todd Lake at the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon in 1960.

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  2022-03-13Daylight saving time

  Just like the European hare, we get a little more hop in our steps this time of year—and a bit more daylight as well. It"s the second Sunday of March, when most Americans and Canadians "spring forward," setting their clocks ahead one hour in observance of daylight saving time (DST). Then on the first Sunday of November, we"ll "fall back" by turning our clocks back an hour.

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  2022-03-14Pi Day

  Did Neolithic humans build this structure to celebrate Pi Day? Not likely. Pi Day is a relatively recent phenomenon—invented by a physicist in 1988 and designated by Congress a national holiday in 2009. But it"s already almost certainly the most popular holiday celebrating a mathematical constant. While Pi Day is a young tradition, the number π (pi) itself has been a fascination since antiquity, when it was first calculated as the ratio of a circle"s circumference to its diameter.

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  2022-03-15Beware the Ides of March

  We"re at the Roman Forum for the Ides of March, a date made famous as the time of Julius Caesar"s assassination. According to the ancient historian Plutarch, Caesar had been warned by a seer that his life would be in danger no later than the Ides of March, something that William Shakespeare dramatizes in his famous tragedy of Caesar’s life and assassination. While historical fact and fiction can diverge, we do know that before March 15, 44 BCE was over, a group of senators had intercepted Caesar here in the Forum as Caesar was on his way to the Senate House. They stabbed him 23 times, killing him. Afterward, Rome descended into civil war, ending the Roman Republic, and leading to the rise of the Roman Empire.

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  2022-03-16Panda Day

  There"s just something comforting about giant pandas. They"re stoic but look cuddly, and their unusual black and white markings make them distinctive. Pandas are one of the animals we recognize from an early age. But while we may take them for granted, they"ve been under threat from shrinking habitats and food supply as people harvest bamboo and build roads and train tracks through their forests. National Panda Day on March 16 spreads awareness about these beloved bears and encourages us to safeguard their future.

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  2022-03-17St. Patrick s Day

  Ireland has been called the land of "40 shades of green," but this green leprechaun"s-eye view comes from the feet of California"s coastal redwoods. Today we celebrate St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, who famously never traveled to California. St. Patrick is often depicted holding a shamrock, which he purportedly used to explain Christianity in Ireland by saying the leaves illustrated the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of the Holy Trinity. Never mind that Celtic druids had revered the sacred shamrock and its three leaves long before Patrick"s arrival. Coins depicting St. Patrick with a shamrock date back as far as 1675.

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  2022-03-18Holi festival

  The ancient Hindu festival of Holi will find revelers caked in these colorful powders by the day"s end. Also referred to as the Festival of Spring, the Festival of Love, and the Festival of Colors, Holi is celebrated during the full moon in the Hindu calendar month of Phalguna, which falls around the middle of March in the Gregorian calendar. This year it"s March 18. Holi symbolizes the triumph of good over evil and celebrates the beginning of spring, the end of winter, and the blossoming of love in all forms. It"s a time for affirming friendships, burying old grievances, and letting romance bloom.

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  2022-03-19Chicagohenge

  During the fall and spring equinox, the celestial phenomenon known as Chicagohenge occurs when the sun rises or sets directly between the buildings lining Chicago"s east- and west-facing streets. The city"s almost perfectly aligned grid is responsible for the event.

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  2022-03-20World Frog Day

  World Frog Day is celebrated every year on March 20, a chance to consider the world"s most famous tailless amphibian. The star of fairy tales, cartoons, films, and TV shows, the charismatic and clearly photogenic frog accounts for almost all amphibian species. Frogs have been around for more than 200 million years, and although they live in both warm and cold places, most reside in tropical rainforests.

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  2022-03-21World Poetry Day

  "How like a winter hath my absence been / From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! / What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! / What old December"s bareness everywhere!"

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  2022-03-22World Water Day

  You can almost hear the crash and feel the spray of this cluster of pristine waterfalls in southern Idaho. Could there be a better place to celebrate World Water Day? Since 1993, the UN has dedicated March 22 to advocate for sustainable management of freshwater resources and bring attention to topics relevant to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. Each year a different aspect of this critical resource has been emphasized, with themes like "Valuing Water," "Water and Climate Change," "Water and Jobs," and "Why Waste Water?" This year"s theme is "Groundwater—Making the Invisible Visible."

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  2022-03-23World Meteorological Day

  Did you check the weather forecast today? Does it look like rain? Will it turn colder? What"s the outlook for the weekend? These questions may seem commonplace, even mundane, but the answers can be of crucial importance. Given our reliance on weather prediction, let"s tip the rain hat to the world"s weather experts on World Meteorological Day, celebrated each March 23 by the United Nation"s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

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  2022-03-24Red squirrel

  Shhh, it"s sleeping. But don"t confuse that with hibernating. A tree squirrel, like this red squirrel in Scotland, doesn"t hibernate during the winter. Hibernating is more of a ground squirrel trait. But the red squirrel is particular about where it sleeps, mostly building its nest, or drey, high above the ground in the cavity of an evergreen tree. Nests are often lined with soft materials such as leaves, moss, and grass. This little sleeper is using its bushy tail to keep warm, with the help of some lichen and pine needles.

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  2022-03-25Tolkien Reading Day

  For Tolkien Reading Day, we"re visiting the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Swiss Alps, which is believed to have inspired the Elven sanctuary of Rivendell in J.R.R. Tolkien"s novels "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit." Like Tolkien"s mythical Elf settlement, Lauterbrunnen Valley has a bit of storybook appeal, with an unusually narrow valley floor hemmed in by steep Alpine cliffs and dotted with numerous waterfalls. Lauterbrunnen became popular among mountain climbers and hikers beginning in the late 19th century, and Tolkien hiked through the valley in 1911. The valley remains a popular tourist destination.

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  2022-03-26Spring awakens

  No flower better signals the start of spring than crocuses, early bloomers that come in Easter egg colors such as purple, lavender, orange, pink, and yellow. Crocuses are perennial, flowering bulbs that are built for toughness. As you can see, the plants are able to endure frost and even snow because their flowers and leaves are protected by a waxy cuticle. That"s why the first blooms you see in spring are often crocuses. They can grow in a variety of environments, even in the high elevations of the alpine tundra above the tree line.

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  2022-03-27World Theatre Day

  What better place to celebrate World Theatre Day than the ancient theater of Taormina, Sicily, an amphitheater built in the Hellenistic style of the Greeks in the third century BCE. The venue was later expanded by the Romans and is one of the signature sights in Taormina. And if you look in the upper-right corner of the photo, that"s Mount Etna giving a performance of its own, spewing a little ash and smoke.

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  2022-03-28Kawachi Fuji Garden

  Today we"re taking a trip to a Japanese purple paradise. This photo captures just one of over 22 different varieties of wisteria planted at the Kawachi Fuji Garden in Kitakyushu, Japan. Hundreds of wisteria plants were meticulously cultivated to form tunnels that bloom with shades of blue, white, purple, and pink. The walkable tunnels open into large domes of wisteria vines for visitors to sit under and bask in the fragrant flowers. An overlook gives visitors an impressive view of not only the flowers but also the surrounding valley and its bamboo groves.

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  2022-03-29Northern coast of Colombia

  Colombia is the only country in South America that has coastline on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Seen here is a stretch of beach near Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona and the small town of Buritaca, on the Caribbean coast along Colombia’s north shore. This region boasts some of the most beautiful beaches in the country. It"s also among Colombia"s most ecologically diverse areas, with jungle, desert, and one of the highest coastal mountain ranges in the world, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

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  2022-03-30Belted Galloway cows

  These cool cows are Belted Galloways, also known as "Oreo cows." (And if you like a glass of milk with your cookies…) The heritage breed originated in the southwest of Scotland, and it thrives on the region"s rough pastures and windswept slopes. Belted Galloways fight the elements with a double-layer coat: The long, coarse hair diverts rain, and beneath that, the cow has a soft undercoat to keep it warm and dry in the harsh Scottish winters.

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  2022-03-31Happy Birthday, Eiffel Tower

  Locally, it"s called "La dame de fer," which translates to English as "The Iron Lady." To the rest of the world, it"s the Eiffel Tower, a landmark nearly synonymous with all things Parisian. It"s one of the most recognizable structures in the world and the most visited monument with an entrance fee. The Eiffel Tower took 500 workers two years, two months, and five days to complete. Most of the structural work was finished by the end of March 1889 and to celebrate, the builders led a group of government officials and journalists to the top of the tower on March 31. It was, at the time, the highest man-made structure in the world. With the addition of a new radio antenna on March 15, 2022, the Eiffel Tower grew an additional 20 feet and is now 1,083 feet tall, just in time for its 133rd birthday.