Women on France's New Euro Coins

France is redesigning its 10, 20 and 50 euro cent coins to honour women who have marked the country's history. The faces of national icons Simone Veil, Josephine Baker and Marie Curie will appear on coins set to go into circulation from the middle of 2024.

The new coins were designed by the French mint's chief engraver Joaquin Jimenez and feature the "three exceptional women".

Their profiles face in the same direction as "The Sower", the stylised female figure representing liberty that has been seen on French coins for the last 120 years.

The French side of the one and two cent coins, which feature oak and olive branches within a hexagon, was last redesigned for the 20th anniversary of the euro in 2022.

To read the complete article, see:
Veil, Baker and Curie: acclaimed women to appear on new French coins(https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20240310-veil-baker-and-curie-acclaimed-women-to-appear-on-new-french-coins)

Pioneering Football Referee's Medals

TWO rare medals presented to the English referee who invented yellow and red cards are going under the hammer.

Ken Aston's family are auctioning the items which were given to the man credited with creating many of the rules we see in football today.

They are expected to fetch thousands when they go on sale at an auction in Rayleigh, Essex next month.

One of the medals - which is 21 carat gold - was handed to Aston after the 1970 World Cup.

Aston, who died aged 86 in 2001, was in charge of the referees for the 1970 tournament which was the first time Aston's idea of yellow and red cards were trialled.

The second item is a rare gold coin handed to Aston after the 1972 Independence Cup.

To read the complete article, see:
Rare footy medals belonging to ref who invented yellow and red cards to go under the hammer(https://www.gbnews.com/sport/rare-footy-medals-ref-to-go-under-hammer)

Lindbergh Baby Ransom Notes

The investigation, led by the New Jersey State Police and splashed across front pages worldwide, raged on until September 1934, when a $10 gold certificate from the ransom payment was used to buy gasoline in New York.

Investigators traced the car at the gas station to Hauptmann and later discovered $13,760 in ransom bills in his garage - money he said he'd been asked to hold for a man who died in Germany before the trial.

To read the complete article, see:
The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping: A Grisly Theory and a Renewed Debate(https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/nyregion/charles-lindbergh-baby.html)

1742 HMS Tyger Wreck Found

A British warship has been identified off the Florida coast nearly three centuries after it sank while on patrol in the waters of what is now Dry Tortugas National Park, officials said. HMS Tyger went down with hundreds of sailors on board and the surviving crew were marooned on an uninhabited island for more than two months before making a dramatic escape on makeshift boats.

The shipwreck was initially located in 1993 off of Key West, but new research by archeologists has confirmed definitive evidence that the wreck is indeed the 50-gun frigate HMS Tyger, the National Park Service said on Thursday.

The ship sank on Jan. 13, 1742, after it ran aground on the reefs of the Dry Tortugas during the Anglo-Spanish War, a nine-year conflict between Britain and Spain, officials said. Old logbooks described how the crew "lightened her forward" - presumably by offloading heavy equipment - after initially running aground, briefly refloating the vessel and then sinking.

To read the complete article, see:
Warship identified off Florida coast 3 centuries after it sank(https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/warship-identified-off-florida-coast-3-centuries-after-it-sank/ar-BB1jXxF4)