The Pied Piper of Hamelin, actually city tourism employee Michael Boyer, leads local children dressed as rats through a quiet street on November 19, 2012 in Hameln, Germany. The Pied Piper (in German: Der Rattenfaenger), is one of the many stories featured in the collection of fairy tales collected by the Grimm brothers, and the 200th anniversary of the first publication of the stories will take place this coming December 20th. Boyer, a U.S. citizen who has lived in Hameln for 15 years, and city children regularly perform a reenactment of the Pied Piper tale throughout the summer months. The Grimm brothers collected their stories from oral traditions in the region between Frankfurt and Bremen in the early 19th century, and the works include such global classics as Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel. (Photo by Sean Gallup)

“Damien Steven Hirst (born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists (or YBAs), who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Contractors move Damien Hirst's bronze sculpture of a pregnant woman into positionl on October 16, 2012 in Ilfracombe, England. The bronze-clad, sword-wielding 65ft (20m) statue, named “Verity”, has been controversially given to the seaside town by the artist, on a 20-year loan and was erected by crane on the pier. (Photo by Matt Cardy)

Magbola Alhadi, 20, and her three children pose for a portrait in Jamam refugee camp in Maban County, South Sudan on August 11th, 2012. Magboola and her family weathered aerial bombing raids for several months, but decided it was time to leave their village of Bofe the night that soldiers arrived and opened fire. With her three children, she travelled for 12 days from Bofe to the town of El Fudj, on the South Sudanese border. The most important thing that Magboola was able to bring with her is the saucepan she holds in this photograph. It wasn't the largest pot that she had in Bofe, but it was small enough she could travel with it, yet big enough to cook sorghum for herself and her three daughters (from left: Aduna Omar, 6, Halima Omar, 4, and Arfa Omar, 2) during their journey. (Photo by Brian Sokol/Panos Pictures)

“On Friday, after something of a show trial, three young women in a Russian punk band were found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison for an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral earlier this year”. – Daniel Schwartz via CBC News

Photo: A woman wears on her chest the text “free p*ssy riot” as a demonstration by supporters of the jailed feminist punk band p*ssy Riot takes place outside the Russian Embassy on August 17, 2012 in London, England. The three women who staged an anti-Kremlin protest in a church in February, were found guilty today of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, and could face a three-year jail sentence. Supporters are gathering in several cities around the world today as a mark of solidarity. (Photo by Dan Kitwood)

“News of a ceasefire is greeted by wild celebrations on the streets of Gaza, whilst Israeli residents of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are more cautious in their support for the peace deal”. – Reuters

Photo: Palestinian gunmen hold a poster of late Ahmed Jabari, head of the Hamas military wing in Gaza City, while they celebrate the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza City, Wednesday, November 21, 2012. Israel and the Hamas militant group agreed to a cease-fire Wednesday to end eight days of the fiercest fighting in nearly four years, promising to halt attacks on each other and ease an Israeli blockade constricting the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Adel Hana/AP)

Syrian girls carry bags with bread as people queue up outisde a bakery in a rebel held neighbourhood in the northern city of Aleppo on July 12, 2016. Since mid-2012, Aleppo has been roughly divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east, and has suffered enormous destruction in the war that has killed more than 280,000 people nationwide. Last week, a government advance brought regime troops within firing range of the Castello Road, the only remaining supply route into the opposition-held east, effectively severing rebel neighbourhoods from the outside world. With their route to the outside world cut, there is no new flour coming to the city's bakeries, and fuel to light their ovens is also now hard to find. (Photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP Photo)

“Solar Impulse is a European long-range solar powered plane project being undertaken by Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg. The project eventually hopes to succeed in the first circling of the earth with a piloted fixed-wing aircraft using only solar power. The first aircraft, bearing the Swiss aircraft registration code of HB-SIA, is a single-seater, capable of taking off under its own power, and intended to remain airborne up to 36 hours. This aircraft first flew an entire diurnal solar cycle, including nearly 9 hours of night flying, in a 26-hour flight on 7–8 July 2010”. – Wikipedia


Photo: Workers prepare the Solar Impulse airplane HB-SIA for a first runway test on November 19, 2009 in Dubendorf, Switzerland. Solar Impulse chairman Bertrand Piccard, psychatrist and aeronaut, who made the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and CEO and former fighter pilot Andrй Borschberg plan a round-the-world flight, driven only by solar energy, for 2012. (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

“Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American space transport company founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets, both of which are built with a goal of being reusable launch vehicles. SpaceX is also developing the Dragon spacecraft to be carried to orbit by Falcon 9 launch vehicles. SpaceX designs, tests and fabricates the majority of their components in-house, including the Merlin, Kestrel, and Draco rocket engines. In December 2010, SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (a Dragon)”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp, speaks during a news conference at the National Press Club April 5, 2011 in Washington, DC. Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) and Tesla Motors, held the news conference to announce SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket which could complete missions to the International Space Station and Moon and should be ready for use by the end of 2012. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)