A Naga sadhu, or naked Hindu holy man, poses for a picture after taking a holy dip in the Godavari River during Kumbh Mela, or Pitcher Festival, at Trimbakeshwar in Nasik, India, Sunday, September 13, 2015. Hindus believe taking a dip in the waters of a holy river during the festival, will cleanse them of their sins. According to Hindu mythology, the Kumbh Mela celebrates the victory of gods over demons in a furious battle over a nectar that would give them immortality. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo)

A destroyed T-72 tank, which presumably came from Russia, is seen on a battlefield near separatist-controlled Starobesheve, eastern Ukraine, October 2, 2014. The burnt-out remains of dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles in fields near the small village of Horbatenko bear witness to the ferocity of a battle that turned the tide of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Among the debris, Reuters found the blackened carcasses of what military experts have since identified as two Russian army tanks, supporting statements by Kiev and the West that the rebels were backed by troops and equipment sent by Moscow. (Photo by Maria Tsvetkova/Reuters)

A woman passes Members of historical clubs dressed in the uniform of French soldiers during ceremony of repatriation of the remains of French General Charles-Etienne Gudin de la Sablonniere, participant in the French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars, to France in Moscow airport Vnukovo-3, Russia, 13 July 2021. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/EFE)

Larissa Neto, a muse of the Unidos da Tijuca Samba School, poses as she wears a carnival dress in Sao Goncalo near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 3, 2016. Rio de Janeiro's carnival parades are known the world over for the glitz and glamour, high-tech allegorical floats and shimmering bodies, which battle it out each year for the championship title. Each school is fronted by the Queen of the Drums, who dances alongside the raging percussion, and her court of sparkling, sculpted dancers known as “muses”. (Photo by Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)

A light-up bow whose arrows are advertised as flying up to 145 feet and the “Catapencil” – a pencil with a miniature slingshot-style launcher on its end – are on an annual list of unsafe toys released Wednesday by a Massachusetts-based consumer watchdog group. World Against Toys Causing Harm, or W.A.T.C.H., issued the “10 Worst Toys” list to remind parents and consumers of the potential hazards in some toys as the holiday shopping season gets underway. (Photo by Charles Krupa/AP Photo)

Soma-Nomaoi is a festival that recreates a battle scene from more than 1,000 years ago. It is annually held for 4 days from July 22 to 25 in Haramachi City, Fukushima Prefecture, in the eastern part of Japan. In this historical event, 600 mounted samurai in traditional Japanese armor, with long swords at their side and ancestral flagstaffs streaming from their backs, ride across open fields. Soma-Nomaoi has been designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Photo: A young woman (C) clad in samurai costume leads other local poeple as she rides her horse during a parade at the annual Soma Nomaoi festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 28, 2012. The traditional full-scale festival kicked off for the first time after the accident of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the massive earthquake and the tsunami on March 11, 2011. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)

Commended. In late May, about a quarter of a million snow geese arrive from North America to nest on Wrangel Island, in northeastern Russia. They form the world's largest breeding colony of snow geese. Photographer Sergey Gorshkov spent two months on the remote island photographing the unfolding dramas. Arctic foxes take advantage of the abundance of eggs, caching surplus eggs for leaner times. But a goose (here the gander) is easily a match for a fox, which must rely on speed and guile to steal eggs. “The battles were fairly equal”, notes Sergey, “and I only saw a fox succeed in grabbing an egg on a couple of occasions, despite many attempts”. Surprisingly, “the geese lacked any sense of community spirit”, he adds, “and never reacted when a fox harassed a neighboring pair nesting close by”. (Photo by Sergey Gorshkov/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer)

“The Gorch Fock is a tall ship of the German Navy (Deutsche Marine). She is the second ship of that name and a sister ship of the Gorch Fock built in 1933. Both ships are named in honor of the German writer Johann Kinau who wrote under the pseudonym "Gorch Fock" and died in the battle of Jutland/Skagerrak in 1916. The modern-day Gorch Fock was built in 1958 and has since then undertaken 146 cruises (as of October 2006), including one tour around the world in 1988. She is sometimes referred to (unofficially) as the Gorch Fock II to distinguish her from her older sister ship”. – Wikipedia

Photo: The “Gorch Fock” German Navy tall ship sails towards Kiel on May 6, 2011 in Kiel, Germany. The ship returns to Germany following investigations in January while it was in port in Ushuia, Argentina, into allegations of attempted mutiny following the death of a female crew member. German Defense Minister at the time Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg suspended Captain Norbert Schatz, and though investigators absolved Schatz of wrongdoing, critics charge the investigation was inadequate. The "Gorch Fock" is the German Navy's flagship training vessel. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)