A granite monument with every defeat ever suffered by the England football team over 124 years engraved on it sold for $646,000 on Tuesday.

The gloomy sculpture by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was sold to an anonymous French-speaking bidder at a Sotheby's auction in London.

A flying forest, a styrofoam mausoleum and a giant seesaw will greet visitors to Hong Kong's Art Basel fair from Friday as the finance hub transforms into a creative playground.

The annual show comes as Hong Kong's status as a center for collectors grows, with artists, gallerists and celebrities gathering at the harbourside convention center.   

Eric Carle would like to offer kids a very silly tribute to surrealism.

The 85-year-old author of the children's classic "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" has a new book out in October, titled "The Nonsense Show." According to Philomel, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers that announced the book Tuesday, Carle will combine verbal and visual jokes and provide "something downright preposterous" throughout. Surrealism was an avant-garde movement that arose after World War I and included Salvador Dali and Man Ray, among others.

Archaeologists in London have begun digging up some 3,000 skeletons including those of victims of the Great Plague from a burial ground that will become a new train station, the company in charge said.

A team of 60 researchers will work in shifts six days a week over the next month at the Bedlam burial ground to remove the ancient skeletons, which will eventually be re-buried at a cemetery near London.

Japan on Tuesday marked the 70th anniversary of the firebombing of Tokyo by U.S. forces, a night that left an estimated 100,000 people dead in one of the bloodiest episodes of World War II.

On the night of March 9-10, 1945, American planes rained incendiary bombs on Tokyo's "Shitamachi" area -- an old neighborhood packed with wooden houses.

A thief who stole two historic and hugely valuable documents written by Michelangelo offered to return them to the Vatican's archives for cash, a spokesman for the Holy See revealed on Monday.

Confirming the 1997 theft of the papers for the first time, the spokesman said the offer had been made recently to a top Church official, Cardinal Angelo Comastri.

The influence of Arab, African and Asian art on Henri Matisse is the theme of a major collection of the French artist's work that has gone on show in Rome.

The exhibition, "Matisse Arabesque", runs until June 21 at the Scuderie del Quirinale, the former stables of Italy's presidential palace which have been transformed into a museum that boasts spectacular views over the Eternal City.

Four decades after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, Spain has not completely turned the page on his dictatorship as dozens of monuments honoring his regime are still scattered across the country.

"It would be inconceivable to see a statue of the Fuhrer in Germany or of Il Duce in Italy," said Eduardo Ranz, a 30-year-old lawyer who is leading efforts to have the Franco symbols removed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the international community Sunday to halt the destruction by Islamic State jihadists of Iraqi archaeological sites, branding the smashing of priceless and ancient artifacts a "war crime".

Ban's comments came hours after Iraq's tourism and antiquities minister called on the U.S.-led coalition carrying out air strikes against the militants to try to protect the sites, stating: "We request aerial support."

Karim al-Banna, who on Monday could hear an appeal court uphold his three-year jail term for "insulting" Islam with his atheism, wishes he could live anywhere but his native Egypt.

"All I want now is to leave Egypt. Life is not possible for atheists here," the 23-year-old engineering student told Agence France-Presse from his home in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.