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From today's featured article

Logo of Namco Limited

Namco Limited was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company founded in 1955 by Masaya Nakamura which operated video arcades, amusement parks, produced video games, films, toys, and arcade cabinets. In the 1960s, it manufactured electro-mechanical arcade games such as the 1965 game Periscope. It entered the video game industry after acquiring the Japanese division of Atari in 1974, distributing games such as Breakout and Gee Bee. Among Namco's first major hits was the fixed shooter Galaxian in 1979 and Pac-Man in 1980. During the golden age of arcade video games in the early 1980s, Namco released titles such as Galaga, Xevious, and Pole Position. Namco entered the home market in 1984 with conversions of its arcade games. Namco produced several multi-million-selling game franchises, such as Pac-Man, Galaxian, Tekken, Tales, Ridge Racer, Ace Combat, and Taiko no Tatsujin. In 2006, Namco merged with Bandai to form Bandai Namco Holdings. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Sylvilagus aquaticus

... that the swamp rabbit (pictured) is both territorial and a great swimmer?
... that no other month in a calendar year starts with the same day of the week as June?
... that Samantha Kane led an unsuccessful takeover bid for Sheffield United F.C. and, after a gender transition, was interviewed to become its chief executive?
... that the first version of the Amtrak Susquehanna River Bridge was heavily damaged by a tornado during construction?
... that medicine dean Sjahriar Rasad was accused of being involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Indonesian President Sukarno?
... that the U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether the family who lived in a house wrongly raided by the FBI may sue the government?
... that Romanian sports shooter Petre Cișmigiu demanded the elimination of a pension gap between Olympic and non-Olympic champions, such as himself?
... that the novel Looking Glass Girl was launched at Coventry Central Library to highlight the threat of 17 libraries in the city closing?
... that John P. Morris won a strike by hiding pigeons in fur coats?

In the news

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Kenyan writer and activist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (pictured) dies at the age of 87.
In sumo, Ōnosato Daiki is promoted to yokozuna.
In association football, Liverpool win the Premier League title.
In the Surinamese general election, the National Democratic Party wins the most seats in the National Assembly.
In motor racing, Álex Palou wins the Indianapolis 500.

On this day

June 1

Wreckage of American Airlines Flight 1420

1676 – Scanian War: The Swedish warship Kronan, one of the largest ships in the world at the time, sank at the Battle of Öland with the loss of around 800 men.
1857 – The Revolution of the Ganhadores, the first general strike in Brazil, began in Salvador, Bahia.
1974 – In an informal article in a medical journal, Henry Heimlich introduced the concept of abdominal thrusts, commonly known as the Heimlich maneuver, to treat victims of choking.
1988 – Group representation constituencies were introduced to the parliament of Singapore.
1999 – On landing at Little Rock National Airport in the U.S. state of Arkansas, American Airlines Flight 1420 overran the runway and crashed (wreckage pictured), resulting in 11 deaths.

Kitabatake Chikafusa (d. 1354)
Louisa Caroline Tuthill (d. 1879)
Tom Holland (b. 1996)
Faizul Waheed (d. 2021)

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Today's featured picture

Drosera capensis, commonly known as the Cape sundew, is a perennial rosette-forming carnivorous plant in the family Droseraceae. It is endemic to the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. As in all sundews, the leaves are covered in stalked, mucilage-secreting glands (or 'tentacles') that attract, trap, and digest arthropod prey. When prey is captured, the tentacles bend inward and the leaves curl around it, preventing escape and enhancing digestion by increasing the surface area of the leaf in contact with the prey. This time-lapse video shows a D. capensis leaf curling up around a Mediterranean fruit fly over a period of approximately six hours.

Video credit: Scott Schiller

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