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From today's featured article

GL Mk. II transmitter van

Radar, Gun Laying, Mark I, or GL Mk. I for short, was an early World War II radar system developed by the British Army to provide information for anti-aircraft artillery. There were two upgrades, GL/EF (elevation finder) and GL Mk. II (pictured), both improving the ability to determine a target's bearing and elevation. GL refers to the radar's ability to direct the guns onto a target, known as gun laying. The first GL sets were developed in 1936 using separate transmitters and receivers mounted on gun carriages. Several were captured in 1940, leading the Germans to believe falsely that British radar was much less advanced than theirs. The GL/EF attachment provided bearing and elevation measurements accurate to about a degree: this caused the number of rounds needed to destroy an aircraft to fall to 4,100, a tenfold improvement over early-war results. The Mk. II, which was able to directly guide the guns, lowered the rounds-per-kill to 2,750. About 410 Mk. Is and 1,679 Mk. IIs were produced. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Lieke Klaver ahead in the women's 400 metres final

... that a 400-metre race in 2025 (pictured) was won by Lieke Klaver, who pretended that an absent competitor was running in front of her?
... that the land snail Drymaeus poecilus is notable for the striking variety of colors and patterns on its shell?
... that a forensic investigation of Signalgate has determined how a journalist was included in a group chat about Operation Rough Rider?
... that two of the players involved in the 2005 Vietnamese football match-fixing scandal did not accept payment because they felt ashamed?
... that a rebellion against a peace treaty with the Yuan dynasty operated out of the Historic Site of Anti-Mongolian Struggle on Jeju Island?
... that Nathan Frink fled the United States with enslaved children to settle in Canada, where he was elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly and caught in a smuggling conspiracy?
... that Seattle's women's ice hockey team has an expected rival, despite not even having played their first game?
... that Cave Johnson Couts was separately acquitted for shooting his foreman, firing on funeral mourners, and whipping a native laborer to death?
... that characters' scars in an episode of The Last of Us were made with a paste-based appliance and a food mixer?

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 motor racing, Álex Palou wins the Indianapolis 500.
In basketball, the EuroLeague concludes with Fenerbahçe winning the Final Four Playoff.

On this day

May 30: Statehood Day in Croatia (1990)

Johann Sebastian Bach

1431 – Hundred Years' War: After being convicted of heresy, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach (pictured) assumed the office of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, presenting the cantata Die Elenden sollen essen in St. Nicholas Church.
1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., featuring a sculpture of the sixteenth U.S. president Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, opened.
1963 – Buddhist crisis: A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination was held outside the National Assembly of South Vietnam in Saigon, the first open demonstration against President Ngô Đình Diệm.
2008 – The Convention on Cluster Munitions, prohibiting the use, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster bombs, was adopted.

Ma Xifan (d. 947)
Colin Blythe (b. 1879)
Norris Bradbury (b. 1909)
Wynonna Judd (b. 1964)

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From today's featured list

Seventeen performing "Oh My!" in 2018

South Korean boy band Seventeen made their debut on May 26, 2015, when they performed a showcase for their debut EP 17 Carat in front of a crowd of 1,000 people. Since then, the group have held 9 concert tours, 13 fan meetings, and have performed at a number of music festivals and awards shows. Their concert tours include the Right Here World Tour, which sold over one million tickets, and the Follow Tour, which was noted by Billboard as being the top grossing K-pop tour of 2023. In 2024, Seventeen made their first appearances at festivals in Europe, when they were the first South Korean act to perform at Glastonbury Festival's Pyramid Stage and as headliners for Lollapalooza Berlin. Seventeen's live performances are well regarded by fans and critics alike, and garnered them the award for Top K-pop Touring Artist at the 2024 Billboard Music Awards. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Ignace Tonené (1840 or 1841 – 15 March 1916), also known as Nias or by his Ojibwe name Maiagizis ('right/correct sun'), was a Teme-Augama Anishnabai chief, fur trader, and gold prospector in Upper Canada. He was a prominent employee of the Hudson's Bay Company. Tonené was the elected deputy chief before being the lead chief and later the life chief of his community. In his role as deputy, he negotiated with the Canadian federal government and the Ontario provincial government, advocating for his community to receive annual financial support from both. His attempts to secure land reserves for his community were thwarted by the Ontario premier Oliver Mowat. Tonené's prospecting triggered a 1906 gold rush and the creation of Kerr Addison Mines Ltd., although one of his claims was stolen from him by white Canadian prospectors. This photograph shows Tonené in 1909.

Photograph credit: William John Winter; restored by Adam Cuerden

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