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From today's featured article

Beach on Nosy Komba

Nosy Komba is a small volcanic island in Madagascar, situated between Nosy Be and the northwest coast of the main island. The lowlands of the island are divided between secondary forest and a patchwork of farmland and plantations (notably including shade-grown coffee), while the highlands are mainly scrubland, with a bamboo forest in the northern portions. Ampangorina is the main village and administrative center. The island attracts significant ecotourism, thanks in part to its black lemurs. During the early 1800s, the region was heavily settled by Sakalava refugees and their slaves fleeing the hegemony of the Merina. France gained control of the island in 1840 and converted it to a logistic center for the import of indentured servants. Although Nosy Komba hosts a traditionally protected forest and an arboretum established in the colonial era, protection for the latter is essentially unenforced, and illegal logging continues. Only small pockets of old-growth forest remain, in remote areas. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Hal Hanson

... that while picking his Minnesota "team of the century", Dick Cullum said that Hal Hanson (pictured) "made brave men wince"?
... that Soviet trophy brigades systematically looted art and even moved entire factories from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II?
... that the only copy of El Apóstol, widely considered to be the first animated feature film, was lost in a fire?
... that colonial-era bureaucrat Tan Jin Sing's close relationship with Europeans led to the saying that he was "no longer a Chinese, not yet a Dutchman, a half-baked Javanese"?
... that Solomon Islands at the 2024 Summer Olympics were represented by the only all-female delegation at the games?
... that one candidate in the 1990 United States Senate election in Tennessee began the campaign with $3,000 in campaign funds, while the other began with $1 million?
... that after the pilot of Somali Airlines Flight 40 was reportedly threatened with jail following his refusal to take off, the flight took off and crashed a few minutes later?
... that Indonesian radio presenters Muhammad Farhan and Indy Barends co-hosted a 32-hour nonstop radio show in 2001, setting a national record which they held until 2019?
... that in one year, 166,000 people visited a three-bedroom house with a garage that stood amid New York City's skyscrapers?

In the news

Jafar Panahi

It Was Just an Accident (director Jafar Panahi pictured) wins the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi win the International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp: Selected Stories.
Nicușor Dan is elected as president of Romania.
In the Portuguese legislative election, the Democratic Alliance wins the most seats in parliament.
Austria, represented by JJ with the song "Wasted Love", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.

On this day...

May 28: Republic Day in Armenia (1918); Independence Day in Azerbaijan (1918)

Mozaffar ad-Din

585 BC – According to the Greek historian Herodotus, a solar eclipse, accurately predicted by Thales of Miletus, abruptly ended the Battle of Halys between the Lydians and the Medes.
1644 – English Civil War: Royalist troops stormed and captured the Parliamentarian stronghold of Bolton, leading to a massacre of defenders and local residents.
1901 – Mozaffar ad-Din (pictured), Shah of Persia, granted exclusive rights to prospect for oil in the country to William Knox D'Arcy.
1937 – The rise of Neville Chamberlain culminated with his accession as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, being summoned to Buckingham Palace to "kiss hands".
2002 – An independent commission appointed by the Football Association voted two-to-one to allow Wimbledon F.C. to relocate from London to Milton Keynes.

Robert Baldock (d. 1327)
Francis Gleeson (priest) (b. 1884)
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b. 1925)
Kylie Minogue (b. 1968)

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Today's featured picture

The Hell Gate Bridge is a railroad bridge in New York City, United States. The bridge carries two tracks of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and one freight track between Astoria, Queens, and Port Morris, Bronx, via Randalls and Wards Islands. Its main span is a 1,017-foot (310 m) steel through arch across Hell Gate, a strait of the East River that separates Wards Island from Queens. The New York Connecting Railroad began construction of the bridge in 1912, and it opened in 1917. The main span, a two-hinged arch flanked by stone towers on either bank of Hell Gate, was the world's longest steel arch bridge until the Bayonne Bridge opened in 1931. It is one of the few rail connections from Long Island, of which Queens is part, to the rest of the United States. This panoramic photograph shows the main span of the Hell Gate Bridge. The photograph was taken in 2023 looking northeast from the neighboring Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, with Wards Island on the left of the image and Astoria on the right. A tugboat tows a barge in the foreground towards the Hell Gate Bridge.

Photograph credit: Rhododendrites

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