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From today's featured article

Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799) was an American attorney known for his declaration to the Second Virginia Convention in 1775: "Give me liberty or give me death!" Beginning a law practice in 1760, he soon became prominent through his victory in the Parson's Cause. Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he quickly became notable for his inflammatory rhetoric against the Stamp Act of 1765. In 1774 and 1775, Henry served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses. Back in Virginia, Henry urged independence, and when this was declared, served as governor until 1779, and then in the Virginia House of Delegates until he began his last two terms as governor in 1784. Henry feared a strong federal government, and he actively opposed the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. A slaveholder throughout his adult life, he hoped to see slavery end, but had no plan to accomplish that. Henry is remembered for his oratory, and as a Founding Father. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

May Morning by Edith Maryon

... that Edith Maryon's fireplace relief May Morning (pictured) was inspired by an ode by William Wordsworth?
... that in 1939 the Ukrainian National Union's newspaper waited for the rise of a Ukrainian Mussolini or Hitler?
... that, following the Battle of Treviso, King Ildibad had Uraias murdered after Uraias's wife insulted Ildibad's wife in a bath house?
... that the attractions at Six Flags Great America include the world's first inverted roller coaster and a double-decker carousel?
... that a UK prime minister's comments about gender irked Max Balegde into organising a fundraiser event?
... that recipes for Robert E. Lee cake appeared in many cookbooks of the American South in the late 19th century?
... that tenor René Barbera sang a leading role in his first opera when he was eleven years old?
... that lead climbing is planned to be a standalone medal event at the 2028 Summer Olympics?
... that a Chinese robot beat the world record for a half-marathon?

In the news

Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV (pictured) issues his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which expresses concerns about artificial intelligence.
The Democratic Rally, led by Annita Demetriou, wins the most seats in the Cypriot legislative election.
American jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins dies at the age of 95.
In auto racing, Felix Rosenqvist wins the Indianapolis 500.
A suicide bombing targeting a shuttle train in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan, kills at least 47 people.

On this day

May 29: Feast day of Saint Paul VI (Catholicism); Oak Apple Day (parts of England)

Sojourner Truth

1176 – Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines: Troops of the Lombard League defeated forces of the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Legnano in present-day Italy.
1851 – Sojourner Truth (pictured) delivered her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the Woman's Rights Convention in Akron.
1953 – The mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
1999 – President Olusegun Obasanjo took office as Nigeria's first elected and civilian head of state after 16 years of military dictatorship.

Halaevalu Mataʻaho ʻAhomeʻe (b. 1926)
Abdoulaye Wade (b. 1926)
Margaret Barr (d. 1991)
Gukesh Dommaraju (b. 2006)

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From today's featured list

Red slender loris

There are thirty-five extant lorisoid species, which are members of Lorisoidea, a superfamily of nocturnal primates. The lorisoids include lorises, angwantibos, pottos, and galagos. Lorisoidea is one of two superfamilies that form the suborder Strepsirrhini, itself one of two suborders in the order Primates. They are found in Asia and Africa, generally in forests, though some species can be found in shrublands and savannas. The thirty-five extant species of Lorisoidea are divided into two families: Galagidae, containing nineteen bushbaby and galago species divided between six genera, and Lorisidae, containing sixteen species divided between the three genera in the loris subfamily Lorisinae (example pictured) and the two genera of the angwantibo and potto subfamily Perodicticinae. (Full list...)

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Today's featured video

A Trip Down Market Street is a 1906 phantom-ride film produced by the Miles Brothers showing a journey along Market Street in San Francisco, California. Filmed on a San Francisco cable car only weeks before the 1906 earthquake and fire, it provides a record of the city shortly before the disaster, capturing its streets, buildings, fashions and daily life. The film begins at 8th Street and continues eastward to the cable car turntable, at the Embarcadero, in front of the Ferry Building. After the earthquake, the Miles Brothers also filmed post-earthquake scenes, including a second journey down a devastated Market Street, footage that re-emerged in 2016. A Trip Down Market Street was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2010.

Film credit: Miles Brothers

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