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From today's featured article

George Krugers in a still from the film

The Great Mecca Feast is a 1928 documentary film by George Krugers (pictured). It follows a group of Muslim men from the Dutch East Indies on the hajj pilgrimage, showcasing elements of everyday life and worship in the Hejaz region of the Arabian Peninsula – including the hajj itself. As Mecca was closed to non-Muslims, Krugers passed as a Muslim and recorded film and still-photographic documentation of the pilgrimage. Although it was well-received upon its Dutch premiere on 9 November 1928, subsequent showings were rare and the film faded into obscurity. Described as the first documentary about the hajj, the film is the only one of Krugers's works known to have survived. The Great Mecca Feast received scholarly interest in the 2010s. Since then, it has been analysed within the context of colonial networks and control over the hajj process, as well as a primary document providing insight into the experiences of contemporary pilgrims. (Full article...)

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Amanda Coulson

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... that the 1935 Free City of Danzig parliamentary election was seen as a setback for the Nazi Party, even though it won an absolute majority of seats?
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... that Crawley Town F.C. reached the 2024 League Two play-off final by winning their semi-final with an aggregate score of 8–1, the largest margin in EFL play-off history?
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... that winners of the Ig Nobel Prize are silenced by an eight-year-old girl repeating "Please stop. I'm bored" if their acceptance speeches go on for too long?

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On this day

May 9: Europe Day in the European Union; Liberation Day in the Channel Islands (1945); Home Front Heroes Day in the United States

Battle of Heligoland

1761 – The inaugural exhibition of the Society of Artists of Great Britain opened at Spring Gardens in London.
1864 – Second Schleswig War: The Battle of Heligoland (depicted), the last naval engagement fought by squadrons of wooden ships, took place between the Danish and Austro-Prussian fleets.
1961 – In a speech to U.S. broadcasters, Newton Minow, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, described commercial television programming as "a vast wasteland".
2001 – Police at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra, Ghana, fired tear gas to quell unrest at a football match, leading to a stampede that killed 126 people.
2023 – Pakistani protests: Riots broke out following the arrest of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan.

Francis Hopkinson (d. 1791)
Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood (b. 1801)
Beth Mead (b. 1995)
Rieko Kodama (d. 2022)

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Today's featured picture

The cheek-lined wrasse (Oxycheilinus digramma) is a species of fish in the wrasse family, Labridae. It is native to the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean, residing in coral reefs, sheltered inland areas, and lagoons, at depths from 3 to 60 metres (10 to 200 ft). Juveniles have been observed to live among the tentacles of the mushroom coral Heliofungia actiniformis. The cheek-lined wrasse feeds on sea urchins, molluscs, and crustaceans, often hiding behind other fish to approach its prey. The species is of minor importance to local commercial fisheries and can also be found in the aquarium trade. This cheek-lined wrasse was photographed off the coast of Anilao in the Philippines.

Photograph credit: Diego Delso

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