Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 2026
| << | Today's featured articles for May 2026 | >> | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa |
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 31 | ||||||
May 1
The Crusading movement was a major religious, political, and military endeavour of the Middle Ages, usually dated from the 1095 Council of Clermont. There Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade in support of Eastern Christians under Muslim rule, framing it as a form of penitential pilgrimage. The crusaders founded four states in the Levant, the defence of which inspired further Crusades. The papacy later launched campaigns against Muslims in Iberia, pagans in the Baltic, and other opponents of its authority. Core crusading forces were heavily armed knights, backed by infantry, local troops, and naval aid from maritime cities. These papal-sanctioned wars fostered distinctive institutions and ideologies. Funding was initially improvised, but later supported via papal taxes on clergy and the sale of indulgences. The fusion of chivalric and monastic ideals led to the rise of military orders. The movement extended Western Christendom and left lasting marks on art and literature. (Full article...)
May 2
The Fuji class was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the mid-1890s. They were the first battleships in the IJN, and were constructed in the United Kingdom as Japan lacked the industrial facilities needed to build them. The ships participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, including the Battle of Port Arthur in February 1904 and two bombardments of Port Arthur the following month. Yashima struck a mine off Port Arthur in May and capsized while under tow several hours later. Fuji (pictured) fought in the Battle of the Yellow Sea and the Battle of Tsushima, and was lightly damaged in the latter action. She was reclassified as a coast defence ship in 1910 and served as a training ship for the rest of her active career. Fuji was hulked in 1922, converted into a barracks ship fitted with classrooms, and was finally broken up for scrap in 1948. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battleships of Japan.)
May 3
Since the mid-2010s, there has been controversy in the shipping-fanfiction community, which discusses fan-created relationships ("shippings") between fictional characters. This centers on the ethical implications of taboo and abusive content in romantic and sexual pairings between characters. Some fan-created works have depicted disturbing content such as rape, incest, abuse, and pedophilia, often with little connection to the source material. Debate over this material has been prevalent on websites such as Tumblr and Archive of Our Own, especially among younger and heavily LGBTQ communities. "Anti-shippers" view such fictional portrayals as normalizing harmful behaviors and posing a threat to children and abuse survivors. "Pro-shippers" reject the notion that such works influence the behaviors of their readers and writers. Anti-shippers have been criticized for spreading moralistic attitudes towards sexuality, while pro-shippers face criticism for minimizing all critiques of fan work. (Full article...)
May 4
Maurice Suckling (4 May 1726 – 14 July 1778) was a Royal Navy officer and politician. He saw service in the English Channel and Mediterranean Sea during the War of the Austrian Succession. At the start of the Seven Years' War, he was promoted to captain and given a command on the Jamaica Station. There he played a major part in the Battle of Cap-Français, and fought against the French ship Palmier. Suckling was employed in the aftermath of the capture of Belle Île to destroy French fortifications on the Île-d'Aix and went on half-pay at the end of the war. He was given his next command during the Falklands Crisis in 1770, and took his nephew Horatio Nelson with him. In 1775, Suckling was appointed as the comptroller of the Navy by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, the first lord of the Admiralty. Suckling oversaw the Royal Navy's mobilisation when the American Revolutionary War began. In 1776, he was also elected member of Parliament for Portsmouth. He died unexpectedly in 1778. (Full article...)
May 5
The katipō (Latrodectus katipo) is a species of cobweb spider found only in New Zealand. It inhabits sand dunes close to the seashore and is found on most of New Zealand's coastline, except for the far south and the West Coast. In the South Island and the lower half of the North Island, the female has a distinct red stripe bordered in white running down its abdomen (example pictured); in more northern populations, this stripe is absent or paler. It is most closely related to the Australian redback spider. Like the redback, the katipō is venomous to humans, with its bite being capable of producing the toxic syndrome latrodectism. Bites are very rare and antivenom is available in some hospitals. It mainly feeds on ground-dwelling insects which it catches with an irregular tangled web spun among dune plants. Due to habitat loss, colonisation of their natural habitat by invasive spiders and hybridisation with the redback spider, the katipō population is regarded as declining. (Full article...)
May 6
Hurricane Joaquin was a powerful tropical cyclone in 2015 and one of the strongest hurricanes on record to affect the Bahamas. It evolved from a non-tropical low to a tropical depression, becoming a Category 4 major hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale on October 1. On October 3, Joaquin acquired sustained winds of 155 mph (250 km/h). Between October 1 and 3, it caused extensive damage on Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Island, Rum Cay, and San Salvador Island. Prolonged, intense winds brought down trees and power lines, and unroofed homes. Flooding persisted for days after the hurricane's departure. Relief efforts were hampered by heavy damage to airstrips and flooded roads. The Turks and Caicos Islands, Cuba, and Haiti were all severely affected. Over the Southeastern United States, a separate storm system drew tremendous moisture from the hurricane, leading to catastrophic flooding in South Carolina. Over its lifetime, Joaquin killed 34 people and caused US$120 million in damage. (Full article...)
May 7
.jpg)
Truganini (c. 1812 – 8 May 1876) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian woman of the Nuenonne people who was once widely described as the last surviving Aboriginal Tasmanian. She grew up on Bruny Island and saw the death and displacement of much of Tasmania's Aboriginal population during the Black War. She accompanied George Augustus Robinson as a guide on expeditions that resulted in the exile of Tasmania's remaining Aboriginal population; Truganini herself was exiled to the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment after the expeditions in 1835. She spent a period in the Port Phillip District (modern-day Victoria) where she was tried and acquitted for involvement in the murder of two whalers. She was later moved to Oyster Cove, where by 1872 she was the only Aboriginal resident left and was mythologised as the last of her race. The narrative that Truganini was the last Aboriginal Tasmanian is rejected by scholars and by the contemporary Aboriginal Tasmanian community. She has become a symbol of what some have characterised as the genocide of Indigenous Australians. (Full article...)
May 8
The First Treaty of London was formally agreed on 8 May 1358 at Windsor Castle in England. Its terms ended the then 21-year-old Anglo-French conflict now known as the Hundred Years' War. It was sealed by Edward III, king of England, and John II, king of France; the latter was a prisoner, having been captured at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. The treaty set John's ransom at four million écus, the equivalent of the peacetime income of the English Crown for about 20 years. In addition, France was to transfer to England approximately a quarter of its territory, while Edward was to give up his claim to the French throne. The first instalment of the ransom was due to be paid on 1 November, but with the French government collapsing into anarchy it proved impossible to raise. Edward refused to accept less than full payment and so the treaty lapsed. Subsequent negotiations led to the Second Treaty of London but its terms were so harsh that the French government repudiated it. Hostilities resumed in October 1359, when Edward again invaded France. (Full article...)
May 9
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...)
May 10
Ben&Ben are a Filipino indie folk-pop band from Manila. They were formed in 2016 by twin brothers Paolo and Miguel Benjamin Guico (lead vocals and acoustic guitars), calling themselves the Benjamins. A year later, they expanded into an ensemble and settled on the current name, adding Poch Barretto (electric guitar), Keifer Cabugao (violin), Patricia Lasaten (keyboards), Toni Muñoz (percussion), Andrew de Pano (percussion), Agnes Reoma (bass guitar), and Jam Villanueva (drums). The band's musical style has garnered praise for its anthemic quality and emotional engagement that appeals to a broad audience, while their lyrics focus on subjects including loss, heartbreak and relationship, and the journey towards self-love. Ben&Ben have received numerous accolades, including an Asia Artist Award, an Aliw Award, a NME Award, two Myx Music Awards, three Star Awards, and sixteen Awit Awards. In 2020, they placed 29th on the Billboard Social 50 chart. (This article is part of a featured topic: Overview of Ben&Ben.)
May 11
The Japan Cup is a Group 1 horse race in Japan, held annually on the last Sunday of November at Tokyo Racecourse in Fuchū, Tokyo. It is a flat race run over a distance of 2400 metres (about 1+1⁄2 miles), with a maximum of 18 horses. First run in 1981, the Japan Cup was created by the Japan Racing Association and extends invitations to top-performing horses aged 3 and above from around the world. The race has had a total prize purse of over one billion yen since 2023, and is the middle leg of the informal "Autumn Triple Crown" along with the Tennō Shō (Autumn) and the Arima Kinen. The Japan Cup is regularly ranked highly in the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities' "Top 100 Group 1 Races of the Year" compilation due to the high quality and depth of racers, and has had winners from all over the world. Initially, the race was dominated by foreign horses, with 8 of the first 10 winners coming from abroad, however, in the last twenty years only one horse from outside Japan has won. (Full article...)
May 12
,_fol_52r_-_wm_removed.jpg)
The Golden Bough is a fantastical object in the Aeneid, an epic poem by the 1st century BCE Roman poet Virgil. The Trojan hero Aeneas is tasked to find the bough and remove it from its host tree to prove his divine favour before his journey into the Underworld. It briefly resists as he does so – the implications of which have been widely debated in scholarship. In the medieval period, commentators often interpreted the bough allegorically and as a symbol of wisdom. More recent scholars have viewed the episode as reflecting Virgil's ambivalence towards the Roman Empire, and connected it to the deaths of two of Aeneas's antagonists, Dido and Turnus. The bough has been widely referenced in art and literature. It was used by James Frazer for the title of his 1890 work on comparative religion, is recalled in Dante's Divine Comedy, and was the subject of an 1834 painting by J. M. W. Turner. It is also a recurring motif in the "Byzantium" poems of W. B. Yeats and in the poetry of Seamus Heaney. (Full article...)
May 13
Splatoon 3: Side Order is an expansion pack for the single-player mode of Splatoon 3 (logo pictured). It is the second half of the Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass and was released on 22 February 2024. Side Order follows Agent 8, who finds themselves trapped in the featureless Memverse. They uncover Order, a rogue artificial intelligence who threatens to abduct souls to remove their free will and instigate a world of pure orderliness; Agent 8 journeys up a thirty-floor spire to destroy Order. Development began after the release of Splatoon 3 in 2022. The team sought to reinvent the traditional structure of Splatoon single-player campaigns, such as having the player's death causing the loss of progress from their current climb, and the option to purchase upgrades to ease future attempts. Side Order received favorable reviews from critics, with praise given to its art direction and integration of Splatoon's gameplay mechanics into the roguelike genre. Some critics were displeased with a perceived lack of level diversity. (Full article...)
May 14
The Talyllyn Railway is a narrow-gauge preserved railway in Wales running for 7.25 miles (11.67 km) from Tywyn on the Mid Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1866 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn, and was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain authorised by act of parliament to carry passengers using steam haulage. Despite severe under-investment, the line remained open, and in 1951 it became the first railway in the world to be preserved as a heritage railway by volunteers. Since preservation, the railway has operated as a tourist attraction, significantly expanding its rolling stock through acquisition and an engineering programme to build new locomotives and carriages. The fictional Skarloey Railway, which formed part of the Railway Series of children's books by the Rev. W Awdry, was based on the Talyllyn Railway. The preservation of the line inspired the Ealing Comedy film The Titfield Thunderbolt. (Full article...)
May 15
Operation Brevity was an offensive conducted in May 1941, during the Western Desert campaign of the Second World War against Axis front-line forces in the Sollum–Capuzzo–Bardia area of the border between Egypt and Libya. British Middle East Command General Archibald Wavell defined Operation Brevity's main goals as the acquisition of territory from which to launch a further planned offensive toward Tobruk. On 15 May Brigadier William Gott attacked in three columns with a mixed infantry and armoured force. The Halfaya Pass was taken against stiff Italian opposition, and deeper inside Libya Fort Capuzzo was captured, but German counter-attacks under Colonel Maximilian von Herff regained the fort during the afternoon. Gott conducted a staged withdrawal to the Halfaya Pass on 16 May, and Operation Brevity ended. The Halfaya Pass was recaptured 11 days later during Operation Skorpion, a German counter-attack. (Full article...)
May 16
Erik Campbell is a character in Final Destination Bloodlines (2025), the sixth film in the supernatural horror franchise Final Destination, and was portrayed by Richard Harmon (pictured). Introduced as a grandson of Iris Campbell, who escaped Death in the 1960s, Erik is revealed to have been conceived out of his mother's affair and thus not in any danger. Despite this, while trying to help his brother cheat Death, Erik is sucked into an MRI machine by a wheelchair that crushes and impales him. The reveal regarding Erik's parentage was due to the film's crew wanting to subvert the audience's expectations regarding the order of deaths; a discarded idea involved twins. The directors were initially apprehensive about incorporating an MRI machine death, but chose to include it due to positive feedback from the production team. Critics responded positively to Erik, describing him as a fan favorite and Blodlines' best character, as well as praising his death scene and Harmon's performance. (Full article...)
May 17
"All Hell Breaks Loose" is the third season finale of Charmed, an American fantasy series that aired on The WB. It follows Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano), three sisters who discover they are witches and use their powers to protects innocents from demons. "All Hell Breaks Loose" was written by Brad Kern and directed by Doherty, the third episode she directed of the series, and aired on May 17, 2001. In the episode, Prue and Piper are caught using their powers on live television, which proves to have deadly consequences. During filming, Doherty use a Salvador Dalí painting as inspiration for the episode's aesthetic, and helped her co-stars shoot emotionally challenging scenes. A week prior to the episode's airing, Doherty was fired from the series due to a feud with Milano, which resulted in her character being killed off. "All Hell Breaks Loose" has been cited as one of the show's best episodes, with critics highlighting Prue's death. (Full article...)
May 18
The Sursock bronze is a gilded bronze sculptural group of Heliopolitan Jupiter dating to the second century AD. A miniature of the cult statue that stood in the Great Temple of Baalbek, Lebanon, it depicts the god as a beardless youth wearing a kalathos, a basket-shaped headdress, and an ependytes, a close-fitting dress, under ornate armor. The front of the armor bears busts of seven deities associated with celestial bodies—Sol, Luna, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Juno (replacing Venus), and Saturn—arranged in an order encoding both the Chaldean sequence of planets and the days of the Roman week. The piece illustrates the syncretism of Canaanite, Greek, and Roman traditions, tracing the evolution of Heliopolitan Jupiter from the Canaanite storm god Baal Hadad into a cosmic deity of planetary order and prophecy. Named after its former owner, the Beiruti aristocrat Charles Sursock, and acquired by the Louvre in 1939, it inaugurated the first issue of Syria, the leading French journal of Levantine archaeology, in 1920. (Full article...)
May 19
The Silverthrone Caldera is a poorly studied volcano in the Range 2 Coast Land District of British Columbia, Canada. It lies within the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains and reaches an elevation of 2,860 metres (9,380 feet), although some sources give an elevation as high as 3,160 m (10,370 ft). Deeply eroded, the caldera is about 25 by 20 kilometres (16 by 12 miles) in size and has a rugged topography. The area is the origin of several streams and contains several named mountains, including Silverthrone Mountain. Volcanic rocks deposited by eruptions include rhyolites, dacites, andesites and basaltic andesites. They are exposed in valleys, but at higher elevations they are largely buried under glacial ice. The Silverthrone Caldera was a source of obsidian for indigenous peoples during the pre-Columbian era. Geological studies have been conducted at the volcano since at least the 1960s, but its very remote location has impeded detailed fieldwork. (Full article...)
May 20
The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment was organized in June 1776 as a light infantry unit of riflemen in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The regiment consisted of nine companies — four from Maryland and five from Virginia and was directly responsible to national authority as an Extra Continental regiment. Most of the regiment surrendered to British and German forces at the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776. However, a portion of the unit continued to serve actively in the Continental Army throughout most of the remainder of the war. Elements of the regiment served with George Washington's main army and participated in its major engagements. Select members of the unit were also attached to Colonal Daniel Morgan's elite Provisional Rifle Corps. The regiment was reorganized in January 1779 and stationed at Fort Pitt, headquarters of the Continental Army's Western Department, in present-day western Pennsylvania. Disbanded in January 1781, it was the longest serving Continental Army rifle unit of the war. (Full article...)
May 21
The 2006 Football League Championship play-off final was an association football match played on 21 May 2006 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, between Leeds United and Watford. The match was to determine the third and final team to gain promotion from the Football League Championship, the second tier of English football, to the FA Premiership. The winners of two semi-finals competed for the final Premiership place of the 2006–07 season. Winning the final was estimated to be worth up to £40 million to the successful team. The match was watched by a crowd of 64,736. It was the last play-off final to be held at the Millennium Stadium, as the new Wembley Stadium was completed in time for the 2007 final. Watford won the match 3–0, with opening goalscorer Jay DeMerit named man of the match. Leeds goalkeeper Neil Sullivan scored an own goal to make the score 2–0 to Watford after 60 minutes, and the final goal was a penalty kick scored by Darius Henderson. (Full article...)
May 22
Intraproboscis is a genus of Acanthocephala (thorny-headed or spiny-headed parasitic worms) containing a single species. Found in central Africa, it infests the black-bellied pangolin and the tree pangolin, which are both threatened with extinction. Female worms reach up to 180 mm long (mostly trunk) and 2 mm wide; males seem to be smaller. The body consists of a long, narrow trunk and a tubular proboscis covered with hooks, used for feeding and attachment. The life cycle of I. sanghae remains unknown but it likely involves a complex life cycle with at least two hosts, the pangolin and one believed to be an arthropod, such as an insect. Within this host, the larvae develop into an infectious stage called a cystacanth. When a vertebrate consumes the intermediate host, the cystacanths enter the intestines where they mature. The worm's eggs are expelled and hatch into new larvae. Infestation by I. sanghae can cause intestinal perforation and death in the black-bellied pangolin. (Full article...)
May 23
_(52834479475).jpg)
"Running Out of Time" is a song by the American rock band Paramore. It was released on May 23, 2023, by Atlantic Records as the fourth single from the band's sixth studio album This Is Why (2023). Hayley Williams, Taylor York, and Zac Farro wrote the song in the early stages of the album's production, and Carlos de la Garza produced it. The band premiered the song at a concert at the Grand Ole Opry on February 7, 2023, and performed it on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on February 14. Described by critics as a pop rock and dance-rock song, "Running Out of Time" deals with time management and comments on social anxieties over death, aging, and losing friends. Williams said the song was influenced by her personal struggle with punctuality and her friendship with Taylor Swift. Critics positively reviewed the song, praising its lyrics as playful and its composition as well-balanced. The song peaked on several international charts in 2023 and ranked on Billboard's year-end Alternative Airplay chart. (Full article...)
May 24
The figure skating team event at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held between 4 and 7 February at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing, China. It consisted of competitions in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. Skaters and teams earned points based on their placements in each event; medalists were determined based on their total points. The team representing the Russian Olympic Committee originally finished in first place, while the team from the United States finished second, and the Japanese team third. The medal ceremony was postponed when a positive test confirming the presence of a banned substance was received for Kamila Valieva of Russia. After nearly two years of litigation, Valieva's scores were stricken and the newly tabulated results placed the American team first, the Japanese team second, and the Russian team third. The American and Japanese teams received their medals at a ceremony held at the Jardins du Trocadéro in Paris during the 2024 Summer Olympics. (Full article...)
May 25
Menora v. Illinois High School Association is a case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit which centered on two Jewish schools who sued the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) when the IHSA would not let them compete unless their students removed their kippot (pictured). The plaintiffs argued that their First Amendment right of freedom of religion had been violated. The IHSA responded that the safety concern of the kippot was reasonable because it could fall off during play, causing injury. The Seventh Circuit held that no conflict would exist between the two parties if the schools designed a head-covering that was not a safety risk. The case was settled in June 1983, allowing kippot to be worn when secured with contour clips. Legal scholars criticized the Seventh Circuit's false conflict approach in their decision as unsupported by precedent. American Jewish communities largely took it as a victory that the students were allowed to play with kippot on. (Full article...)
May 26
.jpg)
Sally Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the third woman and the first American woman to fly in space. A graduate of Stanford University, where she earned a PhD in physics in 1978, she was selected as a mission specialist astronaut with NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first class of NASA astronauts to include women. She flew in space on the Space Shuttle Challenger on the STS-7 mission in 1983 and the STS-41-G mission in 1984. She left NASA in 1987 and worked at Stanford's Center for International Security and Arms Control, and then at the University of California, San Diego, researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the loss of Challenger and of Columbia, the only person to participate in both. She is the first astronaut known to have been LGBTQ, a fact that she hid until her death from pancreatic cancer in 2012. (Full article...)
May 27
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. It is centralized, hierarchical, and committed to black nationalism; membership is open only to people of color. Practitioners are expected to live disciplined lives, adhering to patriarchal gender roles, strict dress codes and specific dietary requirements. The NOI campaigns for the creation of an independent African American nation-state and calls for African Americans to be economically self-sufficient. In 2007 it was estimated to have 50,000 members. While describing itself as Islamic and using Islamic terminology, its religious tenets differ substantially from orthodox Islamic traditions. Scholars of religion characterize it as a new religious movement. Muslim critics accuse the NOI of promoting teachings that are not authentically Islamic. Other critics have characterized it as a hate group that promotes racism against white people, antisemitism, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. (Full article...)
May 28
Physella acuta is a species of small, air-breathing freshwater snail of the family Physidae of North American origin. Like other physids, P. acuta presents a sinistral (left-coiling) shell as well as a unique set of muscles called the physid musculature that allows it to rapidly twist the shell as a defence mechanism. P. acuta is invasive on all continents except Antarctica. Its first introduction outside North America likely occurred through the 18th century cotton trade to Europe, with later spread mainly through the aquarium trade. The species can occupy diverse freshwater habitats and tolerates polluted as well as oxygen-poor environments. Due to its high reproductive rate and tolerance to habitat degradation, it frequently outcompetes native snail species. In aquariums, P. acuta is usually introduced through ornamental plants and can become a "nuisance snail" due to its rapid reproduction. However, a controlled population can help clean up organic leftovers and control algae. (Full article...)
May 29
Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799) was an American attorney known for his declaration to the Second Virginia Convention (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...)
May 30
The serpent labret with articulated tongue is a gold-alloy body ornament from the Aztec culture of the mid-second millennium AD. Designed to be inserted into a piercing below the lower lip, it depicts a fanged serpent poised to strike, with a bifurcated tongue hanging from its mouth. The tongue, which is moveable and retractable, would have swung from side to side with its wearer's movements. Art historians have described it as among the finest of the fewer than 400 Aztec gold objects known to survive. The labret is 6.7 cm high, 6.7 cm long, and weighs 51 grams (1.81 oz) Consisting of a gold, copper, and silver alloy, it was made by lost-wax casting. Labrets, or lip plugs, were associated with the nobility in Aztec culture, while gold was a hallmark of divinity. The serpent may represent Xiuhcoatl, the fire serpent wielded as a weapon by the sun god Huītzilōpōchtli. It was purchased in 2016 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Full article...)
May 31
The Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park is an urban linear park in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The park is 19 acres (77,000 m2) in size and adjoins the state capitol grounds. It is modeled on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and incorporates Classical Greek, Baroque, and Beaux-Arts architecture. It uses symbolism to showcase the history, geography, culture, and musical heritage of Tennessee through a series of monuments, walkways, and interpretive displays. Receiving more than 2.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited of the 57 state parks in Tennessee. The park was designed by Tuck Hinton Architects in 1992 and 1993, groundbreaking occurred on June 27, 1994, and the park was dedicated on June 1, 1996, the 200th anniversary of Tennessee's statehood. Since then, the Tennessee State Museum and the Tennessee State Library and Archives have moved to the park, which is now recognized as a cultural and historical landmark. (Full article...)