From yesterday's featured article
Tropical Storm Hernan was a short-lived tropical cyclone that caused widespread flooding and destructive mudslides across southwestern Mexico in late August 2020. The eighth named storm of the 2020 Pacific hurricane season, Hernan formed to the southwest of Mexico on August 26. The cyclone peaked with maximum sustained winds of 70 km/h (45 mph) and a minimum atmospheric pressure of 1001 mbar (hPa; 29.56 inHg) before passing just offshore western Mexico and dissipating in the Gulf of California. Despite not making landfall, Hernan dropped extremely heavy rainfall across several states, peaking at nearly 610 mm (24 in) in Jalisco. More than 305 mm (12 in) of rain fell across the Costa Grande of Guerrero from August 24 to 27. A total of 1,674 homes and 9 schools suffered severe damage. A man died after falling off his roof while checking for storm damage. The cyclone caused MXN$594.05 million (USD$26.91 million) in damage across seven states along the Pacific coast of Mexico. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
- ... that George Jenkins (pictured) was described in 1901 as "the happiest, proudest, most important and most worried individual" in Australia, but 90 years later as "a lazy, dictatorial, unctuous opportunist"?
- ... that the Golden State Valkyries are the first expansion franchise in the WNBA since 2008?
- ... that a 2021 Dutch translation of the Bible introduces five new animals?
- ... that in Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945, "the 'American people' appear with conspicuous infrequency"?
- ... that Julian Prégardien's performance as the Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion was noted by one reviewer for its emphatic and penetrating "profoundly human" nature?
- ... that The New York Times called Teeth a "feminist awakening with a lethal bite"?
- ... that Debbie Currie once worked as a lollipop lady?
- ... that the Missoula Children's Theatre works with more than 65,000 children every year?
- ... that in two years the Thourots became the Brewers, who became the Palaces, who became the Jackaways, who became the Mules, who then disbanded?
In the news (For today)
- Protests over voting rights changes break out in New Caledonia, a territory of France in the Pacific.
- Lee Hsien Loong (pictured) steps down after nearly 20 years as the prime minister of Singapore, and is succeeded by Lawrence Wong.
- Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, is hospitalised after an assassination attempt.
- Switzerland, represented by Nemo with "The Code", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
- A series of solar storms impact Earth, creating aurorae seen farther from the poles than usual.
On the previous day
May 18: Haitian Flag Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Crimean Tatar Genocide in Ukraine
- 1302 – Armed insurrectionists massacred the occupying French garrison in Bruges, Flanders, killing approximately 2,000 people.
- 1695 – An earthquake measuring Ms7.8 struck Shanxi Province in northern China, resulting in at least 52,600 deaths.
- 1927 – Disgruntled school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe set off explosives with timers and a rifle (aftermath pictured), causing the Bath School disaster in the Bath Consolidated School in Michigan, killing 44 people in the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history.
- 2009 – The Sri Lanka Army killed Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader and founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to bring an end to the 26-year Sri Lankan Civil War.
- Thomas Midgley Jr. (b. 1889)
- Ester Boserup (b. 1910)
- Jean-François Théodore (d. 2015)
Yesterday's featured picture
Sea urchins are a group of spiny globular echinoderms which form the class Echinoidea. About 950 species live on the seabed, inhabiting all oceans and depth zones from the intertidal to 5,000 metres (16,000 feet; 2,700 fathoms). Their tests (hard shells) are round and spiny, typically from 3 to 10 centimetres (1 to 4 inches) across. Sea urchins move slowly, crawling with their tube feet, and sometimes pushing themselves with their spines. They feed primarily on algae but also eat slow-moving or sessile animals. Their predators include sea otters, starfish, wolf eels, and triggerfish. This photograph, taken off the northern coast of Haiti near Cap-Haïtien, shows two species of sea urchin: a West Indian sea egg (top) and a reef urchin (bottom). Photograph credit: Nick Hobgood, edited by Lycaon
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