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Norman Rockwell in 1921

Marriage License is an oil painting by American illustrator Norman Rockwell (pictured) created for the cover of the June 11, 1955, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. It depicts a young man and woman filling out a marriage license application at a government building in front of a bored-looking clerk. Although the room and its furnishings are dark, the couple are illuminated by the window beside them. The contrast between the couple and the clerk highlights two reoccurring themes in Rockwell's works: young love and ordinary life. The painting has been praised by critics and compared to the works of Johannes Vermeer due to the use of light and dark. The painting is in the Norman Rockwell Museum's collection and has been a part of major exhibitions in 1955, 1972, and 1999. In 2004 the magazine Mad published a parody of Marriage License that depicted a pair of gay men, seen as a commentary on competing meanings of marriage and the government's role in deciding whether same-sex marriage is valid. (Full article...)

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Vanadium crystal bars and cube

... that vanadium (pictured) was named after the Norse goddess Freyja?
... that Emily Donelson stopped serving as First Lady of the United States due to illness?
... that transgender activist Ky Schevers transitioned to male, detransitioned to female, then retransitioned as transmasculine and genderqueer?
... that marrying Plautia Urgulanilla may have helped Claudius get first-hand information for Tyrrhenika, his work about the Etruscans?
... that one reviewer said that players should try using a guitar controller with Fret Nice "to gain a new appreciation for a traditional controller"?
... that the LGBTQ+ anthology This Arab Is Queer features 18 queer Arab writers?
... that Celine-Marie Pascale's work focuses on how race and class impact the way "business practices and government policies create, normalize and entrench economic struggles" to benefit the wealthy?
... that most blue bloods in college basketball coincidentally wear shades of blue in their uniforms?

In the news

Loreen

Sweden's Loreen (pictured) wins the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Tattoo", becoming the first woman to win the contest twice.
In cycling, Annemiek van Vleuten wins La Vuelta Femenina.
In horse racing, Mage wins the Kentucky Derby.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla are crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.
The World Health Organization ends its designation of the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency.

On this day

May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias (Catholicism)

Monument to the Battle of Lewes

1264 – Second Barons' War: King Henry III was defeated at the Battle of Lewes (monument pictured) and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
1857 – Mindon Min was crowned as King of Burma.
1863 – American Civil War: Union troops captured Jackson, the capital of Mississippi.
1931 – Five people were killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers opened fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration.
1948 – David Ben-Gurion publicly read the Israeli Declaration of Independence at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv.

Fanny Imlay (b. 1794)
Mary Seacole (d. 1881)
Taruni Sachdev (b. 1998; d. 2012)

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Today's featured picture

The Belle Tout Lighthouse is a decommissioned lighthouse and British landmark located at Beachy Head, East Sussex, close to the town of Eastbourne. The cliffs near Beachy Head saw numerous shipwrecks in the 17th and early 18th centuries and a petition to erect a lighthouse started around 1691. Despite this, the lighthouse was not built until 1828, initially as a temporary wooden structure, and then as a permanent granite lighthouse which was designed by Thomas Stevenson and became operational in 1834. The light was provided by a three-sided rotating array of oil lamps with ten lamps on each side, each lamp mounted within a parabolic reflector. The Belle Tout lighthouse was decommissioned in 1902, when the replacement Beachy Head Lighthouse was built at the bottom of the cliffs. In 1999, the Grade II listed building was moved in one piece to prevent it from succumbing to coastal erosion, and since 2010 it has operated as a bed and breakfast.

Photograph credit: Kallerna

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