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From today's featured article

"Chinese character" written in traditional (left) and simplified (right) forms

Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions influenced by Chinese culture. The function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly over the past three millennia. Unlike letters in alphabets that directly reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes—the units of meaning in a language—often encoding aspects of pronunciation as well as meaning. Writing all of a language's frequently used vocabulary requires 2000–3000 characters; as of 2024, nearly 100,000 have been identified and included in The Unicode Standard. Characters are composed of strokes written in a fixed order. Historically, methods of writing them include inscribing stone, bone, or bronze; brushing ink onto silk, bamboo, or paper; and printing with woodblocks or moveable type. More recent technologies using Chinese characters include telegraph codes and typewriters, as well as input methods and text encodings on computers. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Fanciful illustration of Donus II

... that Pope Donus II (pictured) never existed, despite being praised for his honorable conduct by later historians?
... that Topsy was the longest-surviving member of the United States Camel Corps?
... that Misato Haga began her career as a grid girl before she led her own motor racing team?
... that a science fiction short story from 1939 has been called an "eerie prediction" and "an uncanny, horrifyingly vivid prophecy" of The Holocaust?
... that Liechtenstein competed only in athletics at the 1968 Summer Olympics?
... that Sin and Flesh Brook gets its name from the murder and mutilation of a colonist during King Philip's War?
... that Isabel Garcés provided a comical counterpoint to "child prodigy" protagonists in many 1960s musical comedy films?
... that the steam corvette Gefle was the first ship of the Swedish Navy to be equipped with a propeller?
... that Greg Jensen went from world cow dung throwing champion to playing in the NFL?

In the news

Nicușor Dan

Author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi win the International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp: Selected Stories.
Nicușor Dan (pictured) is elected as president of Romania.
In the Portuguese legislative election, the Democratic Alliance wins the most seats in parliament.
Austria, represented by JJ with the song "Wasted Love", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
In the Philippines, the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas wins the most seats in the Senate election, while Lakas–CMD, one of its component parties, wins the most seats in the House elections.

On this day

May 24: Aldersgate Day (Methodism)

Eric XIV of Sweden

1567 – The mentally ill King Erik XIV of Sweden (pictured) and his guards murdered five incarcerated nobles, including some members of the influential Sture family.
1689 – The Act of Toleration became law, granting freedom of worship to English nonconformists under certain circumstances, but deliberately excluding Catholics.
1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 began, with battles beginning in County Kildare and fighting later spreading across the country.
1963 – United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy met with African American author James Baldwin in an unsuccessful attempt to improve race relations.
2014 – A gunman involved in Islamic extremism opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people.

Robert Hues (d. 1632)
Philip Pearlstein (b. 1924)
Magnus Manske (b. 1974)
Stormé DeLarverie (d. 2014)

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Today's featured picture

Germanicus Julius Caesar (24 May 15 BC – 10 October AD 19) was an ancient Roman general and politician most famously known for his campaigns against Arminius in Germania. The son of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor, Germanicus was born into an influential branch of the patrician gens Claudia. The agnomen Germanicus was added to his full name in 9 BC when it was posthumously awarded to his father in honor of his victories in Germania. In AD 4 he was adopted by his paternal uncle Tiberius, himself the stepson and heir of Germanicus' great-uncle Augustus; ten years later, Tiberius succeeded Augustus as Roman emperor. As a result of his adoption, Germanicus became an official member of the gens Julia, another prominent family, to which he was related on his mother's side. His connection to the Julii Caesares was further consolidated through a marriage between him and Agrippina the Elder, a granddaughter of Augustus. He was also the father of Caligula, the maternal grandfather of Nero, and the older brother of Claudius. This bust, depicting Germanicus in AD 4, is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Sculpture credit: unknown; photographed by J. Paul Getty Museum

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