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From today's featured article

Japanese battleship Fuji

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.)

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Did you know ...

The Luck of Cumberland

... that The Luck of Cumberland (pictured), designed by Herbert Maryon and executed by the Keswick School of Industrial Art, is made of more than 200 ounces of solid silver?
... that Roy Waldo Miner extracted about forty tons of coral from the Andros Barrier Reef to build a museum diorama?
... that the Waahine Toa paintings were criticised as unfashionable when first exhibited in the 1980s, but are now considered iconic in New Zealand art?
... that NFL player Valentin Senn used to play the trumpet in the Swarovski Orchestra?
... that B. S. Johnson based an autobiographical novel on his three-week voyage on a fishing trawler?
... that Liz Stooke worked as a receptionist at the London Drama School before becoming an actress?
... that the North Carolina radio stations WCBQ and WHNC were fined by a federal judge for broadcasting songs without a license?
... that animators for Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds studied polar bears and red pandas for machine movements, and mixed synthetic noises with walrus and seal grunts for their vocalisations?
... that Thomas Brassey paid his workers with illegal tokens while building the Potters Bar Tunnel?

In the news

Sabastian Sawe

A train crash near Jakarta, Indonesia, kills at least 16 people and injures 91 others.
In the London Marathon, Sabastian Sawe (pictured) and Tigst Assefa win the men's and women's races, both setting world record times.
In Mali, the Azawad Liberation Front and Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin launch a joint offensive against the government.
The Progressive Bulgaria coalition, led by former president Rumen Radev, wins a majority of the National Assembly in the parliamentary election, in a bid to end the ongoing Bulgarian political crisis.

On this day

May 2: Flag Day in Poland

Great Mill Disaster illustration

1194 – King Richard I of England gave the city of Portsmouth its first royal charter.
1878 – A dust explosion (depicted) at the world's largest flour mill in Minneapolis resulted in 18 deaths.
1986 – Henri Toivonen was killed in an accident while leading the Tour de Corse rally, resulting in FISA banning the popular Group B rally cars for the following season.
2003 – Cyclone Manou formed in the Indian Ocean; over the next two weeks it struck Madagascar and left more than 100,000 people homeless.
2011 – Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six in his private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Yongle Emperor (b. 1360)
Catherine Labouré (b. 1806)
George Went Hensley (b. 1881)
Princess Charlotte of Wales (b. 2015)

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Today's featured picture

The Aqueduct of Segovia is a Roman aqueduct located in Segovia, Spain. It is thought to have been constructed during the 1st century, and is one of the most significant and best-preserved ancient monuments on the Iberian Peninsula. The aqueduct is regarded as a symbol of Segovia and is present on the city's coat of arms. This photograph, taken in 2009, shows the elevated section of the Aqueduct of Segovia passing through the Plaza del Azoguejo in the city centre.

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