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From today's featured article

SMS Lothringen was the last of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the Braunschweig class built for the Imperial German Navy. Launched in May 1904, she was named for the then-German province of Lothringen. The ship was armed with a battery of four 28 cm (11 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph). She was to be replaced in July 1914 by dreadnought battleships but World War I prevented her retirement. The ship and the rest of II Squadron joined the dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet to support a raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby in December 1914. She primarily served as a guard ship in the German Bight; in poor condition by 1916, she was withdrawn from fleet service in February. She thereafter patrolled the Danish straits until replaced by the battleship Hannover in September 1917. After the war, she was converted into a depot ship for F-type minesweepers and placed in reserve in March 1920. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battleships of Germany.)

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Did you know ...

Central Synagogue

... that New York City's Central Synagogue (pictured) has hosted churches and a mosque?
... that the Egyptian-Sudanese singer Nxdia took the "queer anthem" "She Likes a Boy" into the UK Singles Sales Chart?
... that there is a dispute within the Indian communist movement on whether the Communist Party of India was founded in Tashkent in 1920 or Kanpur in 1925?
... that John Gould Stephenson fought at the Battle of Gettysburg while serving as the librarian of Congress?
... that the Swiss Party of Labour expelled its branch in Basel in 1988 after tensions over an occupation movement in the city?
... that between 2006 and 2007, Stacy Hollowell worked for basketball teams in Qatar, China, Bahrain and Lithuania?
... that on June 30, 1973, scientists set the record for the longest observation of a total solar eclipse, at 74 minutes of totality?
... that suffragette Ellen Oliver recognised "daughter of God" Mabel Barltrop as the spiritual child of prophet Joanna Southcott?
... that a ring-tailed monkey named Jenny threw billiard balls down a flight of stairs to alert firefighters to a fire in their own building?

In the news

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian

A landslide in Papua New Guinea's Enga Province leaves thousands of people missing.
The European Union passes the Artificial Intelligence Act, aiming to establish a regulatory and legal framework for AI.
A helicopter crash near Varzaqan, Iran, kills eight people, including President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (pictured).
In boxing, Oleksandr Usyk defeats Tyson Fury to become the first undisputed heavyweight champion in twenty-four years.

On this day

May 27: Memorial Day in the United States

Manchu Prince Dorgon

1644 – Manchu regent Dorgon (depicted) defeated rebel leader Li Zicheng of the Shun dynasty at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, allowing the Manchus to enter and conquer the capital city of Beijing.
1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Austrian forces defeated the French Army of the Danube, capturing the strategically important Swiss town of Winterthur.
1954 – The security clearance of American nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of Project Y, was revoked.
1967 – Australians voted overwhelmingly for the number of Indigenous Australians to be included in population counts for constitutional purposes and for the federal government to make laws for their benefit.
2006 – An earthquake registering 6.4 M_w struck near the city of Yogyakarta on the southern side of the Indonesian island of Java, killing more than 5,700 people.

Diego Ramírez de Arellano (d. 1624)
Julia Ward Howe (b. 1819)
Cilla Black (b. 1943)
Gérard Jean-Juste (d. 2009)

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From today's featured list

Exo

In 2015, 35 singles reached number one on the Music Bank Chart, and 27 acts were awarded first-place trophies. The Music Bank Chart is a record chart established in 1998 on the South Korean KBS television music program Music Bank. Every week during its live broadcast, the show gives an award for the best-performing single on the South Korean chart. Of all releases for the year, "Call Me Baby" by Exo (pictured) acquired the highest point total on the April 10 broadcast, with a score of 12,681, and along with "Lion Heart" by Girls' Generation was ranked number one on the chart for four consecutive weeks, making both singles the most-awarded songs of the year. The first winner of the year was "December, 2014 (The Winter's Tale)" by Exo, which debuted at number one on the January 2 broadcast. The group had four number one singles on the chart in 2015. Girls' Generation had their 100th music-show win on the July 17 broadcast with their win for "Party", becoming the first artist to do so in South Korean music show history. (Full list...)

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Wheat Fields is a series of dozens of paintings by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The close association of peasants and the cycles of nature particularly interested Van Gogh, such as the sowing of seeds, harvest and sheaves of wheat in the fields. Van Gogh saw ploughing, sowing and harvesting as symbolic to man's efforts to overwhelm the cycles of nature. This oil-on-canvas Wheat Fields painting, also sometimes known as Wheat Field with Alpilles Foothills in the Background, was created in June 1888 and is now in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh

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