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Union gunboats bombarding Confederate defenses

The Battle of Grand Gulf was fought on April 29, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army forces commanded by Ulysses S. Grant had failed several times to bypass or capture the Confederate-held city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant decided to move his army south of Vicksburg, cross the Mississippi River, and then advance on the city. A Confederate division under John S. Bowen prepared defenses—Forts Wade and Cobun—at Grand Gulf, Mississippi. To clear the way for a Union crossing, seven ironclad warships from the Mississippi Squadron of the Union Navy commanded by Admiral David Dixon Porter bombarded the Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf. Union fire silenced Fort Wade, but the overall Confederate position held. Grant decided to cross the river elsewhere. The next day, Union forces crossed the river at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. The position at Grand Gulf was abandoned and became a Union supply point. The Grand Gulf battlefield is preserved in Grand Gulf Military State Park. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Francis of Delirium

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... that the Cistern of Pulcheria is one of the best-conserved Byzantine reservoirs in Istanbul?
... that Saint Tarbula of Persia was martyred by being cut in half by a saw after being accused of witchcraft?
... that It Sticks Out Half a Mile is a radio sequel series to Dad's Army that follows three of the main characters in their attempts to renovate a seaside pier in post-war Britain?
... that Uwe Boll has described his 2024 crime drama film First Shift as the least violent in his body of work?
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... that home repair and maintenance educator Mercury Stardust and her friend Jory Vizcaino have raised more than $4 million for transgender healthcare through their TikTok-A-Thon for Trans Healthcare?
... that the promotion and hype around obtaining Mew in the original Pokémon games resulted in the games' sales increasing more than threefold?
... that zombie-like obedience has been attributed to Jesuits, the military, and followers of totalitarian regimes?

In the news

Ariel Henry

Acting prime minister of Haiti Ariel Henry (pictured) resigns, and is replaced by Michel Patrick Boisvert while the Transitional Presidential Council is sworn in.
The Ownership, Unity and Responsibility Party, led by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, wins the most seats in the Solomon Islands general election but falls short of a majority.
NASA announces that the Voyager 1 space probe is sending readable data for the first time in five months.
The HDZ-led coalition wins the most seats in the Croatian parliamentary election but falls short of a majority.
Ichthyotitan, the largest known marine reptile, is formally described.

On this day

April 29

HMS Endeavour

1770 – On his first voyage, British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour (pictured) landed at Botany Bay, making the first recorded European landfall on the eastern coast of Australia.
1903 – A rockslide buried part of the Canadian mining town of Frank under 110 million tonnes of rock, killing around 70 people.
1944 – Second World War: British agent Nancy Wake parachuted into Auvergne, France, becoming a liaison between the Special Operations Executive and the local Maquis group.
1968 – The controversial Broadway musical Hair, a product of the counterculture of the 1960s, opened, with its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
2006 – Cyclone Mala made landfall near Thandwe, Myanmar, causing 37 deaths.

George Farquhar (d. 1707)
Marietta Blau (b. 1894)
Giacomo dalla Torre (d. 2020)

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From today's featured list

Arsenal after winning the 2018–19 league title

Arsenal Women Football Club have played 36 domestic league seasons and remained in the English top flight since joining in 1992. Based in London, they are the most successful club in English women's football. They formed in 1987, 100 years after the inception of the Arsenal men's team, and were an amateur side for over a decade until the team became semi-professional in 2002. During the 1990s and 2000s, under the management of Vic Akers and other successive coaches, Arsenal experienced an unprecedented period of success dominating English competitions with no sustained opposition. Domestically, Arsenal have won 15 league titles, 14 FA Cups, 17 league cups and five FA Community Shields; the club holds the most titles of each individual domestic competition. Arsenal are the only English side to have won Europe's continental women's football competition, the UEFA Women's Champions League (formally the UEFA Women's Cup), after the club defeated the Swedish side Umeå in the 2007 final. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Sphalerite is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula (Zn,Fe)S. It is found in a variety of deposit types, and is found in association with galena, chalcopyrite, pyrite (and other sulfides), calcite, dolomite, quartz, rhodochrosite, and fluorite. Sphalerite is an important ore of zinc, with around 95 percent of all primary zinc extracted from its ore. Due to its variable trace-element content, sphalerite is also an important source of several other metals such as cadmium, gallium, germanium and indium. The zinc in sphalerite is also used to produce brass. This sample was extracted in Creede, Colorado, and features black tetrahedral crystals of sphalerite up to 8 mm (0.31 in) in size, with minor chalcopyrite and calcite, in a 4.5 cm × 3.0 cm × 2.0 cm (1.77 in × 1.18 in × 0.79 in) matrix. This photograph was focus-stacked from 125 separate images.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

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