Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 May 30b

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From today's featured article

Burlington House, meeting place of the committee

The MAUD Committee was a British scientific working group formed during the Second World War to determine if an atomic bomb was feasible. The name came from a reference by Danish physicist Niels Bohr to his housekeeper, Maud Ray. The committee was founded in response to the Frisch–Peierls memorandum, which argued that a small sphere of pure uranium-235 could have the explosive power of thousands of tons of TNT. Its chairman was George Thomson and it met at Burlington House (pictured). Uranium enrichment, fissile materials, and the design of nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons were examined. The research culminated in two reports, known collectively as the MAUD Report. In response, the British created a nuclear weapons project. The report was made available to the United States, where it energised the American effort, which eventually became the Manhattan Project; it was also handed to the Soviet Union by its atomic spies, helping start the Soviet atomic bomb project. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Cut glass punchbowl, 1895

... that John Ruskin wrote that "all cut glass is barbarous, for the cutting conceals its ductility and confuses it with crystal"?
... that Leon Hale, who would have turned 100 today, was rejected from the US Navy and the Marine Corps during World War II partly due to the odd placement of his eye?
... that the mushroom Macrocybe gigantea has been found growing on elephant dung in Kerala?
... that Joe Ligon is America's longest serving juvenile lifer?
... that the video game Football Glory features its developers in the Croatia national football team?
... that the music of Jade Bird was called a "young Londoner's spin on modern Americana" by Rolling Stone?
... that research on Inuit clothing began with detailed images of Inuit people produced by Europeans as early as the 1560s?
... that Charles Henry Huberich published a book on English prize law in German, and another on German prize law in English, in the same year?

In the news

N'Golo Kanté

In association football, the UEFA Champions League concludes with Chelsea (man of the match N'Golo Kanté pictured) defeating Manchester City in the final.
In Syria, Bashar al-Assad claims victory in a presidential election that is denounced as undemocratic by the United States and the European Union.
A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children is found at a former Kamloops school, part of the Canadian Indian residential school system.
The district court of The Hague orders Royal Dutch Shell to cut its global carbon emissions by 45 per cent by the end of 2030.

On this day

May 30: Statehood Day in Croatia (1990); Lod Massacre Remembrance Day in Puerto Rico (1972)

Jane Seymour

1536 – Jane Seymour (pictured), a former lady-in-waiting, married King Henry VIII, becoming the queen consort of England.
1914 – RMS Aquitania, the last surviving four-funnel ocean liner, departed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage to New York City.
1943 – The first game of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the United States, was played.
1998 – An earthquake registering 6.5 M_w struck northern Afghanistan, killing at least 4,000 people, destroying more than 30 villages, and leaving 45,000 people homeless in Takhar and Badakhshan Provinces.

Voltaire (d. 1778)
Colin Blythe (b. 1879)
Norris Bradbury (b. 1909)

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Today's featured picture

Clitocybe nebularis, commonly known as the clouded agaric or the cloud funnel, is a common gilled fungus that grows both in conifer-dominated forests and broad-leaved woodland in Europe and North America. This C. nebularis mushroom was photographed growing among fallen beech leaves in Famberhorst nature reserve, the Netherlands.

Photograph credit: Dominicus Johannes Bergsma

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