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August 28

Bäckadräkten worn by Clue

Bäckadräkten is Sweden's first unisex folk costume, designed in 2022 by musician Fredy Clue (pictured) and textile designer Ida Björs. Their mission was to encourage wider participation in folk traditions by providing an outfit that is not restricted to any gender or geographic region. The design merges elements traditionally considered either male or female and borrows heavily from older folk costumes. The release generated international press attention and discussions on social media, much of the latter about the relationship between folk arts and gender. Many welcomed the design, saying it provides an opportunity for non-binary Swedes to be more involved in folk culture. Others reacted negatively, resisting the social change they see as associated with it. Clue released a sewing pattern in 2023 and started taking custom orders by 2024, encouraging users to modify as they see fit, saying: "The real work continues with us learning to listen to oneself and others." (Full article...)

August 28

SMS Mainz (background) shortly before sinking in the Battle of Heligoland Bight

• 1542 – Ottoman–Portuguese conflicts: During the Battle of Wofla, the Portuguese commander Cristóvão da Gama was captured by the Adal Sultanate and executed the next day.
• 1833 – The Slavery Abolition Act 1833, officially abolishing slavery in most of the British Empire, received royal assent.
• 1914 – In the first naval battle of the First World War, British ships ambushed a German naval patrol in the Heligoland Bight (pictured).
• 1993 – The first direct Presidential election in Singapore was held.
• 2003 – A pizza delivery man in Erie, Pennsylvania, was killed during a complex bank robbery when a bomb that was locked around his neck exploded.

August 28

Danafungia scruposa is a species of coral found in the eastern and western Indian Ocean, the eastern central, northwestern and western central Pacific Ocean, Japan, the East China Sea, the Red Sea, and eastern Australia. It is around 25 centimetres (9.8 inches) in diameter and normally consumes a variety of food from bacteria to mesozooplankton measuring 1 mm (0.039 in) in diameter. During an algal bloom in 2009, researchers observed D. scruposa consuming the jellyfish Aurelia aurita, the first time such behaviour had been seen in the wild. This D. scruposa coral was photographed in the Red Sea off the Egyptian coast. Photograph credit: Diego Delso Recently featured: Warsaw George Roper Splendid fairywren Archive More featured pictures

August 29

Yuan-era stele in the ruins of the Cross Temple

The Cross Temple is a former place of worship in Fangshan, Beijing. Built as a Buddhist temple, it may have seen Christian use during the Tang dynasty (618–907). The temple was used by Buddhists during the Liao dynasty (916–1125) and by Christians during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), returned to Buddhist use during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and was sold in 1911. Its first modern mention was in 1919. The Cross Temple was damaged during the Cultural Revolution but recognised as a national-level protected site in 2006. Some scholars consider it to be the only place of worship of the Church of the East (also known as Nestorian Christianity) discovered in China. In the early 20th century, two stone blocks carved with crosses were discovered, one of which had an inscription in Syriac; they are presently on display at Nanjing Museum. Today, the site features two ancient steles (one pictured) dating to the Liao and Yuan dynasties, some groundwork and the bases of several pillars. (Full article...)

August 29: Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (Catholicism, Anglicanism)

Michael Faraday

• 1350 – Hundred Years' War: Led by King Edward III, a fleet of 50 English ships captured at least 14 Castilian vessels and sank several more at the Battle of Winchelsea.
• 1786 – Angered by high tax burdens and disfranchisement, farmers in western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays began an armed uprising against the U.S. federal government.
• 1831 – Michael Faraday (pictured) first experimentally demonstrated electromagnetic induction, leading to the formulation of the law of induction named after him.
• 1960 – Air France Flight 343 crashed while attempting to land at Yoff Airport, Dakar, killing all 63 occupants.
• 2016 – Chen Quanguo became the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, and in that role later oversaw the creation of the Xinjiang internment camps.

August 29

Tom Taylor (1817–1880) was an English dramatist, public servant and writer. After a brief academic career in English literature and language at University College London in the 1840s, Taylor practised law and became a civil servant. At the same time he became a journalist, most prominently as a contributor to and eventually the editor of the magazine Punch. He also began a theatre career and is now best known as a playwright. With up to one hundred plays staged during his career, both original work and adaptations of French plays, Taylor's output covers a range of genres from farce to melodrama. Most fell into neglect after Taylor's death, but Our American Cousin (1858), which achieved great success in the 19th century, remains famous as the piece that was being performed in the presence of Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated in 1865. This undated photograph by the studio of Samuel Robert Lock and George C. Whitfield is part of Men of Mark: A Gallery of Contemporary Portraits, a collection published in 1881. Photograph credit: Lock & Whitfield; restored by Adam Cuerden Recently featured: Danafungia scruposa Warsaw George Roper Archive More featured pictures

August 30

Luis Miguel in 2008

Segundo Romance (Second Romance) is the tenth studio album by Mexican singer Luis Miguel (pictured), released on 30 August 1994 through WEA Latina. Like Miguel's 1991 album Romance, Segundo Romance comprises cover versions of boleros (Latin ballads). It was produced by Miguel with Juan Carlos Calderón, Kiko Cibrian and Armando Manzanero, and recorded in early 1994 at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. Miguel promoted the album with tours in the United States and Latin America from August to December 1994. Four singles were released: "El Día Que Me Quieras", "La Media Vuelta", "Todo y Nada", and "Delirio". The former two reached the top of the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart in the United States. Segundo Romance received positive reviews from music critics and it won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Performance. By 1995, Segundo Romance had sold more than 4.5 million copies, achieved multi-platinum status in many Latin American countries and Spain, and was certified platinum in the United States. (Full article...)

August 30: Victory Day in Turkey (1922)

Guru Ram Das

• AD 70 – First Jewish–Roman War: Roman forces led by Titus set fire to the Second Temple during the Siege of Jerusalem.
• 1574 – Guru Ram Das (pictured) became the fourth of the Sikh gurus, the spiritual masters of Sikhism.
• 1594 – James VI of Scotland held a masque at the baptism of Prince Henry, his first child.
• 1959 – South Vietnamese opposition figure Phan Quang Đán was elected to the National Assembly, despite soldiers being bussed in to vote multiple times for President Ngô Đình Diệm's candidate.
• 2007 – A heavy bomber plane that had been unintentionally loaded with nuclear missiles transported them from North Dakota to Louisiana before they were recognized.

August 30

Nicolas Hague

The Vegas Golden Knights have made 54 selections in eight NHL entry drafts as of 2024. An American professional ice hockey franchise located in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Golden Knights were founded ahead of the 2017–18 season as an expansion team, and play in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Hockey League (NHL). The Golden Knights first participated in the 2017 NHL entry draft, in which they made Cody Glass their first-ever selection at sixth overall; they also selected Nick Suzuki and Erik Brannstrom later in the first round. Nicolas Hague (pictured), their 2017 second-round selection, has played the most games for the Golden Knights of any draft pick, with 296 games played as of the conclusion of the 2023–24 NHL season. Hague and 2018 fifth-round pick Paul Cotter were the only draft picks to be inscribed on the Stanley Cup after the Golden Knights' victory in the 2023 Stanley Cup Finals. (Full list...)

August 30

Oregano (Origanum vulgare) is a species of flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It was native to the Mediterranean region, but widely naturalised elsewhere in the temperate Northern Hemisphere. A relative of the herb marjoram, oregqano has purple, pink or white flowers and spade-shaped, olive-green leaves. It is a perennial, but it is grown as an annual in colder climates as it often does not survive the winter. Oregano leaves are widely used as a culinary herb, and its oil is often used as a dietary supplement, although there is no clinical evidence that it has any effect on human health. This photograph of an inflorescence of oregano was taken in Keila, Estonia; the petals of the flowers depicted are approximately 5 millimetres (0.20 inches) in length. This picture was focus-stacked from 66 separate images. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus Recently featured: Tom Taylor Danafungia scruposa Warsaw Archive More featured pictures

August 31

Rachelle Ann Go (born August 31, 1986) is a Filipino singer and actress. Known primarily for her work in theater, she has starred in musicals on Broadway and in the West End. She began her career as a pop artist in her native country, winning the television talent show Search for a Star in 2003. She has since released six albums. Go started her theater career in the Philippines, playing the lead roles of Ariel in The Little Mermaid (2011) and Jane Porter in Tarzan (2013). Her international breakthrough came when she was cast as Gigi Van Tranh in the West End revival of Miss Saigon in 2014. She gained further recognition for her portrayal of Eliza Schuyler in the original 2017 West End production of Hamilton. Go has also played Fantine in various stagings and tours of Les Misérables. Outside of music, she has had roles in the television series Diva (2010), Nita Negrita (2011), Biritera (2012), and Indio (2013). (This article is part of a featured topic: Overview of Rachelle Ann Go.)

August 31: Independence Day in Malaysia (1957); Romanian Language Day in Moldova and Romania

Cartoon depicting Jack the Ripper as a phantom stalking Whitechapel

• 1218 – Al-Kamil became the fourth sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt.
• 1888 – The body of Mary Ann Nichols, the alleged first victim of an unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper (depicted), was found in Buck's Row, London.
• 1942 – The Matagorda hurricane, the most intense and costliest tropical cyclone of the 1942 Atlantic hurricane season, dissipated after causing $26.5 million in damages and eight deaths.
• 1969 – On the final day of the Isle of Wight Festival 1969, an event attended by approximately 150,000 people over three days, Bob Dylan appeared in his first gig in three years.
• 2019 – A sightseeing helicopter crashed in the mountains of Skoddevarre in Alta, Norway, killing all six people on board.

August 31

The red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It occupies a wide range of habitats and altitudes, including deserts, grasslands, forests, agricultural fields, and urban areas. Red-tailed hawks are opportunistic generalists and their diet is variable. In North America, they are most often predators of small mammals such as rodents. Prey that is terrestrial and at least partially diurnal is preferred, so types such as ground squirrels are preferred where they naturally occur. The bird is legally protected in Canada and Mexico, and in the United States by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This red-tailed hawk in flight was photographed at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge in California. Photograph credit: Frank Schulenburg Recently featured: Oregano Tom Taylor Danafungia scruposa Archive More featured pictures

September 1

Gothic boxwood miniatures are very small Christian-themed wood sculptures produced during the 15th and 16th centuries in the Low Countries, at the end of the Gothic period and during the emerging Northern Renaissance. They consist of highly intricate layers of reliefs made from fine-grained boxwood, often rendered to a nearly microscopic level. Of the approximately 150 surviving examples, the majority are statuettes, skulls, coffins, or spherical beads known as prayer nuts; some 20 are in the form of polyptychs, including triptych and diptych altarpieces, tabernacles, and monstrances. They typically contain imagery from the life of Mary, the Crucifixion of Jesus, or vistas of Heaven and Hell. Each miniature required exceptional craftsmanship and may have taken decades to complete. Important collections are in the Art Gallery of Ontario, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. (Full article...)

September 1

Illuminated Guru Granth Sahib folio

• 1145 – The main altar of Lund Cathedral, then the Catholic cathedral of all the Nordic countries, was dedicated to Saint Lawrence and the Virgin Mary.
• 1604 – The Guru Granth Sahib (folio depicted), the religious text of Sikhism, was installed in the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
• 1859 – A powerful solar flare caused a coronal mass ejection that struck Earth a few hours later, generating the most intense geomagnetic storm ever recorded and causing bright aurorae visible in the middle latitudes.
• 1911 – Construction began on the Saline Valley salt tram, which during its operation was the steepest tram in the United States.
• 1972 – In a match widely publicized as a Cold War confrontation, American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer became the 11th World Chess Champion with his victory over Soviet Boris Spassky.

September 1

Webb's First Deep Field is the first operational image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, captured by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and revealed to the public by NASA in July 2022. The deep-field photograph, which covers a tiny area of sky visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is centered on SMACS 0723, a galaxy cluster in the constellation of Volans. Thousands of galaxies are visible in the image, some as old as 13 billion years and when it was released it became the highest-resolution image of the early universe ever taken. Photograph credit: NASA Recently featured: Red-tailed hawk Oregano Tom Taylor Archive More featured pictures

September 2

Falcon's Fury is a freestanding Sky Jump drop tower attraction at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay amusement park in Tampa, Florida. Manufactured by Intaride, a subsidiary of Intamin, the ride is North America's tallest freestanding drop tower, at a maximum height of 335 feet (102 m). It is also the first drop tower to use 90-degree tilting seats, facing riders straight down through five seconds of free fall. They reach a speed of 60 miles per hour (100 km/h) before rotating back into a vertical position and decelerating at about 3.5 Gs. The ride's name is meant to suggest a falcon's ability to dive steeply at high speed to capture prey. Due to the height of the attraction, approval from the Federal Aviation Administration was required. Construction was delayed until 2013, and the opening date was also delayed by mechanical and technical issues. Falcon's Fury opened to park employees in August before a soft opening on August 16, 2014, and an official opening on September 2, 2014. (Full article...)

September 2: National Day in Vietnam (1945)

Principality of Sealand

• 1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury was founded following financial concerns in the new nation.
• 1792 – French Revolution: Due to an overwhelming fear that foreign armies would attack Paris and prisoners would revolt, revolutionaries began the summary execution of more than a thousand prisoners.
• 1946 – The interim government of India, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, was formed to assist the transition of India from British rule to independence.
• 1957 – South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm began an official visit to Australia, the first by a foreign incumbent head of state to the country.
• 1967 – Paddy Roy Bates proclaimed HM Fort Roughs, a former World War II Maunsell Sea Fort in the North Sea off the coast of Suffolk, England, as an independent sovereign state: the Principality of Sealand (pictured).

September 2

Supermassive Games have worked on over 20 games since 2008. Until 2018 they worked almost exclusively with PlayStation, first working on downloadable content for LittleBigPlanet. The studio published their first game, Big Match Striker, in September 2010. Supermassive worked on multiple games that utilised the PlayStation Move motion controller including Start the Party! and Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves, both of which were released in 2010. In 2015, the studio started to focus mostly on interactive drama survival horror video games, starting with their breakout title, Until Dawn, which won the BAFTA Games Award for Original Property in 2016. With the success of Until Dawn, the studio continued to expand the universe, releasing two spin-off titles; Until Dawn: Rush of Blood (2016) and The Inpatient (2018), for PlayStation VR. In August 2019, Supermassive released Man of Medan, the first game in The Dark Pictures Anthology, and in 2022, they released The Quarry, the spiritual successor to Until Dawn. Supermassive's next game, The Casting of Frank Stone, a game set in the Dead by Daylight universe, will be released on 3 September 2024. (Full list...)

September 2

Princess Ida is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration, preceding The Mikado. Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre in 1884 and ran for 246 performances. Based on Alfred, Lord Tennyson's narrative poem The Princess, the opera concerns a princess who founds a women's university and teaches that women are superior to men and should rule in their stead. Prince Hilarion, to whom she had been betrothed, sneaks into the university, and a war erupts between the two sexes. Princess Ida satirizes feminism, women's education and Darwinian evolution, controversial topics in conservative Victorian England. Princess Ida was only a modest success, and after its initial run, it was not revived in London until 1919. Nevertheless, the piece is performed regularly today by both professional and amateur companies. This watercolours-and-pencil-on-card image by C. Wilhelm shows his costume design for the characters of Arac, Gurun and Scynthius in the 1884 production. Costume design credit: C. Wilhelm; restored by Adam Cuerden Recently featured: Webb's First Deep Field Red-tailed hawk Oregano Archive More featured pictures

September 3

Adult and juvenile Laysan honeycreepers

The Laysan honeycreeper (Himatione fraithii) is an extinct species of finch, first recorded in 1828, that was endemic to Laysan in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Its length was 13–15 cm (5–6 in) with a 64–69 mm (2.5–2.7 in) long wing. It was bright scarlet vermilion with a faint tint of golden orange on the head, breast and upper abdomen; the rest of its upper parts were orange scarlet. The lower abdomen was dusky gray fading into brownish white. The wings, tail, bill, and legs were dark brown. The bill was slender and downturned. It was nectarivorous and insectivorous, gathering nectar and insects from flowers. The breeding season was probably between January and June, and the clutch size was four or five eggs. In 1903, domestic rabbits were introduced to the island and destroyed its vegetation. In April 1923, only three Laysan honeycreepers were found, one of which was filmed. On April 23, a sandstorm hit the island, and the last birds perished due to lack of cover. (Full article...)

September 3

Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne

• 36 BC – The Sicilian revolt against the Second Triumvirate of the Roman Republic ended when the fleet of Sextus Pompey, the rebel leader, was defeated at the Battle of Naulochus.
• 1411 – The Treaty of Selymbria was concluded between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman prince Musa Çelebi.
• 1901 – The flag of Australia flew for the first time, from the Royal Exhibition Building (pictured) in Melbourne.
• 1987 – In a military coup d'état in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposed the incumbent president Jean-Baptiste Bagaza while he was abroad in Canada.
• 2017 – North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test at Punggye-ri, causing a magnitude-6.3 earthquake.

September 3

Sphex ichneumoneus, known commonly as the great golden digger wasp, is a wasp in the family Sphecidae. It is native to the Western Hemisphere, from Canada to South America, and provisions its young with various types of paralyzed Orthoptera. Sphex ichneumoneus is identified by the golden pubescence on its head and thorax, its reddish orange legs, and partly reddish orange body. This S. ichneumoneus individual was photographed in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City, United States. Photograph credit: Rhododendrites Recently featured: Princess Ida Webb's First Deep Field Red-tailed hawk Archive More featured pictures

September 4

Cover of the first issue

Battle Birds was an American air-war pulp magazine, published by Popular Publications. It was launched at the end of 1932, but did not sell well, and in 1934 the publisher turned it into an air-war hero pulp titled Dusty Ayres and His Battle Birds. Robert Sidney Bowen, an established pulp writer, provided the lead novel each month, and also wrote the short stories that filled out the issue. Bowen's stories were set in the future, with the United States menaced by an Asian empire called the Black Invaders. The change was not successful enough to be extended beyond the initial plan of a year, and Bowen wrote a novel in which, unusually for pulp fiction, Dusty Ayres finally defeated the invaders, to end the series. The magazine ceased publication with the July/August 1935 issue. It restarted in 1940, under the original title, Battle Birds, and lasted for another four years. All the cover art was painted by Frederick Blakeslee. (Full article...)

September 4

Damage from the Canterbury earthquake in Christchurch

• 476 – Germanic leader Odoacer captured Ravenna and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus, marking the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
• 1800 – French Revolutionary Wars: Facing starvation and a death rate of 100 soldiers per day, the French garrison in Malta surrendered to British forces, ending a two-year siege.
• 1843 – The state wedding of Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil took place at the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro.
• 1977 – The Golden Dragon massacre took place in Chinatown, San Francisco, leaving five dead and spurring police to end Chinese gang violence in the city.
• 2010 – A magnitude-7.1 earthquake (damage pictured) struck the Canterbury Region of New Zealand, causing two deaths and up to NZ$40 billion in damages.

September 4

John Milton Brannan (1819–1892) was a career United States Army artillery officer who served in the Mexican–American War and as a Union brigadier general of volunteers in the American Civil War, in command of the Department of Key West in Florida and assigned to Fort Zachary Taylor. Most notably, he served as a division commander of the Union XIV Corps at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. This glass plate collodion negative of Brannan was produced by the studio of photographer Matthew Brady in around 1860–1870. Photograph credit: studio of Matthew Brady; restored by Adam Cuerden Recently featured: Sphex ichneumoneus Princess Ida Webb's First Deep Field Archive More featured pictures