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The Beulé Gate is a fortified gate leading to the Propylaia of the Acropolis of Athens, Greece. It was constructed largely of repurposed material taken from the 4th-century BCE Choragic Monument of Nikias and integrated into the Post-Herulian Wall, a late Roman fortification built around the Acropolis in the years following the city's sack by the Germanic Heruli people in 267 or early 268 CE. Its construction marked the beginning of a new phase in the Acropolis's use, in which it came to be seen more as a defensive position than a religious sanctuary. During the medieval period, the gate was further fortified, before being built over with a bastion in Ottoman times. The monument was discovered by the French archaeologist Charles Ernest Beulé on 29 May 1852, and excavated in 1852 and 1853. Archaeologists and Greek commentators criticised the aggressive excavation – particularly the use of explosives. In modern times, the gate has served primarily as an exit for tourists from the Acropolis. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Bomb defusing, photographed by Lander

... that Olga Lander's camera required her to work close to the dangerous wartime subjects she photographed (example pictured)?
... that the antiseptic cream Boroline was marketed to appeal to nationalistic sentiments?
... that King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark were the parents of a Danish king, a British queen, a Greek king, and a Russian empress?
... that John D. Rockefeller Jr., under the name "David's Father", secretly authorized the purchase of an $8,000 "antique"?
... that although Evgeniia Subbotina failed to escape her own exile in Siberia, she successfully aided the escapes of Catherine Breshkovsky, Yelizaveta Kovalskaya and Sofya Bogomolets?
... that an 18th-century hymn inspired the title of George W. Bush's 1999 autobiography?
... that Denpasar mayor I Gusti Ngurah Jaya Negara became active in politics after he was laid off from a bank due to the Asian financial crisis?
... that Israel's destruction of trees and farmland in Gaza has been described as an ecocide?
... that Elizabeth Storie's doctor poured nitric acid into her mouth, causing her teeth to fall out?

In the news

Gitanas Nausėda

Gitanas Nausėda (pictured) is re-elected as president of Lithuania.
In cricket, the Kolkata Knight Riders defeat Sunrisers Hyderabad to win the Indian Premier League.
A landslide in Papua New Guinea's Enga Province leaves thousands of people missing and presumed dead.
The European Union passes the Artificial Intelligence Act, aiming to establish a regulatory and legal framework for AI.

On this day

May 29: Feast day of Saint Paul VI (Catholicism)

Hawthorne Bridge

1233 – Mongol–Jin War: The Mongols entered and began looting Kaifeng, the capital of the Jin dynasty of China, after a 13-month siege.
1416 – A squadron of the Venetian navy captured many Ottoman ships at the Battle of Gallipoli, confirming Venetian naval superiority in the Aegean Sea for the next few decades.
1913 – During the premiere of the ballet The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a near-riot in the audience.
1999 – Charlotte Perrelli, representing Sweden, won the Eurovision Song Contest, the first edition not to feature an orchestra or live accompaniment.
2011 – Residents of Portland, Oregon, held a rally called Hands Across Hawthorne in response to an attack against a gay couple holding hands while crossing the Hawthorne Bridge (pictured).

Benedetto Pistrucci (b. 1783)
G. K. Chesterton (b. 1874)
Hubert Opperman (b. 1904)
Uroš Drenović (d. 1944)

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Today's featured picture

Lake Estancia was a prehistoric body of water in the Estancia Valley, in the center of the U.S. state of New Mexico. Mostly fed by creek and groundwater from the Manzano Mountains, the lake had diverse fauna, including cutthroat trout. It appears to have formed when a river system broke up. It reached a maximum water level (highstand) presumably during the Illinoian glaciation and subsequently fluctuated between a desiccated basin and fuller stages. Wind-driven erosion has excavated depressions in the former lakebed that are in part filled with playas (dry lake beds). The lake was one of several pluvial lakes in southwestern North America that developed during the late Pleistocene. Their formation has been variously attributed to decreased temperatures during the ice age and increased precipitation; a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation and the Laurentide Ice Sheet altered atmospheric circulation patterns and increased precipitation in the region. The lake has yielded a good paleoclimatic record. This map shows the shoreline of Lake Estancia at three different periods: early Estancia (1,939 m / 6,362 ft above sea level), late Estancia (1,897 m / 6,224 ft), and "Lake Willard" (1,870 m / 6,135 ft). Present-day populated places, county boundaries and roads are overlaid on the map for identification.

Map credit: Tom Fish

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