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From today's featured article

The Sursock bronze is a gilded bronze sculptural group of Heliopolitan Jupiter dating to the 2nd century AD. A miniature of the cult statue that stood in the Great Temple of Baalbek, Lebanon, it depicts the god as a beardless youth wearing a kalathos, a basket-shaped headdress, and an ependytes, a close-fitting dress, under ornate armor. The front of the armor bears busts of seven deities associated with celestial bodies—Sol, Luna, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Juno (replacing Venus), and Saturn—arranged in an order encoding both the Chaldean sequence of planets and the days of the Roman week. The piece illustrates the syncretism of Canaanite, Greek, and Roman traditions, tracing the evolution of Heliopolitan Jupiter from the Canaanite storm god Baal Hadad into a cosmic deity of planetary order and prophecy. Named after its former owner, the Beiruti aristocrat Charles Sursock, and acquired by the Louvre in 1939, the piece inaugurated the first issue of Syria, the leading French journal of Levantine archaeology, in 1920. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Templeton Library

... that a library of religion and science in Tennessee (pictured) never opened to the public?
... that the 2020 series finale of Star Wars: The Clone Wars brought back the actor who played Darth Maul in Phantom Menace in 1999 to perform a fight scene?
... that Byzantine archers hoisted at the ships' masts during the siege of Panormus were elevated above the city walls and caused its Gothic garrison to surrender?
... that Edward Hopper painted flowers just once in a major work, dismissing them as fit only for "lady painters"?
... that teenage vocalist Alda Risma won Best Pop Female Solo Artist at the Indonesian Music Awards for her debut album?
... that Domino's reported what at the time was its biggest day of sales during O. J. Simpson's white Bronco chase?
... that Frederick McAlpine called his own party a "Pinocchio government"?
... that the Nik-O-Lok Company installed coin-operated locks on an estimated 40,000 toilet stalls before the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America got them banned?
... that children smoked their priest off his pulpit before Christ Church was completed?

In the news

Dara

Bulgaria, represented by Dara (pictured) with the song "Bangaranga", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
The World Health Organization declares the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern.
Niuean prime minister Dalton Tagelagi is re-elected for a third term.
The Philippine Senate goes into lockdown after the attempted arrest of senator Ronald dela Rosa.

On this day

May 18: Haitian Flag Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Crimean Tatar Genocide in Ukraine; Victoria Day in Canada

Aimee Semple McPherson

1388 – At the Battle of Buir Lake, a Ming Chinese army led by general Lan Yu defeated the forces of Tögüs Temür, the Mongol khan of Northern Yuan.
1926 – Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson (pictured) was reportedly kidnapped near Venice Beach in Los Angeles before reappearing five weeks later in Mexico.
1936 – In a crime that captivated Japan, Sada Abe strangled her lover, cut off his genitals, and carried them around with her for several days until her arrest.
2006 – The Parliament of Nepal unanimously voted to strip King Gyanendra of many of his powers.
2018 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 0972 crashed near Santiago de las Vegas shortly after takeoff from José Martí International Airport, killing 112 of the 113 people on board.

Pope John I (d. 526)
Eliza Orzeszkowa (d. 1910)
Delcy Rodríguez (b. 1969)
Ryan Sessegnon (b. 2000)

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From today's featured list

Sample ballot of the amendments

In 1987, ten ballot measures were held in the U.S. state of Mississippi on ten proposed amendments to the state constitution, with topics that included symbolically legalizing interracial marriage and requiring political candidates to live in the district that they seek to represent (ballot pictured). This has remained the largest number of ballot measures decided by Mississippi voters in a single year since 1912. Of the ten ballot measures, all but one passed by wide margins; the exception was Amendment 3, which repealed Mississippi's unenforceable ban on interracial marriage, and narrowly passed with 51.76 percent of voters in favor. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Sam Poo Kong, also known as Gedung Batu Temple, is a Chinese temple site in Semarang, in the Indonesian province of Central Java. Its foundations were set when the Chinese Muslim admiral Zheng He arrived in the area via the Garang River, sometime between 1400 and 1416. After disembarking from his ships, Zheng found a cave in a rocky hillside and used it for prayer, establishing a small temple on the site. The temple later became an important site for both Chinese Indonesians and Javanese worshippers. Destroyed by a landslide in 1704, it was rebuilt and repeatedly renovated, notably in 1724, 1937, 1950, and 2002–2005. The complex contains five temples in a mixed Chinese and Javanese style and includes shrines dedicated to Zheng He and his crew. It is now shared by Indonesians of multiple religions, including Buddhists and Muslims, and hosts an annual carnival procession. This photograph of Sam Poo Kong was taken in 2014 and shows, from left to right, the main temple, the Kyai Juru Mudi Temple, and the Tho Tee Kong Temple.

Photograph credit: Chris Woodrich

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