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Today's featured article

Mos Def

The Ecstatic is the fourth album by American rapper Mos Def (pictured), released by Downtown Records on June 9, 2009. Singer Georgia Anne Muldrow and rappers Slick Rick and Talib Kweli were guest vocalists. The album has been described by music journalists as a conscious and alternative hip hop record. Mos Def's raps about global politics, love, spirituality, and social conditions are informed by Black internationalism and pan-Islamic ideas. The album's loosely structured, lightly reverbed songs use unconventional time signatures and samples taken from Afrobeat, soul, Eurodance, jazz, reggae, Latin, and Middle Eastern music. The Ecstatic charted at number nine on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release and eventually sold 168,000 copies. A widespread critical success, The Ecstatic was viewed as a return to form for Mos Def and one of the year's best albums. He performed concerts to support the record in North America, Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom. (Full article...)

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Today's featured picture

Euchloe penia, commonly known as the eastern greenish black-tip, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. It is found in North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and northern Iraq. The habitat consists of dry and warm rocky areas. Adults are a bright greenish off-yellow, with a wingspan of 32 to 36 millimetres (1.3 to 1.4 inches). There are two generations per year, with adults on wing in April and from June to July. The larvae feed on plants of the genus Matthiola. This E. penia butterfly perching on a flower was photographed in Pletvar, North Macedonia.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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In the News

Boeing Starliner launch

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft conducts its first crewed flight (launch pictured), carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station.
The CNSA Chang'e 6 completes sampling and takeoff from the far side of the Moon.
Claudia Sheinbaum is elected as the president of Mexico.
In South Africa's general election, the African National Congress wins the most seats but loses its majority for the first time since the end of apartheid.

Did you know?

Kortnei Johnson

... that Kortnei Johnson (pictured) became a seven-time state sprinting champion for the University Interscholastic League despite training on grass and cement?
... that over the course of several decades, the missionaries of New Zealand's German Mission House failed to convert a single person?
... that all 55 people killed during the Great Genna Martyrdom in 1622 were beatified by Pope Pius IX more than two hundred years later?
... that S'Klallam artist Jeffrey Veregge's "Salish Geek" style blended traditional formline art techniques with bright colors and pop culture references?
... that the daimyo of Kumamoto is said to have spent a thousand gold pieces in one night at an Ōsakishimojima teahouse?
... that in 2024, C. J. Hanson became the first player from his school to be chosen in the NFL draft since 1989?
... that the Chinese Red Army housed its political directorate in a Catholic church in 1935?
... that people in Madagascar perform algebra on tree seeds in order to tell the future?

On this day...

June 9

Abraham Whipple

1549 – The first Book of Common Prayer was legally mandated by Parliament, introducing a fully vernacular Protestant liturgy to the Church of England.
1772 – In an act of defiance against the Navigation Acts, American colonists led by Abraham Whipple (pictured) attacked and burned the British schooner Gaspee.
1944 – World War II: In reprisal for successful French Resistance attacks, German SS and SD troops hanged 99 men in the town of Tulle.
1954 – During hearings investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy, Army lawyer Joseph N. Welch asked McCarthy: "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
1999 – Yugoslav Wars: The Kumanovo Agreement was signed, bringing an end to the Kosovo War the next day.

William Feiner (d. 1829)
Doveton Sturdee (b. 1859)
Wolfdietrich Schnurre (d. 1989)
Brian Williamson (d. 2004)

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