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From today's featured article

Frederick Park (right) and Ernest Boulton as Fanny and Stella

Boulton and Park, two Victorian homosexuals from upper-middle-class English families, were cross-dressers and enjoyed playing the women's roles in theatrical performances. Lord Arthur Clinton, Member of Parliament for Newark, entered into a relationship with Boulton. Boulton and Park were arrested in 1870 after leaving a London theatre in drag. They were still in women's dresses the next morning when they appeared in court, where hundreds had gathered. Boulton and Park were charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy, a crime that carried a maximum prison sentence of life with hard labour. They were found not guilty after the prosecution failed to establish that they had anal sex. The judge, Sir Alexander Cockburn, was highly critical of the police investigation. Boulton and Park admitted to appearing in public dressed as women, which was "an offence against public morals and common decency". They were bound over for two years. The case was reported in all the major newspapers, much of it in lurid terms. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Thinzar Shunlei Yi

... that Thinzar Shunlei Yi (pictured) hid in the Burmese jungle for a month and joined a rebel militia following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état?
... that the 1892 Milwaukee Cold Storage Co. Building has very few windows, and walls which are two feet (0.6 m) thick?
... that the Venetian admiral Angelo Emo invented floating artillery batteries on rafts during his campaign against the Beylik of Tunis?
... that a San Antonio TV station lost its Fox affiliation on twelve days' notice to the public?
... that in the 1930s Alfred Verdross, an Austrian international lawyer and future judge of the European Court of Human Rights, sympathised with National Socialism?
... that although he was expected to exit the race after about 30 km (19 mi), pacemaker Reuben Kipyego ended up winning the Abu Dhabi Marathon and US$100,000?
... that the maritime painter Gordon Ellis had his first commission published when he was just 13 years old?
... that at the 1978 World Snooker Championship, Fred Davis reached the semi-finals at the age of 64?

In the news

Devon Conway

In cricket, the Indian Premier League concludes with the Chennai Super Kings defeating the Gujarat Titans in the final (player of the match Devon Conway pictured).
In auto racing, Josef Newgarden wins the Indianapolis 500.
Rock singer and actress Tina Turner dies at the age of 83.
Nineteen children are killed in a fire at a secondary school dormitory in Mahdia, Guyana.
In golf, Brooks Koepka wins the PGA Championship.
American football Hall of Fame fullback Jim Brown dies at the age of 87.

On this day

May 31: World No Tobacco Day

Bessarion

455 – Petronius Maximus, ruler of the Western Roman Empire, was stoned to death by a mob as he fled Rome ahead of the arrival of a Vandal force that sacked the city.
1223 – Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus': Mongol forces defeated a Kievan Rus' army at the Kalka River in present-day Ukraine.
1468 – Cardinal Bessarion (pictured) announced his donation of 746 Greek and Latin codices to the Republic of Venice, forming the Biblioteca Marciana.
1935 – An earthquake registering 7.7 M_w struck Balochistan in the British Raj, now part of Pakistan, killing between 30,000 and 60,000 people.
2013 – A tornado struck Central Oklahoma killing 8 people and injuring more than 150.

Géza II of Hungary (d. 1162)
Walter Sickert (b. 1860)
Jørgen Jensen (d. 1922)

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Today's featured picture

Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) is a perennial flowering plant in the family Caprifoliaceae, native to Europe and Asia. In the summer when the mature plant may have a height of 1.5 metres (5 feet), it bears sweetly scented pink or white flowers that attract many fly species, especially hoverflies of the genus Eristalis. Valerian has been used as a herb in traditional medicine since at least the time of ancient Greece and Rome; Hippocrates described its properties and Galen later prescribed it as a remedy for insomnia. This valerian flower was photographed in Niitvälja, Estonia, in 2021.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

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