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Today's featured article
The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three ancient Greek hymns and one epigram. They praise deities of the Greek pantheon and retell mythological stories, such as the abduction of Persephone and the seduction of Anchises by Aphrodite. In antiquity, the hymns were generally attributed to the poet Homer: modern scholarship has established that they vary widely in date. Performances of the hymns may have taken place at sympotic banquets, religious festivals and royal courts. They may originally have been performed by singers accompanying themselves on a lyre. The hymns influenced Alexandrian and Roman poets, and both pagan and early Christian literature. They were first published in print by Demetrios Chalkokondyles in 1488–1489, while George Chapman made the first English translation of them in 1624. They have since influenced, among others, Handel, Goethe, Shelley, Tennyson and Cavafy. Their influence has also been traced in the novels of James Joyce and Neil Gaiman, and in the films of Alfred Hitchcock. (Full article...)
Did you know...
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- ... that Matahi Brightwell (pictured) reintroduced the sport of waka ama to New Zealand?
- ... that during the First Bishops' War, the Duke of Hamilton's mother intended to shoot him with silver bullets if he landed in Scotland?
- ... that Warren Lawrence, the first Dominican swimmer at the Commonwealth Games, is the son of the first Dominican swimmer at the Olympics?
- ... that a high school evicted a Pennsylvania TV station?
- ... that the National Library of Korea is a no kid zone?
- ... that in its first appearance at the Olympics, Suriname was represented by a single athlete, who missed his event?
- ... that Myinsaing withstood a ten-week siege by the Mongols because its three brother leaders bribed the invaders to withdraw?
- ... that basketball player Marcedes Walker became an Olympian 16 years after her WNBA career ended?
- ... that "the old man was startled and a little shocked" when he was shown Walter Frere's revision of his book?
In the news
- Ismail Haniyeh (pictured), the political leader of Hamas, is assassinated in Tehran, Iran.
- Landslides in Wayanad, India, kill more than 180 people.
- In Gaelic football, the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship concludes with Armagh defeating Galway in the final.
- Typhoon Gaemi leaves more than 70 people dead in the Philippines, China, Taiwan, and Cambodia.
On this day
August 1: Lughnasadh in the Northern Hemisphere; Buwan ng Wika begins in the Philippines; PLA Day in China (1927)
- 30 BC – War of Actium: Octavian defeated the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Alexandria, establishing Roman Egypt.
- 902 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Led by Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya, Aghlabid forces captured the Byzantine stronghold of Taormina, concluding the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
- 1774 – British scientist Joseph Priestley (pictured) liberated oxygen gas, corroborating the discovery of the element by the German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
- 1892 – Jef Denyn hosted the world's first carillon concert at St. Rumbold's Cathedral in Mechelen, Belgium.
- 1911 – Harriet Quimby became the first woman to earn an Aero Club of America aviator certificate.
- Elizabeth Randles (b. 1800)
- Maria Mitchell (b. 1818)
- Lydia Litvyak (d. 1943)
- Abdalqadir as-Sufi (d. 2021)
Today's featured picture
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The edible frog or green frog (Pelophylax kl. esculentus) is a common European frog species that occurs naturally from the northern half of France to western Russia and from Estonia and Denmark to Bulgaria and northern Italy, and is also an introduced species in other parts of the continent. It is a fertile hybrid of the pool frog (Pelophylax lessonae) and the marsh frog (P. ridibundus) and reproduces using hybridogenesis, a process in which one parental genome is excluded. The species is used as food – particularly in France, as well as Germany and Italy – as the delicacy frog legs. This edible frog was photographed in the Danube delta east of Tulcea, Romania. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
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