Fort Towson

The Inaccessible Island rail (Laterallus rogersi) is a bird found only on Inaccessible Island in the South Atlantic Tristan archipelago. This rail, the smallest extant flightless bird, was described by physician Percy Lowe in 1923. The adult has brown plumage, a black bill, black feet, and red eyes. It occupies most habitats on the island, from the beaches to the central plateau, feeding on a variety of small invertebrates and some plant matter. Pairs are territorial and monogamous; both parents incubate the eggs and raise the chicks. The rail's adaptations to living on a tiny island at high densities include a low basal metabolic rate, small clutch sizes, and flightlessness. Unlike many other oceanic islands, Inaccessible Island has remained free from introduced predators, allowing this species to flourish while many other flightless rails have gone extinct. The species is nevertheless considered vulnerable, due to the danger of a single catastrophe wiping out the small, isolated population. (Full article...)

Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by the French composer Claude Debussy. The French-language libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's symbolist play Pelléas and Mélisande. The plot concerns a love triangle between Prince Golaud, Mélisande (a mysterious young woman he had found lost in a forest), and Golaud's younger half-brother Pelléas. The only opera Debussy ever completed, Pelléas et Mélisande premiered on 30 April 1902 at the Salle Favart in Paris, performed by the Opéra-Comique, with Jean Périer as Pelléas and Mary Garden as Mélisande. The premiere was conducted by André Messager, who was instrumental in getting the Opéra-Comique to stage the work. This poster by the French painter Georges Rochegrosse was produced for the premiere.

Poster credit: Georges Rochegrosse; restored by Adam Cuerden

Recently featured: Sphalerite – Libellula depressa – Benjamin Franklin Tilley

Olga von Türk-Rohn

• ... that soprano Olga von Türk-Rohn (pictured) was celebrated for her interpretations of Franz Schubert's lieder?
• ... that the Gusuku period saw massive castles built on "virtually every ridge"?
• ... that the enzyme histamine N-methyltransferase regulates essential brain functions and sleep–wake cycles in humans?
• ... that the Labour Party received their highest share of the vote to date in the 1951 UK general election but still lost to the Conservatives, who received fewer votes?
• ... that Oksana Lyniv founded the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 2016 and conducted them in thirty concerts across ten music festivals in 2022?
• ... that the 2004 documentary The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing contains interviews from dozens of film editors, including women under-represented in the field?
• ... that despite getting an offer from his dream basketball school, Notre Dame, Chris Hill instead chose Michigan State?
• ... that country music singer Waylon Jennings earned his GED by watching tapes of a Kentucky Educational Television series on his tour bus?
• ... that the healthcare campaigner who pioneered organ donor cards in the UK placed a personal advertisement in The Times looking for a "cadaver kidney" for her son?

Ariel Henry

• Acting prime minister of Haiti Ariel Henry (pictured) resigns, and is replaced by Michel Patrick Boisvert while the Transitional Presidential Council is sworn in.
• The Ownership, Unity and Responsibility Party, led by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, wins the most seats in the Solomon Islands general election but falls short of a majority.
• NASA announces that the Voyager 1 space probe is sending readable data for the first time in five months.
• The HDZ-led coalition wins the most seats in the Croatian parliamentary election but falls short of a majority.
• Ich­thy­o­titan, the largest known marine reptile, is formally described.

April 30

Evacuees on the USS Midway

• 311 – The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians officially ended in the eastern Roman Empire.
• 1943 – Second World War: The Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph began Operation Mincemeat to deceive Germany about the upcoming invasion of Sicily.
• 1963 – A refusal by the Bristol Omnibus Company and the Transport and General Workers' Union to permit the employment of black bus crews led to a bus boycott in Bristol, England.
• 1975 – American forces completed a helicopter evacuation (aircraft and evacuees pictured) of U.S. citizens, South Vietnamese civilians and others from Saigon, just before North Vietnamese troops captured the city and ended the Vietnam War.
• 2021 – A crowd crush killed 45 people during the annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Israel.