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Dorothy Olsen (1916–2019) was an American aircraft pilot and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II. She developed an interest in aviation at a young age and earned her private pilot's license in 1939, when it was unusual for women to be pilots. In 1943, Olsen joined the newly formed WASPs as a civil service employee. After training in Texas, she was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach, California, where she worked ferrying new aircraft from the factories where they were built to U.S. airbases. She flew more than 20 types of military airplanes, including high-performance fighters – such as the P-51 and the twin-engine P-38 – which she favored over larger aircraft such as bombers. After the war, Olsen retired from flying and moved to the state of Washington, where she married, raised a family, and lived for the rest of her life. In 2009, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal honoring her service during the war. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Cover of Al-Asma'i, 1908

... that the magazine Al-Asma'i (pictured), one of the first publications to emerge in Ottoman Palestine in 1908, was opposed to Zionism and frequently criticized Jewish immigration?
... that One Chun, a Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand restaurant, has black-and-white televisions, transistor radios, and aged clocks on a wall?
... that Heike Heubach became the first deaf member of the German Bundestag?
... that larvae of the species Carabus japonicus prey on earthworms up to 400 times larger than themselves?
... that John Quincy Adams described Jonathan Elliot, his former printer, as "penurious and venal"?
... that an Irish comedy group wrote the film Apocalypse Clown?
... that scholars debate whether Anactoria, mentioned in Sappho's poems, was a real person, a pseudonym, or an invention of Sappho?
... that American Colossus, a history book that describes how a banker bailed out the U.S. government in 1895, was published around a time when the U.S. government bailed out banks?
... that football player Joe Gray was nicknamed the "Gray Ghost" because when running "it was like he wasn't there anymore"?

In the news

Jeremiah Manele

Following the Solomon Islands general election, Jeremiah Manele (pictured) becomes the prime minister.
Acting prime minister of Haiti Ariel Henry resigns, and the Transitional Presidential Council is sworn in.
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.

On this day

May 4: Youth Day in China; Literary Day in Taiwan; Star Wars Day

Pope Alexander VI

1493 – Pope Alexander VI (pictured) issued the papal bull Inter caetera, establishing a line of demarcation dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal.
1776 – American Revolution: The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations became the first of the Thirteen Colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown.
1942 – World War II: Aircraft from Imperial Japanese Navy vessels attacked Allied naval forces, beginning the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval action in which the participating ships never sighted or fired directly at each other.
1974 – An all-female Japanese team reached the summit of Manaslu in the Himalayas, becoming the first women to climb a peak higher than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) above sea level.
1979 – Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom.

John Nevison (d. 1684)
Nettie Stevens (d. 1912)
Audrey Hepburn (b. 1929)

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Today's featured picture

The Nazca lines are a group of geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were created in two major phases – the Paracas phase (from 400 BC to 200 BC) and the Nazca phase (from 200 BC to 500 AD). The combined length of all the lines is more than 1,300 km (800 mi), and the group covers an area of about 50 km² (19 sq mi). Most lines run straight across the landscape, but there are also figurative designs of animals and plants. Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general, they ascribe religious significance to them. The lines were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. This is an aerial view of the geoglyph known as the "monkey", one of the most well-known in the Nazca lines.

Photograph credit: Diego Delso

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