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Today's featured article

Debris from the Roswell balloon

The Roswell incident is a conspiracy theory that alleges that debris from a United States Army Air Forces balloon (pictured) recovered in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, was part of a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. The debris was from the top-secret Project Mogul, which used high-altitude balloons to detect nuclear tests. Roswell Army Air Field personnel, unaware of Mogul, gathered the material and announced the recovery of a "flying disc"; the statement was retracted within a day. To obscure the source of the debris, the Army reported that it was a conventional weather balloon. In 1978, retired Air Force officer Jesse Marcel revealed that the weather balloon had been a cover story and speculated that the debris was extraterrestrial. This became the basis for long-lasting and increasingly complex and contradictory UFO conspiracy theories, none of which have any factual basis. The conspiracy narrative has become a common trope in fiction. The town of Roswell promotes itself as a UFO tourism destination. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries

February 26

Nabonassar's name in Akkadian

747 BC – According to Ptolemy, the reign of the Babylonian king Nabonassar (name in Akkadian pictured) began, marking a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records.
1914 – RMS Britannic, the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line after RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, was launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
1979 – The Superliner railcar entered revenue service with Amtrak.
1995 – Barings Bank, the oldest merchant bank in London, was declared insolvent after its head derivatives trader in Singapore, Nick Leeson, lost £827 million while making unauthorised trades on futures contracts.
2014 – Former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao Kevin Lau was stabbed, prompting concerns and protests about media freedom.

Fatima bint al-Ahmar (d. 1349)
Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll (b. 1629)
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b. 1954)
Jennie Smillie Robertson (d. 1981)

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In the news

Friedrich Merz

In the German federal election, the CDU/CSU, led by Friedrich Merz (pictured), wins the most seats in the Bundestag.
Archaeologists announce that the empty tomb Wadi C-4 near Luxor, Egypt, was that of the pharaoh Thutmose II.
At the British Academy Film Awards, Conclave wins four awards, including Best Film.
Mahamoud Ali Youssouf is elected chairman of the African Union Commission.
President of Romania Klaus Iohannis resigns from office, and is succeeded by Ilie Bolojan in an acting capacity.

Did you know...

Artist's concept of 1ES 1927+654's black hole

... that 1ES 1927+654 (pictured), a galaxy in Draco, exhibited such extreme nuclear activity that it challenged conventional models of black-hole environments?
... that the musical career of Louise Beach has ranged from nationally recognized compositions to a children's book about the viola?
... that the alpine columbine has been cultivated for centuries, and other columbines have often been mistaken for the species for decades?
... that the Lutheran pastor Théodore Beck employed modern education methods at the École alsacienne in Paris in the 1880s: no prizes and no corporal punishment?
... that Jonathan Rado invited the Lemon Twigs to record their debut album at his house while they were on a school break?
... that Ivan Petrovtsii's vulgar poems were condemned by senior Ukrainian officials in spite of their popularity?
... that the CSS-10 aircraft was not produced, despite passing its state trials, as the license for the production of its engine was abandoned?
... that the University of Southwestern Louisiana basketball scandal resulted in one of only five times that the NCAA has applied the "death penalty" against a member institution?
... that Simeon Barclay's "sculpture of a chicken on its own little mini-mountain" references a traditional Indian game?

Today's featured picture

Picture of the day

Wangath temple complex is a group of Hindu temple monuments in Wangath, close to Naranag, Jammu and Kashmir, India. The current structure was built by Lalitaditya Muktapida of the Karkota dynasty in the 8th century CE but are now ruins. The temple is constructed out of local grey granite and consists of two complexes, dedicated respectively to Shiva Jyeshthesa and Shiva Bhuteshwara, with a central pavilion in between. The temple marks the starting point of pilgrimages to the Gangabal Lake, a high-altitude alpine lake in the Himalayas considered by Kashmiri Hindus to be an abode of Shiva. This photograph shows the main temple of the site's western complex.Photograph credit: Basavaraj K. Korkar; edited by UnpetitproleX

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