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From today's featured article

Dylan's band in Oslo on March 30, 2007, one of hundreds of concerts at which he has performed "Watching the River Flow"

"Watching the River Flow" is a blues rock song by American singer Bob Dylan, released as a single on June 3, 1971. Produced by Leon Russell, it was written and recorded during a session in March 1971 at Blue Rock Studio in New York City. The collaboration with Russell formed in part through Dylan's desire for a new sound, after a period of immersion in country rock music. The song has been interpreted as Dylan's account of his writer's block in the early 1970s, and his wish to deliver less politically engaged material and find a new balance between public and private life. A minor hit in some countries, "Watching the River Flow" was included on the 1971 Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II and other Dylan compilation albums. The song has been covered by many artists, including a recording by five current and former Rolling Stones that was part of a tribute project for pianist Ian Stewart. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Astrolabe in the Khalili Collection

... that the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art includes an exceptionally large 17th-century astrolabe (pictured) commissioned by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan?
... that students participating in the 1968–69 Japanese university protests were known for ruthlessly interrogating and verbally abusing professors, sometimes for days on end?
... that in Hall v. Decuir, the Supreme Court of the United States "all but endorsed segregation"?
... that Herman Schiller and Marshall Meyer cofounded the Movimiento Judío por los Derechos Humanos, a Jewish human-rights organization in Argentina that denounced the National Reorganization Process?
... that ballerina Margaret Tracey performed for Bill and Hillary Clinton when Maria Tallchief received a Kennedy Center Honor?
... that the brown seaweed Acinetospora crinita forms a more-or-less complete covering of filamentous algae over the rock, detritus, living animals and sea grasses on the seabed where it occurs?
... that Canadian cyclist Bernie Willock, who missed out on competing at the Olympics due to the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott, later owned furniture stores?
... that Mirror, a Hong Kong Cantopop music group which does not want to go for a "K-pop feel", performed Korean pop songs at a concert?

In the news

IRIS Kharg

X-Press Pearl sinks near Colombo, Sri Lanka, leaking several tons of nitric acid and oil into the ocean and causing a major environmental disaster.
The largest ship in the Iranian Navy, the modified Ol-class tanker IRIS Kharg (pictured), catches fire and sinks in the Gulf of Oman near Jask, Iran.
In association football, the UEFA Champions League concludes with Chelsea defeating Manchester City in the final.
A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children is found at a former Kamloops school, part of the Canadian Indian residential school system.

On this day

June 3: Feast of Corpus Christi (Western Christianity, 2021); Feast day of Saint Charles Lwanga and the Uganda Martyrs (Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism)

Wallis Simpson

1658 – Pope Alexander VII appointed François de Laval as the first apostolic vicar of New France.
1844 – The last known pair of great auks, the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus of flightless birds, were killed on Eldey off the coast of Iceland.
1921 – At his trial for the assassination of Talat Pasha, viewed as the main orchestrator of the Armenian genocide, Soghomon Tehlirian was acquitted after arguing: "I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer."
1937 – Nearly six months after abdicating the British throne, Edward, Duke of Windsor, married American socialite Wallis Simpson (pictured) in a private ceremony near Tours, France.
1979 – Having invaded Uganda and deposed President Idi Amin, Tanzanian forces secured Uganda's western border, ending a seven-month war.

Martha Jane Knowlton Coray (b. 1821)
Charles Lecocq (b. 1832)
Jill Biden (b. 1951)

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Today's featured picture

The double-banded plover (Charadrius bicinctus) is a species of bird in the plover family native to New Zealand. During the winter and the spring, it has a dark, greyish-brown back with a distinctive white chest, a thin band of black below the neck running across the chest, and a thicker brown band below. Outside the breeding season, the double-banding is lost; this photograph, taken in March, shows a double-banded plover in non-breeding plumage at Boat Harbour in New South Wales, Australia.

Photograph credit: John Harrison

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