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From today's featured article

Illustration of a pair by John Gerrard Keulemans, 1888

The Sind sparrow (Passer pyrrhonotus) is a bird of the sparrow family, Passeridae, found around the Indus valley region in South Asia. Very similar to the house sparrow, it is smaller and has distinguishing plumage features. This species was long thought to be very closely related to the house sparrow, but its closest evolutionary affinities may lie elsewhere. The male has brighter plumage than female and young birds; it has black markings, a grey crown, and a chestnut stripe running down its head behind the eye. The female has a darker head than other sparrow species do. Its main vocalisations are soft chirping calls that are extended into longer songs. Within its Indus valley breeding range in Pakistan and western India, the Sind sparrow is patchily distributed in riverine and wetland habitats with thorny scrub and tall grass. During the non-breeding season, some birds migrate into western Pakistan and the extreme east of Iran. This fairly common species has been expanding its range. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

SMS Admiral Spaun

... that after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMS Admiral Spaun (pictured) escorted his body back to Trieste?
... that as a high school basketball player, Lometa Odom set the Texas single-game scoring record of 78 points in 1951?
... that Takuyo-Daisan was once an island in the South Pacific but is now a seamount off Japan?
... that the Thai Buddhist monk Luang Por Dhammajayo launched an anti-smoking and drinking campaign that won an award from the World Health Organization?
... that after his death, politician, jurist, and general Lucius Torquatus was portrayed by Roman writer Cicero as an advocate for Epicurean ethics?
... that Migrant Architects of the NHS recounts how doctors from the Indian subcontinent immigrated to Britain and became general practitioners?
... that maritime fur trader Thomas Humphrey Metcalfe and most of his crew were killed by Native Hawaiians in revenge for the flogging of a chief by Metcalfe's father days before?
... that on its tenth anniversary, the webcomic "Loss" was replaced by an edited version titled "Found"?

In the news

Scott Morrison

A hotel fire in Harbin, China, kills 19 people and injures more than 20 others.
Scott Morrison (pictured) replaces Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister of Australia, after a change of Liberal party leadership.
N. K. Jemisin wins the Hugo Award for Best Novel for a third consecutive time for The Stone Sky.
Former UN Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan dies at the age of 80.
The Asian Games open in Jakarta and Palembang, Indonesia.

On this day

August 28

243 Ida and its moon

1619 – Ferdinand II, the King of Bohemia and Hungary, was unanimously elected as Holy Roman Emperor.
1833 – The Slavery Abolition Act 1833, officially abolishing slavery in most of the British Empire, received royal assent.
1909 – A military coup d'etat against the government of Dimitrios Rallis began in the Goudi neighbourhood of Athens, Greece.
1955 – African-American teenager Emmett Till was murdered near Money, Mississippi, for flirting with a white woman, energizing the nascent American civil rights movement.
1993 – The asteroid 243 Ida (pictured) became the first found to have a moon when it was visited by NASA's Galileo probe.

He Gui (d. 919) · Edward Burne-Jones (b. 1833) · Jack Kirby (b. 1917)

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Today's featured picture

Goethe in the Roman Campagna is an oil painting on canvas completed in 1787 by the German Neoclassical artist Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein. It depicts Johann Wolfgang von Goethe whilst the writer was travelling in Italy between 1786 and 1788; diaries from this journey served as the basis for his Italian Journey (1816–17). Since 1887, the painting has been held by the Städel Museum in Goethe's hometown, Frankfurt.

Painting: Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein

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