Richard Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sin'ichirō Tomonaga. He developed the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, and studied superfluidity in supercooled liquid helium. During World War II he assisted in the development of the atomic bomb, and in the 1980s he was a member of the Rogers Commission that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. He was a pioneer in the field of quantum computing, and introduced the concept of nanotechnology. Through his lectures and books, including the semi-autobiographical Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, he was an avid popularizer of physics. In a 1999 poll of leading physicists, he was ranked as one of the ten greatest physicists of all time. (Full article...)

Smith–Ninth Streets station viewed from below

• ... that the Smith–Ninth Streets station (pictured) in New York City is the world's highest subway station?
• ... that Lt. Gen. Wang Bingzhang, head of China's ballistic missile and satellite programs, was imprisoned for ten years without being convicted of a crime?
• ... that the Motor Neurone Disease Association criticised the two-part Holby City episode "Group Animal" for misleading viewers about a cure for motor neuron disease?
• ... that Henry Boynton Clitz, Commandant of Cadets at West Point from 1862 to 1864, disappeared in 1888?
• ... that the Global Buddhist Network used to be a Thai television station featuring Buddhist content, but was shut down by the Thai military junta?
• ... that Wendy Watson Nelson taught nursing students that "the family's ability to change depends upon their ability to alter their perception of the problem"?
• ... that 40 or more fish leeches of the species Hemibdella soleae may be found attached to one common sole?
• ... that the US National Gallery of Art has a picture of Trump urinating on the work of a satirist?

Mark Williams in 2015

• A dam failure in Kenya kills at least 47 people, and leaves more than 2000 others homeless.
• American retailer Walmart announces the acquisition of the Indian electronic commerce company Flipkart for about US$16 billion.
• Mark Williams (pictured) defeats John Higgins to win the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield, England.
• In American horse racing, Justify wins the Kentucky Derby, ridden by jockey Mike Smith.
• The InSight spacecraft and its companion MarCO cubesats are successfully launched towards Mars.

May 11

Robert Gray

• 1792 – Merchant sea captain Robert Gray (pictured) became the first recorded European to navigate the Columbia River in what is now the Pacific Northwest United States.
• 1813 – William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth departed westward from Sydney on an expedition to become the first Europeans confirmed to cross the Blue Mountains.
• 1910 – Glacier National Park, located in the U.S. state of Montana, was designated a national park.
• 1998 – India began conducting the Pokhran-II nuclear weapons test, its first since the Smiling Buddha test 24 years earlier.
• 2010 – David Cameron took office as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed the country's first coalition government since the Second World War.

Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen (b. 1720) · Frederick Russell Burnham (b. 1861) · Douglas Adams (d. 2001)