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Galileo's middle finger

... that Galileo's middle finger (pictured) is considered a secular relic?
... that Richard Osman, who wrote "the biggest thing in fiction since Harry Potter", lost confidence in his writing ability after his experience with Boyz Unlimited?
... that Green Bay Packers player Travis Glover started at three separate positions along the offensive line during his college football career?
... that even though about 100,000 mines were laid in Le Touquet during World War II, making it the most mined city in France, it was the first resort in northern France to open its beaches after the liberation?
... that for his first recital as the organist of the restored Frauenkirche in Dresden, Samuel Kummer chose music by Bach, Brahms, and himself?
... that El Salvador was the first country to recognize Manchukuo, apart from Japan?
... that poet Peggy Pond Church became a strong pacifist and a member of the Society of Friends after the Manhattan Project used her home as a place to build nuclear weapons?
... that librarian Anne Griffiths was one of the first British women to cross the Antarctic Circle?
... that a firearm blank goes off during The Days of '98 Show shootout, startling the audience?

On this day

May 30: Statehood Day in Croatia (1990)

Johann Sebastian Bach

1431 – Hundred Years' War: After being convicted of heresy, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach (pictured) assumed the office of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, presenting the cantata Die Elenden sollen essen in St. Nicholas Church.
1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., featuring a sculpture of the sixteenth U.S. president Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, opened.
1963 – Buddhist crisis: A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination was held outside the National Assembly of South Vietnam in Saigon, the first open demonstration against President Ngô Đình Diệm.
2008 – The Convention on Cluster Munitions, prohibiting the use, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster bombs, was adopted.

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