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Page from the Brokmerbrief written in Old Frisian

Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of the 16th century by Frisians who comprised a loose confederacy along the North Sea coast. It served as an early regional standard language and demonstrates remarkable uniformity across time and space. The surviving corpus is almost entirely legal documents (example pictured). Old Frisian marked for four cases, three genders, and two tenses, though other grammatical functions could be achieved through periphrasis. Word order varied widely, though subject–object–verb was most common. Middle Low German began to displace Old Frisian as the language of trade during the 15th century and, by the turn of the 17th century, it had evolved into Middle Frisian, a vernacular language constrained to rural areas. It is the common ancestor of all Frisian languages except for the Insular North Frisian languages, with which they share an earlier ancestor called Pre–Old Frisian. (Full article...)

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St Patrick's Bridge

... that an Irish legend says that St Patrick's Bridge (pictured) was created when Saint Patrick chased the Devil into the Celtic Sea?
... that Peter Arshinov was denounced as a Bolshevik by anarchists, and was then charged with anarchism by Soviet authorities?
... that, in exchange for a tax abatement, the owner of a New York City rowhouse was restricted from modifying its facade?
... that a coup d'état trapped Arafan Diané in Guinea for two years before he could leave to pursue his basketball career?
... that a California TV station's news helicopter rescued a dog from a rooftop in a flooded town?
... that the circle of stars on the flag of Cape Verde represents the union of the country's ten islands?
... that a 1998 horseback-riding simulator "raised a generation of horse girls"?
... that the pottery company Moorcroft commissioned Candace Bahouth to create a mosaic of its factory using pieces of broken stock?
... that three companies settled U.S. government claims that they manipulated the Wall Street of Eggs?

In the news

Earthquake damage

Sixty thousand migrants cross the Morocco–Spain border at Ceuta, leading to at least sixty-seven deaths.
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake (damage pictured) strikes Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, leaving at least thirty-six people dead.
In Gaelic football, the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship concludes with Mayo defeating Kerry in the final.
In cycling, Tadej Pogačar wins the Tour de France.

On this day

August 2: Roma Holocaust Memorial Day

Drawing of the interior of the Tower Subway

1870 – One of the world's earliest underground tube railways opened in the Tower Subway (interior depicted), a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London.
1914 – The French army's general headquarters was activated in anticipation of war with Germany.
1932 – At the California Institute of Technology, American physicist Carl David Anderson proved the existence of antimatter with the discovery of the positron, for which he would receive the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics.
1939 – Leo Szilard penned a letter, signed by Albert Einstein and addressed to U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning that Germany may develop atomic bombs, leading to the establishment of the Manhattan Project.
1986 – The animated film Castle in the Sky, the first from Studio Ghibli, was released.

Nehemiah Persoff (b. 1919)
James Jamerson (d. 1983)
Chrystia Freeland (b. 1968)
Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo (b. 1995)

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Today's featured picture

The Otoe–Missouria Tribe of Indians is a federally recognized tribe in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, comprising the Otoe and Missouria peoples. Their language, Chiwere, is part of the Siouan–Catawban language family. In 2011, they had 3,089 enrolled tribal citizens. This oil portrait on canvas by George Catlin, painted around 1832, shows Wah-ro-née-sah (The Surrounder), an Otoe chief. He was described by Catlin as "quite an old man; his shirt made of the skin of a grizzly bear, with the claws on". The painting is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Painting credit: George Catlin

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