Main Page

California Chrome (foaled 2011) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2014 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, and was the 2014 American Horse of the Year. His fans—called "Chromies"—supported him at his races as "the people's horse". His owners, Perry Martin and Steve Coburn, named their partnership DAP Racing, standing for "Dumb Ass Partners"—inspired by a passerby who questioned their wisdom in purchasing the horse's dam. Critics did not think the colt, trained by Art Sherman and ridden by Victor Espinoza, could win the Kentucky Derby due to his humble origins and pedigree, but California Chrome defied the skeptics and won. After the Preakness, anticipation rose that he could win the Triple Crown in the 2014 Belmont Stakes. But in that race, California Chrome was stepped on by another horse at the start, tearing tissue from his heel, and finished fourth. Healing from his injury, he raced in the fall, running third in the Breeders' Cup Classic and winning the Hollywood Derby. He received the 2014 Secretariat Vox Populi Award, the NTRA Moment of the Year, and Eclipse Awards for Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse and Horse of the Year. (Full article...)

Recently featured: The Tower House – Æthelwold ætheling – Cretan War (205–200 BC)

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

• ... that the British wanted to destroy the Jama Masjid (pictured) after the Revolt of 1857?
• ... that the last two TV series of The Island with Bear Grylls were filmed on the uninhabited Panamanian island of Isla Gibraleón?
• ... that the poet Agustina Andrade shot herself after learning her husband maintained a parallel family in Patagonia?
• ... that Taziki's Mediterranean Café does not purvey deep-fried foods?
• ... that Peter Woon supported the introduction of female newsreaders at the BBC, though he was concerned that most "sound as though they came from Cheltenham Ladies' College"?
• ... that parts of Fort Templebreedy were demilitarized and laid out as a pitch and putt course?
• ... that despite losing two limbs in an improvised explosive device attack, former US soldier Noah Galloway is competing in this season's Dancing with the Stars?
• ... that the Chinese atlas Zhifang Waiji includes maps of the continent Magellanica?

• Following a week of protests in Baltimore, six city police officers are charged in relation to the death of Freddie Gray.
• NASA's MESSENGER probe (artist's rendering pictured) to Mercury purposely crashes into the surface of the planet after an eleven-year mission.
• Scientists announce the discovery of the first known dinosaur with membranous wings, Yi qi.
• The Americas becomes the first World Health Organization region to be officially declared free of rubella.
• Eight convicts, including Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran of the Bali Nine, are executed by firing squad in Indonesia.
• Omar al-Bashir is re-elected President of Sudan.

Ongoing: Nepal earthquake – Yemeni Civil War – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Recent deaths: Ben E. King

May 2: Flag Day in Poland

• 1559 – Scottish clergyman John Knox returned to Scotland from exile to lead the Scottish Reformation.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Confederate general Stonewall Jackson was wounded by friendly fire during the Battle of Chancellorsville, leading to his death by pneumonia eight days later.
• 1945 – World War II: General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the German troops in Berlin, surrendered the city to Soviet forces led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, ending the Battle of Berlin.
• 1982 – Falklands War: HMS Conqueror launched three torpedoes and sank ARA General Belgrano (pictured), the only ship ever to have been deliberately sunk by a nuclear submarine in battle.
• 1995 – Croatian War of Independence: Serb forces began firing rockets on the Croatian capital of Zagreb, killing 7 and injuring at least 175 others.

More anniversaries: May 1 – May 2 – May 3