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These featured pictures, as scheduled below, appeared as the picture of the day (POTD) on the English Wikipedia's Main Page in May 2021. Individual sections for each day on this page can be linked to with the day number as the anchor name (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Picture of the day/May 2021#1]] for May 1).
You can add an automatically updating POTD template to your user page using {{Pic of the day}} (version with blurb) or {{POTD}} (version without blurb). For instructions on how to make custom POTD layouts, see Wikipedia:Picture of the day.Purge server cache
May 1
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Fred Rogers (1928–2003) was an American television host, author, producer, and Presbyterian minister. He was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001. He is seen here testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, chaired by John Pastore, on May 1, 1969, advocating for greater funding for the proposed Public Broadcasting Service. Video credit: United States Senate
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May 2
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Self-Portrait at the age of 34 is a 1640 oil painting by the Dutch painter Rembrandt, one of several self-portraits showing the artist in a fancy costume from the previous century. The pose is similar to Titian's work, A Man with a Quilted Sleeve, which Rembrandt is known to have studied. The painting is in the collection of the National Gallery in London. Painting credit: Rembrandt
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May 3
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The Smolny Institute is a Palladian edifice in Saint Petersburg that has played a major part in the history of Russia. This photograph depicts the building's facade in 2016, with a statue of Vladimir Lenin in the foreground. Photograph credit: Andrew Shiva
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May 4
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William Tell (Guillaume Tell) is a French-language opera in four acts by the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, first performed in 1829. This watercolour illustration shows costume designs by Eugène Du Faget for three characters for the opera's premiere: from left to right, Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde, Adolphe Nourrit as Arnold Melchtal, and Nicolas Levasseur as Walter Furst. The picture had previously been cut up into three separate images (one for each character), and has here been restored. Painting credit: Eugène Du Faget; restored by Adam Cuerden
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May 5
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The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear-fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy mainly as visible light and infrared radiation. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometres (860,000 mi), or 109 times that of Earth. Its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, and accounts for about 99.86 percent of the total mass of the Solar System. Roughly three-quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen; the rest is mostly helium, with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon, and iron. This diagram illustrates the general structure of the Sun, with all features drawn to scale. Diagram credit: Kelvin Ma
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May 6
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The Xbox is a home video game console and the first installment in the Xbox series of video game consoles manufactured by Microsoft. Classified as a sixth-generation console, it was released as Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market in 2001 in North America, followed by Australia, Europe and Japan in 2002, and was succeeded in 2005 by the Xbox 360. The console is shown here with the S controller, which replaced the console's original as the standard pack-in game controller. The Xbox console is notable for having a built-in hard drive, breakaway controller dongles, and an Ethernet port to support Microsoft's online gaming service, Xbox Live. Photograph credit: Evan Amos
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May 7
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August Friedrich Schenck (1828–1901) was a German painter. This oil-on-canvas painting, entitled Anguish, shows a ewe grieving over the body of her dead lamb as they are encircled by crows. The painting was acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, in 1880. Painting credit: August Friedrich Schenck
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May 8
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Mary Lou Williams (May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records. Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor and teacher to numerous other jazz musicians. The second of eleven children, she was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A young musical prodigy, she taught herself to play the piano at the age of three. This photograph of Williams at the piano was taken by William P. Gottlieb around 1946. Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden
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May 9
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The proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) is endemic to the island of Borneo, where it is found predominantly in coastal areas, near rivers and in swamp forests. It is perhaps the most aquatic of the primates and is a fairly good swimmer, capable of swimming underwater; apart from this, it is largely arboreal. This image is a composite of three photographs and shows a proboscis monkey jumping between trees in Labuk Bay in the Malaysian state of Sabah. Photograph credit: Charles James Sharp
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May 10
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St Cyprian's Church is an Anglican parish church in the Marylebone district of London. Designed by Sir Ninian Comper in a Perpendicular Gothic style, the building was constructed between 1901 and 1903. The timber hammerbeam roof features tie-beam trusses with panelled tracery spandrels. Comper's stated aim was "to fulfil the ideal of the English Parish Church ... in the last manner of English Architecture". Photograph credit: David Iliff
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May 11
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Boy Bitten by a Lizard is an oil-on-canvas painting from around 1595 by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. It exists in two versions, both believed to be authentic works of Caravaggio; one is in the collection of the Fondazione Roberto Longhi in Florence, while the other, shown here, is in the National Gallery, London. The identity of the sitter (theorised to be Mario Minniti) and the symbolism of the painting have been the subjects of much debate. Painting credit: Caravaggio
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May 12
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The spotted wood owl (Strix seloputo) is a species of earless owl native to tropical southeastern Asia, growing to a length of about 44 to 48 cm (17 to 19 in) with a wing length of 30 to 36 cm (12 to 14 in). Its typical habitats include lowland forest, mangrove swamps, cleared woodland, plantations, and parks in urban areas, with a diet consisting mainly of mice and rats, supplemented by insects and small birds. This spotted wood owl was photographed in Pasir Ris Park, Singapore. Photograph credit: John Harrison
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May 13
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The rupie was the unit of currency of German East Africa between 1890 and 1916. During World War I, the colony was cut off from Germany as a result of a wartime blockade and the colonial government needed to create an emergency issue of banknotes. Paper made from linen or jute was initially used, but because of wartime shortages, the notes were later printed on commercial paper in a variety of colours, wrapping paper, and in one instance, wallpaper. This one-rupie banknote was issued in 1915, and is now part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Banknote design credit: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank; photographed by Andrew Shiva
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The rupie was the unit of currency of German East Africa between 1890 and 1916. During World War I, the colony was cut off from Germany as a result of a wartime blockade and the colonial government needed to create an emergency issue of banknotes. Paper made from linen or jute was initially used, but because of wartime shortages, the notes were later printed on commercial paper in a variety of colours, wrapping paper, and in one instance, wallpaper. This five-rupie banknote was issued in 1915, and is now part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Banknote design credit: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank; photographed by Andrew Shiva
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The rupie was the unit of currency of German East Africa between 1890 and 1916. During World War I, the colony was cut off from Germany as a result of a wartime blockade and the colonial government needed to create an emergency issue of banknotes. Paper made from linen or jute was initially used, but because of wartime shortages, the notes were later printed on commercial paper in a variety of colours, wrapping paper, and in one instance, wallpaper. This ten-rupie banknote was issued in 1916, and is now part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Banknote design credit: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank; photographed by Andrew Shiva
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The rupie was the unit of currency of German East Africa between 1890 and 1916. During World War I, the colony was cut off from Germany as a result of a wartime blockade and the colonial government needed to create an emergency issue of banknotes. Paper made from linen or jute was initially used, but because of wartime shortages, the notes were later printed on commercial paper in a variety of colours, wrapping paper, and in one instance, wallpaper. This twenty-rupie banknote was issued in 1915, and is now part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Banknote design credit: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank; photographed by Andrew Shiva
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The rupie was the unit of currency of German East Africa between 1890 and 1916. During World War I, the colony was cut off from Germany as a result of a wartime blockade and the colonial government needed to create an emergency issue of banknotes. Paper made from linen or jute was initially used, but because of wartime shortages, the notes were later printed on commercial paper in a variety of colours, wrapping paper, and in one instance, wallpaper. This fifty-rupie banknote was issued in 1915, and is now part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Banknote design credit: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank; photographed by Andrew Shiva
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The rupie was the unit of currency of German East Africa between 1890 and 1916. During World War I, the colony was cut off from Germany as a result of a wartime blockade and the colonial government needed to create an emergency issue of banknotes. Paper made from linen or jute was initially used, but because of wartime shortages, the notes were later printed on commercial paper in a variety of colours, wrapping paper, and in one instance, wallpaper. This two hundred rupie banknote was issued in 1915, and is now part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Banknote design credit: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank; photographed by Andrew Shiva
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May 14
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Jewel Changi Airport is a nature-themed entertainment and retail complex in Changi Airport, Singapore, linked to three of its passenger terminals. Its centrepiece is the world's tallest indoor waterfall, the Rain Vortex, which is surrounded by a terraced forest setting. It houses around 3,000 trees and 60,000 shrubs of 120 species from high-altitude, tropical forest habitats around the world. Photograph credit: Matteo Morando
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May 15
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L'enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Spells) is a one-act opera in two scenes with music by Maurice Ravel and a libretto by Colette. It is the story of a child who is reprimanded by the objects in his room after he has been destroying them in a tantrum; the second scene shows the garden where the child attempts to make friends with the animals and plants but they reject his advances because of his past behaviour. These two sets were designed for the première at the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris, which took place on 1 February 1926. Illustration credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden
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May 16
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Daniel Manning (May 16, 1831 – December 24, 1887) was an American businessman, journalist, and politician. He became chairman of the New York Democratic committee in 1881, resigning in 1885 when he was appointed as the 37th United States secretary of the treasury by President Grover Cleveland. He retired two years later due to health issues, and died the same year at his home in Albany, New York. This engraved portrait of Manning was created by the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) for a BEP presentation album. Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva
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May 17
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The red rock crab (Grapsus grapsus), also known as "Sally Lightfoot", is one of the commonest crabs along the western seaboard of the Americas. John Steinbeck wrote of them, "Everyone who has seen them has been delighted with them ... These little crabs, with brilliant cloisonné carapaces, walk on their tiptoes, they have remarkable eyes and an extremely fast reaction time." He tried to catch them but to little avail. "If you walk slowly, they move slowly ahead of you in droves. If you hurry, they hurry. When you plunge at them, they seem to disappear in a puff of blue smoke." Photograph credit: Diego Delso
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May 18
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Gertrude Käsebier (May 18, 1852 – October 12, 1934) was an American photographer who was known for her images of motherhood and her portraits of Native Americans; her portraits of the Sioux focused more on the expression and individuality of the person than their costumes and customs. She helped establish the Women's Professional Photographers Association of America and promoted photography as a career for women. This photograph was taken in around 1900, when she was at the height of her career. Photograph credit: Adolph de Meyer ; restored by Adam Cuerden
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May 19
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Portsmouth Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in the centre of Old Portsmouth in Portsmouth, England. It is the cathedral of the Diocese of Portsmouth and the seat of the bishop of Portsmouth. This photograph shows the cathedral's West Great Organ, installed in 2001 to supplement the existing pipe organ that had been installed by Nicholson & Co Ltd in 1994 by speaking directly into the nave. Photograph credit: David Iliff
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May 20
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La Nymphe surprise is an 1861 oil-on-canvas painting by the French Impressionist painter Édouard Manet. The painting depicts a young woman (described as a nymph) sitting in a wooded landscape beside a lake, looking surprised at the viewer. A blue iris grows at her feet, and she is nude except for pearls around her neck and a ring on her little finger. The model for the painting was Suzanne Leenhoff, a Dutch pianist with whom Manet had an affair; they later married in 1863. The work is in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Painting credit: Édouard Manet
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May 21
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Cavalleria rusticana is an 1890 opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni with an Italian libretto written by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a short story and play by Giovanni Verga. These two illustrations show key scenes in the opera: in the first, Santuzza begs Turiddu to stay with her, instead of continuing his affair with Lola; in the second, Lola's husband Alfio embraces Turiddu, challenging him to a duel according to Sicilian custom, while Turiddu bites his ear, drawing blood, thus accepting the challenge and indicating that it will be a duel to the death. Illustration credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden
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May 22
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The pied bush chat (Saxicola caprata) is a small passerine bird widely distributed in Asia. The males are black with white shoulder and vent patches, while the females are predominantly brownish. This species is insectivorous, and like other chats hunts from a prominent low perch. This female pied bush chat was photographed in Pench National Park, India. Photograph credit: Charles James Sharp
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May 23
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The Crucifixion of Saint Wilgefortis is an oil-on-panel triptych created by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch from 1497 to 1505. The identity of the subject has been uncertain; she was believed to be Saint Julia of Corsica, whose feast day is May 23 in the Western liturgical calendar, but the triptych is now believed to depict Saint Wilgefortis, after restoration work revealed that the female martyr had originally been painted with a beard. The work is in the collection of the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, Italy. Painting credit: Hieronymus Bosch
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May 24
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Helsinki Cathedral is an Evangelical Lutheran cathedral of the Diocese of Helsinki, located in the centre of Helsinki, Finland. Designed by Carl Ludvig Engel to form the focal point of Senate Square, it was built from 1830 to 1852 in the Neoclassical style. The church's plan forms a Greek cross (a square centre and four equilateral arms), symmetrical in each of the four cardinal directions. The cathedral is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Helsinki, with more than half a million visitors in 2018. Photograph credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar
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May 25
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The Adonis blue (Polyommatus bellargus) is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae, found in Europe and parts of West Asia. This photograph, taken in a chalk meadow at Yoesden Bank in Buckinghamshire, England, shows the underside of the folded wings of a male Adonis blue; the upper side is a bright, sky-blue. Photograph credit: Charles James Sharp
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May 26
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Sally Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American physicist and astronaut. She joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman in space. She was the third woman in space overall, after Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). Ride had completed eight months of training for her third flight when the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred. She served on the two panels that investigated this accident and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Photograph credit: NASA; restored by Coffeeandcrumbs
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May 27
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The Centennial Hall is a historic building in Wrocław, Poland. It was designed by Max Berg in 1911, when the city was known as Breslau and belonged to the Province of Silesia in the German Empire, to host a 1913 exhibition celebrating the centennial of the Battle of Leipzig. The building is one of the most important examples of early modernist and expressionist architecture. In 2006, it was inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Poland. The Wrocław exhibition ground, surrounding the hall, also includes a pergola, the needle-like monument Iglica, and the Four Domes Pavilion, which is part of the National Museum. Photograph credit: Jarek Ciuruś
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May 28
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William Birney (May 28, 1819 – August 14, 1907) was a professor, Union Army general during the American Civil War, attorney, and author. An ardent abolitionist, he was one of three superintendents in charge of enlisting colored troops into the Union Army, and in that capacity organized seven regiments. After the war, he established a law practice in Washington, D.C., and after retiring, wrote profusely on religion and history, and authored a biography of his father, James G. Birney. Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden
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May 29
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This historical depiction of the coat of arms of Wisconsin was illustrated by the American engraver Henry Mitchell in State Arms of the Union, published in 1876 by Louis Prang. The symbols depicted on the shield in the center represent the changing focus of the state's economy from fur trading to lead and iron mining, agriculture, manufacturing and shipping, as well as the traditional motto of the United States, E pluribus unum. The badger depicted above the shield alludes to Wisconsin's nickname as the "Badger State", while the cornucopias in the base represent prosperity and abundance, and the lead ingots mineral wealth and the original thirteen U.S. states. Wisconsin's state motto, "Forward", appears above the design, which also features on the state flag and the state seal. Engraving credit: Henry Mitchell; restored by Andrew Shiva
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May 30
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Clitocybe nebularis, commonly known as the clouded agaric or the cloud funnel, is a common gilled fungus that grows both in conifer-dominated forests and broad-leaved woodland in Europe and North America. This C. nebularis mushroom was photographed growing among fallen beech leaves in Famberhorst nature reserve, the Netherlands. Photograph credit: Dominicus Johannes Bergsma
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May 31
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Shōrin-zu byōbu is a pair of six-panel folding screens (byōbu) by the Japanese artist Hasegawa Tōhaku, the founder of the Hasegawa school. The ink-on-paper work dates from the late 16th century and depicts a view of Japanese pine trees in the mist, with parts of the trees visible and other parts obscured. The screens are held by the Tokyo National Museum, and were designated as a National Treasure of Japan in 1952. Painting credit: Hasegawa Tōhaku
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