Specimen at World Museum, Liverpool

The white swamphen (Porphyrio albus) was a rail found on Lord Howe Island, east of the Australian mainland. All contemporary accounts and illustrations were produced between 1788 and 1790, when the bird was first encountered by British ship crews. Today, two specimens exist: one in World Museum (pictured) in Liverpool, England, and the holotype in the Natural History Museum of Vienna. It is thought to have been most similar to the Australasian swamphen. The white swamphen was 36 to 55 cm (14 to 22 in) long. Contemporary accounts indicate that individual bird plumage was white, blue, or mixed blue-and-white. The bird's bill, frontal shield and legs were red, and it had a claw (or spur) on its wing. It was probably either flightless or a poor flier; this and its docility made the bird easy prey for visiting humans, who killed it with sticks. Reportedly once common, the species may have been hunted to extinction before 1834, when Lord Howe Island was settled. (Full article...)

2 Park Avenue

• ... that the colored facade panels of 2 Park Avenue (pictured) were inspired by the texture of fabric?
• ... that Ambati Rambabu, the state minister for irrigation of Andhra Pradesh, dabbled in acting before entering politics?
• ... that the solar water-heating market in Turkey is second in the world, after China's?
• ... that when tenor Jonathan Tetelman appeared as Loris Ipanov in Giordano's Fedora, which had made Caruso famous, a reviewer called him ideal for the role?
• ... that the main nesting site of the Japanese murrelet was used as a bombing range by the USAF?
• ... that East Lake Square, a failed shopping mall in Tampa, Florida, was converted into a business park known as NetPark Tampa Bay in 1999?
• ... that Olga Rudenko, who was chosen as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper The Kyiv Independent, appeared on the cover of Time?
• ... that literary fiction novel Agatha of Little Neon's title stems from a house that is "the color of Mountain Dew"?

Elizabeth II

• In Nigeria, at least 50 people are killed in an attack at a Catholic church in Owo, Ondo State.
• A fire and explosions at a storage depot in Sitakunda
  , Bangladesh, kill at least 41 people and injure more than 450 others.
• The Common­wealth of Nations celebrates the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II (pictured).
• Denmark votes to eliminate its opt-out of the European Union's Common Security and Defence Policy.

June 8

Margaret Bondfield

• 218 – Led by the inexperienced Gannys, Elagabalus's legions defeated the forces of Roman emperor Macrinus at the Battle of Antioch.
• 1826 – In York, Upper Canada, members of the Family Compact destroyed William Lyon Mackenzie's printing press in the Types Riot after Mackenzie accused them of corruption.
• 1929 – Margaret Bondfield (pictured) became the first female member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom when she was named Minister of Labour by Ramsay MacDonald.
• 1972 – Vietnam War: Associated Press photographer Nick Ut took a Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph of a naked nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc fleeing after being burned by napalm.
• 1982 – Falklands War: The Argentine Air Force attacked British transport ships while unloading supplies off Bluff Cove in the Falkland Islands, killing 56 British servicemen and wounding 150 others.