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Marie Sophie Hingst (1987–2019) was a German historian and blogger who falsely claimed to be descended from Holocaust survivors. Born into a Protestant family, she fabricated a Jewish background and sent documentation for 22 misrepresented or non-existent relatives, who she claimed were Holocaust victims, to the official Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem. She maintained a blog about her supposed Jewish background, identity and experiences as a German expatriate in Ireland, where she moved in 2013. The blog received hundreds of thousands of views. Throughout her life, Hingst falsified much of her background, connections, and achievements. She used her fraudulent credentials to gain awards and recognition, and held positions of prestige in Jewish communities across Europe. A journalist exposed her claims as false in 2019. She was castigated in the German media, destroying her reputation. Hingst committed suicide at the age of 31. Her fraud and death attracted attention across Europe. (Full article...)

• ... that the Norman Lykes House (pictured) was the last house that Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed?
• ... that Bosnian sitting volleyball players Sabahudin Delalić, Ismet Godinjak, Adnan Manko, Asim Medić, and Dževad Hamzić have won medals at every Paralympics this century?
• ... that mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles are one of only two examples of wild big cats living in a megacity?
• ... that Nigerian academic James Nwoye Adichie was kidnapped in 2015?
• ... that around 80 percent of foreign tourists to the Indonesian province of Lampung in 2019 went to the town of Krui?
• ... that inmates from New York state prisons can be involuntarily committed at the Central New York Psychiatric Center?
• ... that the Marshal of France surrendered to the Black Prince after his keep was set on fire?
• ... that Rachel Chinouriri has dreamed of having a Little House with a partner since she was a child?
• ... that Jilly Cooper described her bonkbuster Appassionata as her "sex and Chopin" novel?

• Robert Francis Prevost (pictured) is elected as Pope Leo XIV, becoming the first Catholic pope born in the United States.
• Friedrich Merz is elected Chancellor of Germany and sworn in alongside his coalition government.
• Zhao Xintong defeats Mark Williams to win the World Snooker Championship.
• In horse racing, Sovereignty, ridden by Junior Alvarado, wins the Kentucky Derby.
• The Australian Labor Party increases its majority in the federal election.

May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias (Catholicism); Independence Day in Israel (2024)

• 1264 – Second Barons' War: King Henry III was defeated at the Battle of Lewes (monument pictured) and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
• 1857 – Mindon Min was crowned as King of Burma.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Union troops captured Jackson, the capital of Mississippi.
• 1931 – Five people were killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers opened fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration.
• 1948 – David Ben-Gurion publicly read the Israeli Declaration of Independence at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv.