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Falcon's Fury is a freestanding Sky Jump drop tower attraction at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, an amusement park in Tampa, Florida. Manufactured by Intaride, a subsidiary of Intamin, the ride is one of North America's tallest freestanding drop towers, with a height of 335 feet (102 m). It was also the first drop tower to use 90-degree tilting seats, facing riders straight down through five seconds of free fall. They reach a speed of 60 miles per hour (100 km/h) before rotating back into a vertical position and decelerating at about 3.5 g. The ride's name is meant to suggest a falcon's ability to dive steeply at high speed to capture prey. Due to the height of the attraction, approval from the Federal Aviation Administration was required. Construction was delayed until 2013, and the opening date was also delayed by mechanical and technical issues. Falcon's Fury opened to park employees in August before a soft opening on August 16, 2014, and an official opening on September 2, 2014. (Full article...)

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Satellite image of Tropical Storm Chris

... that Tropical Storm Chris (pictured) in July 2024 caused bodies of water to overflow in Ciudad Madero, Mexico, resulting in a crocodile sighting at a beach?
... that when New York City's Metropolitan Club was established, there was another Metropolitan Club two city blocks away?
... that William Pope, an Anglican deacon, was a follower of John Henry Newman and like him became a Roman Catholic priest?
... that a bootleg album of Jai Paul's unreleased music was named as one of the best of 2013 by several music publications?
... that a historian lamented the lack of English-language translations for the work of Aracy Amaral despite it being "a vital reference for the study of art history in Brazil"?
... that the Auckland meteorite crashed through the roof of a house in New Zealand?
... that Rachel Scott reported live during the January 6 United States Capitol attack in her first week as ABC News' White House correspondent?
... that the Nan Oo Pagoda is classified as a double encased stupa as it envelops a smaller stupa?
... that the creators of Poetry for Neanderthals faced difficulties during its release because they needed a way to manufacture inflatable clubs?

In the news

Paralympics opening ceremony

The Summer Paralympics open (cauldron lighting pictured) in Paris, France.
More than four hundred people are killed in an Islamist militant attack in Barsalogho Department, Burkina Faso.
The Islamic State claims responsibility for a mass stabbing that killed three people at a festival in Solingen, Germany.
In cycling, Katarzyna Niewiadoma wins the Tour de France Femmes.

On this day

September 2: National Day in Vietnam (1945)

Principality of Sealand

1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury was founded following financial concerns in the new nation.
1792 – French Revolution: Due to an overwhelming fear that foreign armies would attack Paris and prisoners would revolt, revolutionaries began the summary execution of more than a thousand prisoners.
1946 – The interim government of India, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, was formed to assist the transition of India from British rule to independence.
1957 – South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm began an official visit to Australia, the first by a foreign incumbent head of state to the country.
1967 – Paddy Roy Bates proclaimed HM Fort Roughs, a former World War II Maunsell Sea Fort in the North Sea off the coast of Suffolk, England, as an independent sovereign state: the Principality of Sealand (pictured).

Constantius III (d. 421)
Liliʻuokalani (b. 1838)
Horace Silver (b. 1928)
Barbara McClintock (d. 1992)

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More than 20 video games have been developed since 2008 by Supermassive Games, a British video game developer. Until 2018, they worked almost exclusively with PlayStation, first working on downloadable content for LittleBigPlanet. The studio published their first game, Big Match Striker, in September 2010. Supermassive worked on multiple games that utilised the PlayStation Move motion controller including Start the Party! and Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves, both of which were released in 2010. In 2015, the studio started to focus mostly on interactive-drama, survival-horror video games, starting with their breakout title, Until Dawn, which won the BAFTA Games Award for Original Property in 2016. With the success of Until Dawn, the studio continued to expand the universe, releasing two spin-off titles; Until Dawn: Rush of Blood (2016) and The Inpatient (2018), for the PlayStation VR. In August 2019, Supermassive released Man of Medan, the first game in The Dark Pictures Anthology, and in 2022, they released The Quarry, the spiritual successor to Until Dawn. Supermassive's next game, The Casting of Frank Stone, a game set in the Dead by Daylight universe, is scheduled for release on 3 September 2024. (Full list...)

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Princess Ida is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was Gilbert and Sullivan's eighth operatic collaboration, preceding The Mikado. Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre in 1884 and ran for 246 performances. Based on the narrative poem The Princess by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the opera concerns a princess who founds a women's university and teaches that women are superior to men and should rule in their stead. Prince Hilarion, to whom she had been betrothed, sneaks into the university, and a war erupts between the two sexes. Princess Ida satirizes feminism, women's education and Darwinian evolution, controversial topics in conservative Victorian England. Princess Ida was only a modest success, and after its initial run, it was not revived in London until 1919. Nevertheless, the piece is performed regularly today by both professional and amateur companies. This watercolour-and-pencil-on-card image by C. Wilhelm shows his costume design for the characters of Arac, Guron and Scynthius in the 1884 production of Princess Ida.

Costume design credit: C. Wilhelm; restored by Adam Cuerden

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