Five Things: Spring 2024

Art and science news you can use.

1

A photo of a monarch butterfly.

This spring, monarch butterflies in Mexico will begin their 3,000-mile migration north to Canada, a journey that can take eight months. No single monarch will make the entire trip, however, as it takes three generations of butterflies to reach Canada.


2

A collage of multi-ethnic people.

Immigrants today account for 13.7 percent of the U.S. population, nearly triple the share in 1970. That’s still below the record of 14.8 percent in 1890.


3

A historic photo of a large music hall building.Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

The oldest music hall still in use in the United States is the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, which opened in 1857.


4

A photo of a solar eclipse.Photo: Jongsun Lee on Unsplash

The earliest reliable observation of a solar eclipse occurred in March 1223 BCE in what is now northern Syria.


5

Photo: Courtesy of The Langley Collection

A four-poster wooden bed once owned by King Henry VII was found dumped in a hotel parking lot and sold at auction in 2010 for just around $2,800, without anyone knowing its history. DNA testing later confirmed it as belonging to the 15th-century monarch, and experts estimate its current worth at more than $25 million.