Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system of ancient Egypt, mixing picture signs, sound signs and alphabet-like letters, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. The first decipherable sentence dates to about the 28th century BC. Egyptian script led to a simple Proto-Sinaitic script, which evolved into the Phoenician alphabet, the first widely adopted phonetic alphabet. Greek and Aramaic descended from Phoenician, so the Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic and Brahmic scripts all trace back to hieroglyphs. The writing was lost after pagan temples closed in the 5th century AD and was not read again until Champollion decoded it in the 1820s using the Rosetta Stone.

Indonesian Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka handed his resignation to parliament after questions were raised about his eligibility for office and his academic credentials. Gibran is the son of former president Joko Widodo, and his resignation came as Widodo publicly backed the president, Prabowo Subianto. Gibran had been elected vice president in 2024 as Prabowo's running mate. His candidacy was made possible by a 2023 Constitutional Court ruling on the minimum age for candidates, which was itself controversial. Parliament will now consider the resignation.

Angkor, near Siem Reap in northern Cambodia, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia between roughly the 9th and 15th centuries. At its height the city spread across about 3,000 square kilometres, making it the largest pre-industrial city on Earth by area. Its growth depended on water: huge reservoirs called barays, along with canals and embankments, stored monsoon rain and carried it to rice fields. That system let farmers harvest more than once a year and fed a very large population through the dry season. The temple complex of Angkor Wat, built in the early 12th century, is the best-known monument and still stands at the heart of the park.