Recommended Sunday Reading—May 21

Iran’s moderates win election, but it won’t matter to Trump

In 1979, the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini famously quipped that the revolution was about “justice and independence,” not “the price of watermelons.” He said economics was only “for donkeys.” Four decades later, the early revolutionaries are discovering that the price of watermelons—the issues of a normal state—can determine their fate. And having a hostile superpower determined to squeeze Iran harder, whether by empowering regional rivals or imposing new sanctions, will not make normalising the Islamic Republic any easier. In The New Yorker.

Tuscan archives yield up secrets of Leonardo’s mystery mother

According to Kemp, she was seduced by 25-year-old Ser Piero da Vinci, an ambitious lawyer working in Florence. Documents show that he took a break in July 1451, “exactly the right weeks for her impregnation”, Kemp said. “Nice, spring evening probably in the fields – and that was it.” In The Guardian.

Putin the pianist charms the Chinese

At the ground level, several factors are driving the Russian President’s soaring appeal, including his macho physical persona. Phoenix weekly, published from Hong Kong, points to Mr Putin’s strong ‘emperor quality’, capped with an aura of invincibility, as a cause for his magnetic appeal. In a 2014 survey conducted by Tencent, the developer of the popular instant messenger WeChat, in China 92% of the respondents roundly approved of Mr Putin — numbers that even exceed the President’s popularity in his native Russia. In The Hindu.

Modern-day fairy tale of Princess Mako and her 'prince'

Their dreamy romance between a royal and a "commoner" is a modern-day fairy tale that has since captured imagination and headlines all over the world. Princess Mako grew up within the rarefied compounds of the grand neo-baroque Akasaka Palace, which hosts visiting state dignitaries to Japan. In The Strait Times.

The death of one of the oldest shows on Earth

By the late 20th century, a new generation of animal welfare activists challenged circus owners across Britain and the United States to ban animal acts, citing the cruelty involved in their capture and training. Awareness took root in the public consciousness and business dwindled, eventually culminating in the closure of Ringling Bros, one of the oldest and largest American circuses. In The National Geographic.