User:DanCherek/DYK


 * Did you know ...
 * 1) ... that "The House of Asterion" by Jorge Luis Borges was one of the first works by a major author to examine a well-known tale from the monster's perspective?
 * 2) ... that the wind phone in Japan was set up to allow people to talk to the dead?
 * 3) ... that Dav Pilkey wrote the children's book The Paperboy, which received a Caldecott Honor, in fifteen minutes?
 * 4) ... that for the 2015 film A Heavy Heart, German actor Peter Kurth gained and then lost 35 lb to portray his character's physical decline due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?
 * 5) ... that in 2021, Christina Soontornvat became the first author to win two Newbery Honors in the same year for both fiction (A Wish in the Dark) and nonfiction (All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team)?
 * 6) ↑ [multi-nomination hook]
 * 7) ↑ [multi-nomination hook]
 * 8) ... that Chris Redd won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2018 for co-writing a song about Barack Obama?
 * 9) ... that A Ruined Life was the first film by director Victor Sjöström to be shown in Sweden because his earlier film, The Gardener, had been censored for 68 years?
 * 10) ... that Carl Craig became the state auditor of Mississippi in 1936 after defeating a former state auditor also named Carl?
 * 11) ↑ [multi-nomination hook]
 * 12) ↑ [multi-nomination hook]
 * 13) ... that after Mary Lou Godbold announced her candidacy for the Mississippi Senate, all of the other candidates withdrew from the race?
 * 14) ... that Betty Jane Long was Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives for less than a day?
 * 15) ... that Barbara Yancy, who succeeded her husband in the Mississippi Senate after his death, later became an advocate for other widowed homemakers?
 * 16) ... that Lovie Gore made multiple unsuccessful attempts to delay the desegregation of schools in Mississippi?
 * 17) ... that after Maria Camilleri co-founded a school for Muslim children in Malta, she became the only Christian headmistress of a Muslim school in the world?
 * 18) ... that Mississippi legislator Thelma Farr Baxter introduced a bill to keep livestock off the roads after her husband was fatally injured in a highway collision with a cow?
 * 19) ... that Mary L. Smith became the first female president of Kentucky State University in 1991 despite having been passed over for the same job a year earlier?
 * 20) ... that Shirley Congdon, the vice chancellor of the University of Bradford, was the first in her family to attend university?
 * 21) ... that Rannveig Þorsteinsdóttir, a newspaper clerk and part-time teacher in the 1920s, became the first woman to practice law in the Supreme Court of Iceland thirty years later?
 * 22) ... that the Catholic Church barred Deborah Schembri from practicing law in ecclesiastical court because she led a campaign to legalize divorce in Malta?
 * 23) ... that Nellah Massey Bailey became the first woman to be elected statewide in Mississippi in 1947, less than a year after the death of her husband Governor Thomas L. Bailey?
 * 24) ... that Debra Humphris, the vice chancellor of the University of Brighton, advocated converting 18th-century army barracks into student residences?
 * 25) ... that Julie Mennell was a police officer and a forensics specialist before she became vice chancellor of the University of Cumbria?
 * 26) ... that British nurse Ethel Becher was described as a "modern Florence Nightingale" in 1919 for her services during World War I?
 * 27) ... that Truus Smulders-Beliën, the first female mayor in the Netherlands, succeeded her husband after he was executed by Nazi soldiers?
 * 28) ... that Inkeri Anttila, Finland's first female minister of justice, was also the first woman in Finland to complete a doctorate in law?
 * 29) ... that Helen D'Amato was appointed to a three-year term as Malta's commissioner of children, but held the role for nearly twice as long after her term expired without a successor being designated?
 * 30) ... that Anna-Liisa Tiekso dropped out of university in 1951 to become the youngest member of the Finnish parliament?
 * 31) ... that Finnish minister Kyllikki Pohjala learned English while working in New York hospitals to pay for her education at Columbia University?
 * 32) ... that Vieno Simonen was first elected to the Finnish parliament in 1948, ten years after she was widowed with seven children?
 * 33) ... that Pirjo Ala-Kapee-Hakulinen was the first and only governor of the Eastern Finland Province from its creation in 1997 to its abolition in 2010?
 * 34) ... that Finnish politician Margit Eskman did not attend secondary school because she had to work in a shoe factory?
 * 35) ... that Irma Toivanen, who was part of a group of Finnish volunteer medics during World War II, helped make a film about the group six decades later?
 * 36) ... that Orvokki Kangas authored six books, including a novel, memoirs, and religious devotionals, after she left the Finnish parliament at the age of 61?
 * 37) ... that Alli Lahtinen, the first woman to lead a central government agency in Finland, helped establish the country's national child care system?
 * 38) ... that after her death Katri-Helena Eskelinen was voted "the greatest Siilinjärvi resident of all time" by her hometown?
 * 39) ... that the University of Oulu renamed an institute after Finnish politician Kerttu Saalasti in 2017, six decades after she introduced the bill that established the university?
 * 40) ... that Sinikka Luja-Penttilä published a novel in the same year that she retired from the Finnish parliament?
 * 41) ... that Finnish politician Maija Perho encouraged future president Sauli Niinistö to join the National Coalition Party in the 1960s?
 * 42) ... that Meeri Kalavainen, Finland's first minister of culture, helped end a schism in the women's branch of the Social Democratic Party?
 * 43) ... that Finnish politician Maija Rask earned a PhD at the age of 61 after a career as a nurse, teacher, member of Parliament, and minister of education?
 * 44) ... that Finnish politician Kaarina Suonio answered the world's first GSM phone call?
 * 45) ... that Sharon Choi, the Korean–English interpreter for film director Bong Joon-ho, is herself a director?
 * 46) ... that Thomas Rhett's "What's Your Country Song" contains lyrical references to 16 other country songs?
 * 47) (with Wugapodes) ... that Homobiles has been called "Uber for drag queens"?
 * 48) ... that some music scholars have suggested that the Chaconne in G minor, widely attributed to Tomaso Antonio Vitali, is a musical hoax?
 * 49) ... that according to Christopher Bollen, much of his 2020 novel A Beautiful Crime was written in a 17th-century monastery?
 * 50) ... that Norma Kuhling character in Fourteen was described by a film critic as "a Greta Gerwig spin on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl"?
 * 51) ... that Michaela Goade received the 2021 Caldecott Medal for her watercolor illustrations for We Are Water Protectors, becoming the first Indigenous artist to win the award?
 * 52) ↑ [multi-nomination hook]
 * 53) ... that Noa Denmon illustration for the Google Doodle on Martin Luther King Jr. Day included people painting a mural while socially distanced due to the COVID-19 pandemic?
 * 54) ... that during W. Sterling Cary presidency of the National Council of Churches in the 1970s, the council voted to support gay rights for the first time in its history?
 * 55) ... that the children's book A Place Inside of Me is dedicated to the nephew of Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman who was shot to death in her home by a policeman in 2019?
 * 56) ... that violinist Nikolai Sachenko performs rarely-played piano trios by Russian composers as a member of the Brahms Trio?
 * 57) ... that Dan Finnerty was cast in Single All the Way so that he could cross the Canada–U.S. border and join his wife, Kathy Najimy, on the set of the film?
 * 58) ... that a woman in Texas attempted to have Tiger Flowers removed from the library collection at her daughter's school?
 * 59) ... that Rogelio de Egusquiza's  paintings of Tristan and Isolde arose from his decades-long fascination with the works of Richard Wagner?
 * 60) (with Possibly) ... that the photographer Václav Jírů was sentenced to death for resisting the German occupation of Czechoslovakia and spent years in Nazi prisons?
 * 61) ... that when Helena Braun visited New York "just for the trip", she sang the role of Brünnhilde in Wagner's Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera with four hours' notice?
 * 62) ... that Fire and Sword, a film about Tristan and Isolde, reused the stuntmen and horses from another Arthurian film, Excalibur?
 * 63) ... that there have been several attempts to make Colby cheese the official state cheese of Wisconsin?
 * 64) ... that Ludwig Zottmayr, who created the role of King Marke in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, was not the composer's first choice?
 * 65) ... that Paul Gutama Soegijo travelled from Germany to Indonesia to study the gamelan instruments of Java for eight years?
 * 66) ... that Baillieu Myer and his siblings were born in California because their father's prior divorce was not recognised under Australian law?
 * 67) ... that the 2013 novel Body Offering was described by a critic as "more erratic than erotic"?
 * 68) ... that the 1980 bibliography The Old French Tristan Poems was praised for indexing the fragments of Tristan, a 12th-century poem?
 * 69) ... that the gonads of the banded bullfrog remain ripe during dry periods so that it can mate soon after rainfall?
 * 70) (with Gerda Arendt and Микола Василечко) ... that the 1885 spiritual anthem Prayer for Ukraine was performed by a choir from New York on Saturday Night Live?
 * 71) ... that Vladyslav Buialskyi, a 24-year-old bass-baritone from Berdiansk, sang the State Anthem of Ukraine on the night of his debut with the Metropolitan Opera?
 * 72) ... that Henri Coutard, an early pioneer in radiation therapy, spent the last decade of his life conducting fanciful experiments that were rejected by his peers?
 * 73) ... that the egg-size Logan Sapphire glows reddish orange under ultraviolet radiation?
 * 74) ... that Melody, originally composed by Myroslav Skoryk for a 1982 Soviet film, was used in Volodymyr Zelenskyy's broadcast to the U.S. Congress in March 2022?
 * 75) ... that the Caldecott Honor–winning illustrations for Going Down Home with Daddy contain Adinkra symbols that represent various concepts in Ghanaian culture?
 * 76) ... that Creekfinding was inspired by epidemiologist Michael Osterholm's efforts to restore a creek that had been diverted decades earlier?