Wikipedia:Recent additions 152

Did you know...

 * ...that Moffat Library (pictured) in Washingtonville, New York, was formally opened in 1887 but did not have any books until bookcases were bought a year later?
 * ...that in 1942 survivors of the British submarine P36 were shipwrecked again less than six weeks later when the submarine HMS Olympus hit a mine off Malta?
 * ...that the First National Bank of Omaha founded by Herman Kountze is the oldest bank west of the Mississippi River, and continues as a privately held company in its sixth generation of family ownership?
 * ...that American systems theorist Debora Hammond explores new ways of thinking about complex systems that support more participatory forms of social organization?
 * ...that Sir Richard Garth was a barrister, MP, Privy Counsellor and Chief Justice of Bengal as well as Lord of the Manor of Morden?
 * ...that Willy Apiata of the Special Air Service of New Zealand was the first ever recipient of the Victoria Cross for New Zealand?
 * ...that there are fords at Illinois' White Pines Forest State Park (crossing pictured) allowing visitors to drive through the stream?
 * ...that the Victoria Cross, instituted in 1991 as the highest award for gallantry that can be awarded to Australian military personnel, has yet to be awarded to anyone?
 * ...that Wing Commander George H. Stainforth AFC RAF was the first man to exceed 400 mph in an aircraft?
 * ...that Charles A. Johns went from being a justice on the Oregon Supreme Court to a justice on the Supreme Court of the Philippines in 1921?
 * ...in the 4th century, the Persian Chosroid Dynasty introduced Christianity as the official religion in ancient Georgia?
 * ...that during the Glasgow Hillhead by-election, 1982, future leader of the Liberal Democrats Charles Kennedy wore a sandwich board reading "The real Roy Jenkins is number 5"?
 * ...that national service in Cuba's law enforcement agencies is regarded as more dangerous than serving in the country's armed forces?
 * ...that Crystle Stewart won the Miss Texas USA title on her fifth attempt, after placing first runner-up for two consecutive years?
 * ...that news of the British victory in the Battle of Trafalgar was reported in the Gibraltar Chronicle a fortnight before it reached England?
 * ...that Laurence Mancuso was the founding abbot of the Eastern Orthodox monastic community of New Skete (pictured), which is known for its dog training?
 * ...that Fernando Amorsolo was the first Filipino to be distinguished as a National Artist of the Philippines in painting?
 * ...that the Battle of Damascus was the final action of the Allied advance on Damascus in Syria during the Syria-Lebanon campaign in World War II?
 * ...that Joseph Jukes, an English-born colonial Australian geologist, sketched the very first complete map of Australia?
 * ...that authorship of a research article in fields such as genome sequencing and particle physics is sometimes claimed by over 100 scientists?
 * ...that the four state-owned Regional Health Authorities run all the public hospitals in Norway?
 * ...that Texas Tech track and field runner Sally Kipyego is the first Kenyan woman to win an NCAA cross country individual championship?
 * ...that Saint Maximilian Kolbe sacrificed his life at Auschwitz to save the life of Polish Army sergeant Franciszek Gajowniczek?
 * ...that the last territorial expansion of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, took place in 1972, creating Greater Bratislava with the 17 current boroughs?
 * ...that the first shot fired by British Empire forces in World War I was targeted at the German ship Pfalz which was departing Melbourne, Australia as Britain declared war on Germany?
 * ...that the Moldavian intellectual Gheorghe Asachi (pictured) opposed his country's union with Wallachia, and endorsed the pro-separatist electoral fraud of June 1857?
 * ...that Operation Salaam was a World War II covert operation led by the aristocratic explorer László Almásy in order to insert two German spies into British-held Cairo?
 * ...that Hindus in the ancient Tamil country worshipped different deities depending on the landscape of the region they lived in?
 * ...that Yavapai is an over-arching term for four distinct tribes of Native Americans from central Arizona?
 * ...that the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, prematurely announced the death of Bishop Donald Trautman?
 * ...that Dr. Henry Woodward was the first British colonist of colonial South Carolina?
 * ...that In Nomine Domini, promulgated by Pope Nicholas II in 1059, established cardinal-bishops as the sole electors of the pope?
 * ...that the Pub Design Awards are annually given to exceptional pubs in the UK that have undergone construction work?
 * ...that the WWF in 1986 introduced a stable of masked wrestlers to keep the injured wrestler Andre the Giant on television, but off the ring?
 * ...that in 1859 John Wise (pictured) made the first airmail delivery in the United States?
 * ...that in an attempt to speed up the longest papal election in history, the magistrates of Viterbo removed the roof of the Papal Palace?
 * ...that the inmates of San Pedro prison run a hotel for visiting tourists and sell cocaine to the local community?
 * ...that the Church Slavonic word for "nativity scene" has come to denote "the den of depravity" in modern Russian?
 * ...that the novel Pioneer, Go Home! (adapted into the Elvis movie Follow that Dream) was inspired by squatters who settled on land created when Florida built a bridge to Pine Island?
 * ...that the Darjeeling Ropeway was stopped on 19 October 2003 after four tourists were killed in an accident?
 * ...that W. Gene Corley investigated the collapse of the World Trade Center, as well as the performance of the Murrah Building in response to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing?
 * ...that Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich of Russia gave away his cat to one of the soldiers tasked with his execution?
 * ...that the developer of the Mendota Hills Wind Farm (pictured) provided landowners with contracts for up to $1,500 per megawatt of electricity produced by wind turbines on their land?
 * ...that the first poet in the Russian language, Symeon of Polotsk, was ethnically Belarusian?
 * ...that "Being Boiled," the first single by The Human League, cost just £2.50 to record?
 * ...that the pentadic numbers on the Spirit Pond runestones have led to speculation that they contain an authentic record of Thorfinn Karlsefni's expedition to Maine in 1010?
 * ...that when the great Italian medalist and sculptor Leone Leoni was accused of counterfeiting by Pope Paul III's jeweler in 1540, he came so close to killing the man that he was sent to the galleys?
 * ...that Stoke City F.C. is the second-oldest English football league club, as it was founded in 1863?
 * ...the Efficiency Medal of Great Britain and the Commonwealth in almost seventy years was awarded with three different ribbons in over thirty separate countries, and featured three monarchs wearing four distinct crowns?
 * ...that the prehistoric marine reptile Excalibosaurus (pictured) was named after King Arthur's sword because of the sword-like appearance of its upper jaw?
 * ...that though George Bernard Shaw called fellow Edwardian playwright St John Hankin’s death "a public calamity," his work was largely neglected until the 1990s?
 * ...that Takemoto Gidayū's contributions to the form of bunraku (Japanese puppet theatre) were so influential that all chanters (narrators) in bunraku are now called gidayū?
 * ...that although the No Child Left Behind Act in the United States prescribes the consequences for schools failing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress, it leaves responsibility for defining that progress up to each state education agency?
 * ...that David Nash, the managing director of Nash Timbers, single-handedly stopped the Australian Government's practice of burning down old railway bridges, thus saving timber up to 400 years old?
 * ...that in the Battle of Kissoué during the Syria-Lebanon campaign in World War II, the outnumbered defenders at Quneitra, Syria surrendered because they ran out of ammunition?
 * ...that the words "Never Again" were supposedly inscribed in English and Hebrew on the first warhead from Israel's nuclear program?
 * ...that the SS Moyie (pictured) was the last working sternwheeler in Canada and is the oldest intact sternwheeler in the world?
 * ...that Confederate brigadier general James Morrison Hawes studied advanced military tactics at the Cavalry School of Saumur, France?
 * ...that the Austria-Hungarian organ-building firm Rieger Orgelbau, in Czechoslovakia after World War I, was nationalized by the Czech government after World War II and now operates as Rieger-Kloss?
 * ...that the staff of the mayor of Mirik, West Bengal vowed to spend a month's salary in SMS voting for Indian Idol contestant Prashant Tamang, the first finalist of Nepalese descent?
 * ...that the proglacial lakes of Minnesota were massive freshwater lakes covering many times the area of the Great Lakes at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation?
 * ...that, after driving the French Republicans from Italy, Russian Field-Marshal Alexander Suvorov managed to conduct a masterful flight across the snow-capped Alps?
 * ...that German explorers mounted many expeditions in the early 20th century to the Ramu river in German New Guinea in the hope of finding gold and also gutta-percha trees?
 * ...that during the Schmalkaldic War, the Imperial Duke Eric II fled from the Battle of Drakenburg (etching pictured) by swimming across the Weser River?
 * ...that the Oregon Coast Range was created by a Forearc basin along the Pacific Ocean?
 * ...that in 1970, University of Oregon head baseball coach Don Kirsch fell to his death out of a second-story window at Stanford University Medical Center?
 * ...that Hugh Johns commentated for England's only FIFA World Cup victory during his first year as a commentator?
 * ...that the Swan by-election, 1918 not only resulted in the election of the youngest person ever to be elected to the Parliament of Australia, but directly prompted the introduction of instant-runoff voting in Australia?
 * ...that scandal erupted after the Department of Justice initiated prosecution of Jackie Presser only to abruptly end it once the press revealed Presser had been an informant for the FBI for over 10 years?
 * ...that the Speculum Humanae Salvationis (Mirror of Human Salvation) (one page pictured) was one of the most popular illustrated books of the Middle Ages?
 * ...that Rod Marsh was the first Australian wicketkeeper to score a century in Test cricket?
 * ...that the Logan Fontenelle Housing Project in Omaha, Nebraska, along with restrictive covenants and redlining, were used to segregate African Americans in the Near North Side neighborhood?
 * ...that the poet Dinakara Desai is known as Chutuka Brahma (creator of chutukas) because he invented a four-line limerick form of Kannada poetry known as chutuka?
 * ...that Francis Price Blackwood, a colonial Australian naval officer and sea surveyor, charted locations like Whitsunday Island and the Great Barrier Reef?
 * ...that Irish cricketer and rugby union player Dickie Lloyd was regarded as one of the most famous pupils of Portora Royal School, alongside Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde?
 * ...that George Rogers Clark was called the "Conqueror of the Northwest" because of his victorious Illinois campaign in the American Revolutionary War?
 * ...that HNoMS Heimdal became the first Norwegian ship to apprehend a ship for illegal fishing when she seized the British trawler Lord Roberts in 1911?
 * ...that the stray dogs Bummer and Lazarus (pictured) were so popular with the people of San Francisco in the 1860s that they were given special exemption from the leash laws?
 * ...that Operation Tracer was a top-secret WWII mission in which six men were to be buried alive inside the Rock of Gibraltar so that they could monitor enemy movements after the Rock's capture?
 * ...that the bark of Kleinhovia hospita is used to treat hair lice in Indonesia?
 * ...that Rear Admiral Sir Richard Trowbridge was the twenty-fifth Governor of Western Australia and the first officer of the Royal Navy to rise from boy seaman to captain of the Queen's yacht HMY Britannia?
 * ...that the first teacher and practicing doctor in Portland, Oregon, Ralph Wilcox killed himself with a Deringer pistol while at work at the federal court?
 * ...that Sycorax, an unseen character in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, is viewed by some as a symbol of the silenced African woman?
 * ...that Huynh Phu So, the founder of the Hoa Hao religious sect, converted his doctor after being put in a mental asylum by the French colonial forces?
 * ...that the bestselling children's book The History of the Fairchild Family by Mary Martha Sherwood inspired the character of Pip in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations?