Wikipedia:Recent additions 169

Did you know...

 * ...that New York State Route 20SY is the only route in the state to have ever had the "SY" suffix?
 * ...that Time predicted 1973 to be a "gilt-edged year" for the stock market, just three days before the stock market crash of 1973–4 began, wiping 45% off the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average?
 * ...that Fort Delaware State Park, once a Civil War POW camp, is now home to one of the largest heronries north of Florida?
 * ...that though Theodore Thurston Geer was the tenth Oregon Governor, he was the first native Oregonian to serve in that office?
 * ...that Nicholas Bethell, 4th Baron Bethell resigned as a Government whip to sue Auberon Waugh who claimed that his translation of Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward was unauthorised, and helped lead to Solzhenitsyn's arrest?
 * ...that people of the Sonoran Desert in North America value the fruit of the Ferocactus wislizeni (pictured) as emergency food and also as a basis for confectionary?
 * ...that German physicist Walter Gerlach helped prove the fact that electrons spin?
 * ...that prospector Reuben D'Aigle missed finding a huge gold deposit by only a few feet, and his boot print was found pressed into the vein when the Porcupine Gold Rush started in 1909?
 * ...that during Ted Snyder's six year tenure as dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the business school has relocated two of its four campuses
 * ...that the crest for the World Association of Ugly People features a reclining man smoking a pipe with the slogan: "Ugliness is a virtue, beauty is slavery"?
 * ...that Edward Kerr Turner , C.M., LL.D., S.O.M. was a delegate for Saskatchewan agriculture in both national and international affairs?
 * ...that Germany is the European leader in Christmas tree production?
 * ...that the Lyre River provides the only spawning grounds for the endemic Beardslee trout?
 * ...that it cost $1.4 billion to restore the Verizon Building (pictured), an art deco building that was damaged in the September 11, 2001 attacks?
 * ...that the second redaction of Lithuanian Chronicles started the myth of Lithuanian Roman origin?
 * ...that Mitică, a character in the works of Romanian writer Ion Luca Caragiale, has become, especially in Transylvania, a stereotype of both Bucharesters and Wallachians?
 * ...that University of Chicago Graduate School of Business professor Toby Moskowitz won the Fischer Black Prize as the top finance researcher under 40 after a 4 year hiatus with no worthy candidates?
 * ...that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was indicted for the 1976 assassination of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria?
 * ...that until the 1930s and 1940s people in the United States and Canada obtained their Christmas trees mostly from native forests?
 * ...that 17th century Jesuit Church in Warsaw was one of many buildings razed to the ground by the Germans after the Warsaw Uprising?
 * ...that the Core Pacific City mall in Taipei, Taiwan, is the largest mall in Asia at 204,190 square meters of total floor space?
 * ...that the neighbourhood of Bowbazar was the site of Calcutta's first horse drawn tram line (model pictured), opened in 1873?
 * ...that Nathaniel Ames, publisher of the first annual American almanac, avoided arrest by replacing his vituperative cartoon of local judges with a biblical quotation?
 * ...that the hills in the south of the English Lake District are known as the Southern Fells and they include England's highest peak?
 * ...that the Italian sculptor Giovanni Duprè began his career carving fakes of Renaissance works of art?
 * ...that anti-ganglioside antibodies may cause peripheral neuropathies and that their levels correlate with Guillain-Barré syndrome?
 * ...that yellowtail trumpeter, a coastal marine fish tolerant to a very wide salinity range, because of its poor taste is considered a nuisance in Australia by many fishermen who target bream in estuaries?
 * ...that the Underfall Yard takes its name from a unique system of sluices designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel to remove silt from Bristol Harbour?
 * ...that the coat of arms of Catalonia areone of Europe's oldest, dating back the 1150 seal used by Ramón Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona?
 * ...that Croton Dam (pictured), on Michigan's Muskegon River, was the first hydroelectric plant to transmit power at 110,000 volts or more?
 * ...that an Irish immigrant to America who settled on New Jersey's Pettys Island in 1851 was later proclaimed "king" of the island?
 * ...that the appearance of several Nero impostors may have given rise to the passage of the Book of Revelation about the Beast, which is mortally wounded and then miraculously heals?
 * ...that Italian film director Marco Ferreri hired actor Michel Piccoli almost immediately after the two first met for his art house masterpiece Dillinger Is Dead?
 * ...that three different languages that used to be spoken in Nicaragua are now extinct?
 * ...that because of low rainfall, poor soils, and the growth of the oil industry, Libya's domestic agriculture can only cover 25% of the country's food demand and accounts for just 5.6% of the GDP?
 * ...that the Puerto Rico general strike of 1998 paralyzed the island for two days, when 500,000 people took to the streets to protest against privatizing the Puerto Rico Telephone Company?
 * ...that an Airborne Real-time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance aircraft (pictured) searching for missing adventurer Steve Fossett helped find eight other unknown crash sites?
 * ...that the original scatological lyrics of Lick Me in the Ass, a canon composed by Mozart, were only rediscovered in 1991?
 * ...that in 1526, with the heirless death of Janusz III Mazowiecki, last of the Masovian Piasts, the Duchy of Masovia was reunited with Poland?
 * ...that Kentucky governor Ruby Laffoon bestowed the honorary title of "Kentucky colonel" the most times in the state's history, including KFC founder "Colonel" Harland Sanders?
 * ...that many of the specific allergens of wheat causing gluten allergies have not yet been characterized?
 * ...that in order to fight in the Spanish Civil War, American biologist Clement Markert stowed away aboard a freighter?
 * ...that the embankment dam at Backwater Reservoir was the first in Britain to employ chemical grouting in order to form a waterproof barrier beneath the embankment?
 * ...that while performing the Viking ritual of Heitstrenging Harald Hairfair swore not to cut or comb his hair until he conquered all of Norway?
 * ...that 18th century artist John Hamilton Mortimer, while very prolific in his production of paintings (one pictured) and holding presidency of the Society of Artists, was accused many times of being an imitator of Salvator Rosa's work?
 * ...that James Jurin used statistical studies to show the probability of death from smallpox vaccine was significantly less than from smallpox?
 * ...that the Illinois Freedom Bell was submerged underwater in Geneva Lake for over 40 years before being surfaced and adopted as the official freedom bell of Illinois?
 * ...that William Frankena "played an especially critical role in defense of fundamental academic freedoms during the McCarthy era" while chair of the philosophy department at the University of Michigan?
 * ...that the website HardwareZone initiated the first court case in Singapore over a domain name, which was settled after just four days?
 * ...that The Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening’s father was a founding director of the American Advertising Museum in Portland, Oregon?
 * ...that the Storz, Krug, Willow Springs and Metz breweries were regarded as Omaha, Nebraska's "Big 4" breweries?
 * ...that former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney has released a memoir in which he criticises another Canadian PM, Pierre Trudeau?
 * ...that Singapore’s Early Founders Memorial Stone (pictured), a foundation stone for a proposed memorial, became the memorial itself?
 * ...that the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park in Scotland covers an area of 108 square miles of Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, stretching from Greenock in the north, down the coast to Largs and West Kilbride and inland to Dalry and Lochwinnoch?
 * ...that the wife of troubadour Raimon Jordan joined the sect of the Cathars, while the troubadour himself declared in a poem that he would give up eternity in Paradise for one night with his desired lady (not his wife)?
 * ...Amri Hernandez-Pellerano, a Puerto Rican electronics engineer and scientist, designed the power systems electronics for the NASA WMAP mission?
 * ...that the Independent Royalist Party of Estonia's election campaign costs for the 1992 elections of Riigikogu, the first post-Soviet occupation parliamentary elections in Estonia, were 25 Estonian cents per pair of seats?
 * ...that poet Forceythe Willson believed he was clairvoyant and that he could serve as a medium for communication with the dead?
 * ...that Epimachus of Athens, an ancient Athenian engineer, constructed the Helepolis, which remains the largest siege machine ever built, at over 60 feet in width and 125 feet in height?
 * ...that swimmer Katherine Rawls, Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for 1937, flew in the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron during World War II?
 * ...that Cape Henlopen State Park (pictured) in Delaware has been public land since William Penn's designation in 1682, yet only became a state park in 1964?
 * ...that the Dutch National Labor Secretariat once lost many members because each union received one vote but had to pay dues for each member, severely disadvantaging larger unions?
 * ...that Keremane Shivarama Heggade, the founder of folk-art troupe Idagunji Mahaganapathi Yakshagana Mandali was the first Yakshagana artist in India to receive the Rashtrapati Award?
 * ...that English actor Ronald Magill played Amos Brearly, landlord of The Woolpack public house in ITV's soap opera Emmerdale, for 19 years?
 * ...that Meng Xuenong was sacked as mayor of Beijing during the SARS crisis, but has now made a comeback as governor of Shanxi province?
 * ...that Mahakala, a small dromaeosaurid from Mongolia, is named after Mahakala, one of the eight protective deities (dharmapalas, "Protectors of the Law") in Tibetan Buddhism?
 * ...that the Chilean biochemist Eugenio Berríos, involved in the Letelier case and in the Soria case, also produced black cocaine and sarin gas for Augusto Pinochet?
 * ...that alphabet books were one of the earliest forms of American literature?
 * ...that Fritz Bleyl was one of the four founders of Die Brücke art group in 1905, but left two years later and never exhibited again?
 * ...that the Canadian province of Ontario has had quality grades for cultivated Christmas trees (tree farm pictured) mandated by law since 1965?
 * ...that Belarus Free Theatre is an underground theatre project created to oppose Belarusian government pressure and censorship?
 * ...that the merged Rainbow/PUSH is an outgrowth of Jesse Jackson's 1984 Presidential campaign and a factional split in Operation Breadbasket, an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference?
 * ...that Deganga, in West Bengal, where ground water is affected by arsenic contamination, will have to wait until 2009 for a supply of piped arsenic-free water?
 * ...that although he contributed to an anti-militarist resolution at a congress of the Second International in 1891, Christiaan Cornelissen was one of a few syndicalists to support the Allied effort in World War I in 1914?
 * ...that the Battle of Nisibis in 217 AD, the last battle fought between the Roman Empire and the Parthians, lasted for three days and ended in a draw?
 * ...that Robert Desoille guided patients through waking dreams as a form of psychotherapy?