Wikipedia:Recent additions 177

Did you know...

 * ...that according to the U.S. landmark court case Rennie v. Klein, an involuntarily committed mental patient has a constitutional right to refuse psychiatric medication?
 * ...that c.300, Egyptian alchemist Agathodaimon produced arsenic trioxide, an amphoteric oxide which he described as a 'fiery poison'?
 * ...that the Hogettes (pictured), a group of Washington Redskins fans who dress in drag and wear pig snout masks, have collected over US$100 million for charity since 1983?
 * ...that the killing of a gay Marvel superhero by Wolverine led to the creation of the novel Hero, whose protagonist is a gay teenager?
 * ...that a three-horse omnibus plied briefly between Dharmatala, a neighbourhood in Kolkata, and Barrackpore in November 1830?
 * ...that the Kaiparowits Plateau in Utah contains fine details of bones, teeth, eggshells, and even tracks of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and other animals?
 * ...that Central Asia plus Japan is an ongoing dialogue between Japan and the Central Asian republics to promote regional cooperation?
 * ...that Chicago City Council alderman Toni Preckwinkle has dissented against Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley more often than any other alderman in council votes?
 * ...that Saint Olaf's Church in Novgorod was a church especially for Vikings who stayed in Novgorod, Russia
 * ...that only twenty Marines have received the Marine Corps Brevet Medal?
 * ...that after only six games in 2007, college football player Michael Crabtree (pictured) broke the record for most touchdown receptions in a freshman season?
 * ...that Wildenstein Index Numbers are used to chronologically index works of art by specific artists?
 * ...that the Łódź insurrection was one of the largest disturbances of the Russian Revolution of 1905?
 * ...that an American Civil War-era cannonball fired at Saint Paul's Church in Norfolk, Virginia was later reinserted into its wall?
 * ...that in 1975, British historian Marcus Binney founded a lobby group for the preservation of endangered historic buildings?
 * ...that the fire tower on Hunter Mountain in the Catskills is the highest in New York?
 * ...that Polish-American historian Jerzy Jan Lerski was a member of the cichociemni, a Polish elite commando unit, during WWII?
 * ...that Amsterdam has a concentric belt of canals around it?
 * ...that Jesse Bankston was fired as director of the Department of Hospitals for refusing to release the Louisiana Governor from involuntary commitment to a mental institution?
 * ...that close studding (example pictured) of timber-framed buildings was a 15–16th century status symbol, due to its lavish use of timber?
 * ...that Wang Wanxing is the only person to have been released from a Chinese Ankang asylum to a Western country?
 * ...that itinerant minister Adam Payne was decapitated by a band of Potawatomi during the 1832 Black Hawk War?
 * ...that the town of Sant'Oreste, Italy grew up around the site at which Saint Orestes was said to have been buried alive during the reign of Nero?
 * ...that Zdzisław Peszkowski, one of the few Polish Army officers who survived the Katyn massacre, became a priest and preached forgiveness for the massacre's perpetrators?
 * ...that Patrick Ivuti's photo finish victory in the 2007 Chicago Marathon, one of the five major marathons, was his first marathon victory?
 * ...that in 1988, North Carolina politician Wendell H. Murphy was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine?
 * ...that literary magazine Mundo Nuevo had to be abandoned by its founder because of a CIA scandal?
 * ...that gamma ray burst progenitors include massive, rapidly rotating stars that may explode as hypernovae (Eta Carinae pictured)?
 * ...that Daniel Theron formed a military bicycle corps for the Boer Army, leading British Frederick Roberts to put a £1,000 reward on his head?
 * ...that Seattle's Ballard Carnegie Library remains standing 44 years after it was sold, despite experts' claims that it would not survive an earthquake?
 * ...that Hema Sardesai is the only Indian singer to have won the Grand Prix award at the International Pop Song Festival in Germany?
 * ...that when Tungning forces under Koxinga captured Fort Zeelandia after a siege in 1662, they ended decades of European colonial rule in Taiwan?
 * ...that Jack Daniels, a New Mexico politician, gave out Jack Daniel's whiskey at campaign events?
 * ...that Bashful Brother Oswald took his stage name so that it would appear that an unmarried female member of his band had a family member accompanying her?
 * ...Julius Kuperjanov (pictured), a partisan leader in the Estonian War of Independence, died in a successful assault in the 1919 Battle of Paju?
 * ...that in the landmark case Erie v. Pap's A. M., the Supreme Court of the United States upheld an ordinance requiring some erotic dancers to wear nipple pasties and a G-string?
 * ...that during the St. John's University strike of 1966–7, Jewish professor Israel Kugler sought an audience with Pope Paul VI to win his support?
 * ...that in 1948, Frank W. Mayborn, a Texas newspaper publisher, cast the tie-breaking vote to certify Lyndon B. Johnson as the Democratic party's U.S. Senate nominee?
 * ...that while Al Jaffee created the comics character Ziggy Pig, it was Stan Lee who named him?
 * ...that the Randy Van Horne Singers performed the theme songs for many classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons"?
 * ...that the megalithic Niedertiefenbach tomb in Hesse, Germany has at least ten discernible layers of burials from the New Stone Age?
 * ...that archaeological finds from the German Glauberg plateau include a life-sized statue of a warrior (pictured) dating from around 500 BC?
 * ...that former U.S. Representative Berkley Bedell left Congress in 1986 after contracting Lyme disease from a tick bite?
 * ...that the New South Wales Court of Arbitration is claimed to be the first court devoted to resolving labour disputes in the world?
 * ...that Ipi Tombe, a Thoroughbred racehorse, was sold for the equivalent of US$30 and went on to earn more than $1.5m in races on three continents?
 * ...that William E. Metzger opened one of the United States' first automobile dealerships and co-organized Cadillac Motor Car Co?
 * ...that Adriana Pirtea lost the 2007 Chicago Marathon to Berhane Adere when Adere slipped down the side of the street and crossed outside of the finish-line tape?
 * ...that before becoming Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, Barthélemy Boganda was a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the French National Assembly?
 * ...that Rembrandt cut his 1661 painting The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (detail pictured) to a quarter of its original size for easier sale?
 * ...that the U.S. Forest Service airtanker scandal resulted in millions of dollars' worth of military aircraft being illegally transferred to private companies?
 * ...that there is a U.S. beach resort named after the main character in William Vincent Wallace's 1845 opera Maritana?
 * ...that the 203 BC Battle of Utica was the turning point of the Second Punic War?
 * ...that Wilf Wild was the first Manchester City manager to win the League Championship?
 * ...that Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar, the king of the Mysore kingdom in India, was also a collector and an inventor of board games?
 * ...that Chapter XVI of the United Nations Charter declares that if there is a conflict between the Charter and any other treaty, the UN Charter will prevail?
 * ...that physicians have tried using Coca-Cola to disintegrate food stuck in the esophagus (pictured)?
 * ...that the academic journal African Affairs was first published to commemorate the travels of the explorer Mary Kingsley?
 * ...that the Solarium Augusti in ancient Rome was the largest sundial in history?
 * ...that the Orthodox cave monastery in Bakota, Ukraine is said to have been founded by St. Anthony of Kiev?
 * ...that Peter Paul Rubens produced a series of paintings depicting episodes from Marie de' Medici's life for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris?
 * ...that Henri Bergson's theory of Duration overcomes Zeno's paradoxes by arguing that mobility is indivisible?
 * ...that former mayor of San Jose, California Ernie Renzel was called the "Father of San Jose International Airport" for his work in establishing the city's first airport?
 * ...that the tidewater glacier cycle describes the centuries-long cycle of alternating advances and retreats of fjord-carving glaciers (pictured) terminating in tidewater?
 * ...that the Indo-Burma barrier, a 1,624 kilometer-long barrier between India and Burma, is being built to curtail gunrunning and illicit drug trafficking?
 * ...that legally, a Mett, a preparation of minced pork popular in Germany, is not allowed to contain more than 35% fat?
 * ...that in Orangeville, Illinois, four of the five Registered Historic Places: Union House, Masonic Hall, People's State Bank, and Central House are all within three blocks of each other?
 * ...that Chinua Achebe's novel A Man of the People described a coup d'état so similar to the real circumstances of Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi's rise to power in Nigeria that Achebe was suspected of knowing about the coup in advance?
 * ...that John William Waterhouse's 1888 painting The Lady of Shalott (pictured), based on Alfred Tennyson's 1832 poem, portrays the Lady sailing towards Camelot and certain death?
 * ...that the Shrapnel Valley Cemetery at Gallipoli is named after the distinctive sound produced by shrapnel in the area?
 * ...that Jenna Bush's book Ana's Story, about a young woman with AIDS, has been criticized for not taking a stand on her father U.S. President George W. Bush's policies toward United Nations AIDS programs?
 * ...that the government of Burmese Prime Minister U Nu was saved from a parliamentary no confidence vote in June 1957 by the communist Burma Workers and Peasants Party?
 * ...that the works of poet Frank Messina include responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks, and poems about the New York Mets?
 * ...that the 1673 history of Cheshire by Sir Peter Leycester (pictured) questioned Amicia Mainwaring's legitimacy, leading to a "paper war" of 15 pamphlets with the Mainwaring family?
 * ...that in the post-World War I business slump, Chicago meat packing magnate J. Ogden Armour lost a million dollars a day for 130 days?
 * ...that the first ever Representative Assembly in 19th century British India was formed in the Kingdom of Mysore?
 * ...that when John Sands excavated a ~2,000 year old building on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda he unearthed tools that the 1877 residents recognised?
 * ...that the Niedermünster in Regensburg was the wealthiest and most influential house of canonesses in Bavaria?
 * ...that least-squares spectral analysis is a method for estimating a frequency spectrum, based on a least squares fit between data and trigonometric functions?
 * ...that the events surrounding the lynching of Joe Coe in Omaha, Nebraska in 1891 are said to foreshadow the lynching of Willy Brown 28 years later?
 * ...that Dutch abstract artist Jules de Goede described his art by saying "A reflection of the world like it visually appears is not quite enough ... I try to show what is invisible"?
 * ...that the Gagarin's Start rocket launch site (pictured) at Baikonur Cosmodrome was used for over 400 space missions, including the world's first artificial satellite and the first human spaceflight?
 * ...that C.W.W. Kannangara, Sri Lanka's first Minister of Education, made education free for all children in the country?
 * ...that Clarence W. Wigington, the first African American municipal architect, designed four buildings in two cities that are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places?
 * ...that Joe Keenan's 2006 novel My Lucky Star won the Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2007?
 * ...that Joe Mitty launched the first Oxfam charity shop in the United Kingdom, in Oxford in 1949?