Wikipedia:Recent additions 180

Did you know...

 * ...that the Union Monument (pictured) in Romania was unveiled in 1927, demolished in 1947 by the Communists, and rebuilt in 1999?
 * ...that Speak, Mnemosyne was replaced by Speak, Memory as the title of Vladimir Nabokov's autobiography for fear that people could not pronounce it?
 * ...that Ron Cole was involved in a violent standoff with Amo Bishop Roden, the wife of former Branch Davidian leader George Roden, at the site of the compound destroyed in the Waco siege?
 * ...that major league baseball player Terry Pendleton participated in the World Series in 1985, 1987, 1991, 1992 and 1996, but lost all five times?
 * ...that Edward Laurillard produced musical comedies in London and New York in the early 20th century, in partnership with George Grossmith, Jr.?
 * ...that the Mustagh Pass crosses the Baltoro Muztagh range in the Karakorams, from Pakistan to China?
 * ...that Shripat Amrit Dange was a founding member of the Communist Party of India?
 * ...that the Jacobean play The Widow's Tears is thought to be the last comedy written by George Chapman?
 * ...that the Blue-throated Piping-guan is a South American bird similar to a turkey?
 * ...that the Delaware and Hudson Canal (pictured) was the first American business with a million-dollar market capitalization?
 * ...that the Djordje Martinović affair, concerning a farmer hospitalised with a beer bottle in his rectum, was a major ethnic and political controversy in Serbia in 1985 and contributed to the collapse of Yugoslavia?
 * ...that former Palermo mayor Vito Ciancimino explained that Italy without bribes would be "as though someone wanted to remove one of the four wheels of a car"?
 * ...that numerous references to Wikipedia on The Colbert Report, an American satirical comedy series, defined the word Wikiality, as "Truth by consensus, rather than fact"?
 * ...that in Floyd's algorithm for cycle detection, the tortoise and hare move at very different speeds, but always finish at the same spot?
 * ...that Molly Badham, co-founder of Twycross Zoo, trained the chimpanzees who appeared in the long-running Brooke Bond PG Tips television advertisements?
 * ...that nobody won the million dollar prize for the first 7 years of the Australian edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire??
 * ...that Belfast streetfighter "Buck Alec" Robinson kept two lions at his home, frequently walking them on the streets of the city?
 * ...that Turkish shadow puppet characters Karagöz and Hacivat (pictured) are supposedly based on two laborers who were executed because their banter slowed down the construction of a mosque?
 * ...that the Hunt Memorial Building in Ellenville, New York, has served as a public library, an appliance store, and several other things?
 * ...that Alexey Ekimyan, the author of many Soviet hits, was considered the only popular composer in the world who ruled a law enforcement department at the same time?
 * ...that the 1997 volcanic eruption of Pillan Patera on Jupiter's moon Io was the largest effusive eruption ever witnessed?
 * ...that "Pick You Up" was the first Powderfinger song to be nominated for an ARIA Music Award; the 1996 award for "Song of the Year"?
 * ...that cricketer Steve Atkinson has played for both the Netherlands and Hong Kong in international cricket?
 * ...that the giant jellyfish Chrysaora achlyos is the largest invertebrate discovered in the 20th century?
 * ...that road slipperiness causes over 53,000 accidents a year in the United Kingdom alone?
 * ...that Sholom Schwartzbard was acquitted in the Schwartzbard trial despite pleading guilty to murder, and that the family of his victim was ordered to pay for the cost of the trial?
 * ...that the book You Don't Need Meat by Peter Cox (pictured), the first chief executive of the Vegetarian Society, is the best-selling vegetarian book of all time?
 * ...that St Patrick's Marist College, the oldest school in Australia run by Marist Brothers, started out as a primary school?
 * ...that William Wallace disguised himself as a woman to hide at the castle in Riccarton, a village and parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland?
 * ...that Randle Holme III of Chester painted memorial boards without the permission of the English College of Arms resulting in its King of Arms, William Dugdale, travelling north on at least three occasions between 1667 and 1670 to destroy them?
 * ...that the Muslim Revolution of Agriculture industrialized sugar production, building the first sugar refineries and sugar plantations in the 8th century?
 * ...that former Branch Davidian leader George Roden was shot twice in a gun battle with his rival David Koresh and seven other Branch Davidians, before being evicted from the Mount Carmel Center near Waco?
 * ...that South Africa and England had already played each other during pool play before meeting in the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final?
 * ...that a single raccoon reduced the entire population of White Cay iguanas to 140 males and 10 females in one year?
 * ...that Stevens Arch (pictured) is one of the many geological features formed from Navajo Sandstone along Coyote Gulch in southern Utah, USA?
 * ...that in Colombian folklore the legendary Alligatorman (Hombre Caiman) is said to be a fisherman converted by the spirit of the Magdalena River into an alligator, that returns every year on St. Sebastian´s Day to hunt human victims?
 * ...that some liverwort species in the class Haplomitriopsida rafted from Gondwana to Asia via the Indian subcontinent?
 * ...that Walter Plunkett's "barbecue dress" for Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind was one of the most widely copied dresses in fashion of the 1930s and early '40s, second only to the Duchess of Windsor's wedding dress?
 * ...that Colombia's 12th President, Carlos Eugenio Restrepo, was nicknamed Monsieur Veto for his common practice of vetoing many bills he considered were not in the best interest of his nation?
 * ...that Andrew Winch, an award winning yacht designer, has been selected to design the interior of a version of the Boeing 787, a commercial airliner?
 * ...that the Suevi of Gallaecia were converted from a form of Germanic paganism to Arian Christianity by a Celtic missionary, Ajax, sent by the Visigoths?
 * ...that the Barnenez Mound (pictured) in Brittany, France, is a cairn with 11 chambers built of 13,000 to 14,000 tons of stone dating to about 4500 BC, making it one of the earliest megalithic monuments in Europe?
 * ...that the population of the Falkland Islands was only 50 people in 1841?
 * ...that German nuclear physicist Heinz Barwich had illegal contacts to the Soviet secret police NKVD during Nazi rule, and then spied on the Soviet Union for the West while working in East Germany?
 * ...that Senator Ron May is credited with installing the first wireless internet network in the Colorado State Capitol?
 * ...that the White-browed Scrubwren, which inhabits dense undergrowth, can occur close to urban areas in Sydney?
 * ...that between a half and two million Poles were deported from the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union to the Regained Territories in the repatriation of 1944-1946?
 * ...that English actor, singer and playwright Arthur Williams, best remembered for his comic operas, Edwardian musical comedies and musical burlesques, played over 1,000 roles in his career?
 * ...that country musician Johnny Sea's spoken word recording "Day For Decision", a response to Barry McGuire's protest song, "Eve of Destruction", was a Top 40 hit in the U.S. and was nominated for a Grammy award?
 * ...that leading New Testament scholar C. F. D. Moule was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, the oldest chair in the University of Cambridge, for 25 years?
 * ...that Ove Karlsson is both the name of a Swedish sports player and a Swedish sports journalist?
 * ...that Transfusion was the first EP by Powderfinger to receive significant commercial airplay, and was their first work to top the ARIA alternative music chart?
 * ...that Andy Papathanassiou, a former college football player who was the first person hired as a NASCAR pit crew coordinator, started use of trained athletes to cut pit stop times from 19 down to 13 seconds?
 * ...that the Church of South India, a union of Anglican, Methodist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches in South India, was inaugurated in 1947 at St. George's Cathedral (pictured) in Madras (now Chennai)?
 * ...that the French space agency funded the operation of the Soviet space observatory Granat after the dissolution of the USSR?
 * ...that the Finsch's Flycatcher-thrush, a flycatcher-like thrush of West African forests, sings four melodious whistles and responds to recordings of its own songs?
 * ...that the election of Dominican friar Laurence de Ergadia as Bishop of Argyll in Scotland was voided by Pope Urban IV in 1274 on a technicality?
 * ...that in the anonymous Breton lai Melion, one of King Arthur's knights was transformed into a werewolf by his wife using a magic ring before she ran off with another man to Ireland?
 * ...that English football referee Matt Messias once urged a Portsmouth defender not to kick an opposing player during a match against Newcastle United because "the devil was trying to get him sent off"?
 * ...that American archaeologist and flintknapper Errett Callahan produces and sells obsidian scalpels that are 100 times sharper than the traditional surgical scalpels made of steel?
 * ...that although he was an illegitimate child, the 13th century prelate of Scotland Albin of Brechin (Brechlin cathedral pictured) had a successful career in the Roman Catholic Church after obtaining dispensation from the Bishop of Porto?
 * ...that Mdm2, whose role in regulating p53 was discovered by British scientist Karen Vousden, is a potential target for anti-cancer drugs?
 * ...that Giles Clarke, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, studied Arabic at the University of Damascus?
 * ...that eleven months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. four-star admiral Charles P. Snyder opted to lose two ranks rather than serve under incoming Pacific Fleet commander Husband E. Kimmel?
 * ...that the Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu is considered the holiest Catholic shrine in Sri Lanka?
 * ...that a U.S. government funded research project is concluding that racial discrimination is a significant factor when jurors make death penalty decisions?
 * ...that the Austrian industrialist Johan E. Zacherl made a fortune in the late 19th century by selling dried flower heads of Chrysanthenum cinerariifolum as insecticide?
 * ...that Oscar M. Laurel, a south Texas Mexican-American Democratic state representative known for his flamboyant oratory, opposed a late 1950s bill that would have declared cactus peyote an "unlawful dangerous substance"?
 * ...that the Zoroastrian (Faravahar pictured) religious ceremony Visperad consists of the rituals of the Yasna and is only performed between sunrise and noon on the six gahambar days?
 * ...that in 1890, future centenarian and four-star admiral Richard H. Jackson was commissioned ensign by special act of Congress after originally being cashiered from the Navy for poor grades at the U.S. Naval Academy?
 * ...that a series of explosions destroyed two miles of Louisville, Kentucky's sewer system on Friday the 13th in February 1981?
 * ...that James Roche became CEO and chairman of the board of General Motors without a college education?
 * ...that Yekaterina Zelenko was the only woman to perform an air ramming and the only female pilot in the Winter War?
 * ...that though many troubadours wrote about the Crusades and either encouraged or mocked them as politics dictated, the jongleur Peirol was one of the few to actually travel to the Holy Land, on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1221?
 * ...that American football coach Dick Anderson, who led Rutgers to its first victory over Penn State in 70 years, was a Penn State assistant coach before and after his time at Rutgers?
 * ...that mounting blocks (example pictured), stone or wood blocks for mounting and dismounting a horse or cart, began to fall out of use around 1790??
 * ...that John Popper, now frontman of the rock band Blues Traveler, convinced the teacher to let him play harmonica in his high school band with an in-class solo performance of the song "She Blinded Me with Science"?