Wikipedia:Recent additions 181

Did you know...

 * ...that the African pompano (pictured), a tropical marine game fish, is not a pompano, but belongs to the genus Alectis?
 * ...that only three of the largest islands of the United Statesthe Big Island of Hawaii, Kodiak Island, and Puerto Ricoare greater than 3,000 square miles (8,000 km²) in size?
 * ...that descendants of Betsy Mix Cowles's brother Edwin founded Cowles Publishing Company, the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, and the Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company?
 * ...that at King of the Ring 1998, Mick Foley was thrown head first off a sixteen foot high cell onto a table by The Undertaker and it has since become one of the most famous moments in professional wrestling?
 * ...that the Spiral Q Puppet Theater in Philadelphia uses puppetry, street theatre and pageantry to promote social and political change?
 * ...that Varbola Stronghold was the largest circular rampart fortress and a trading center built in Ancient Estonia that only lost its importance in the 14th Century?
 * ...that José María Campo Serrano became President of Colombia after the resignation of the President and the dismissal of the Vice President by Congress?
 * ...that the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar (pictured) in Spain is reputed to be the first church dedicated to Mary through history?
 * ...that the hydroid Hydractinia bayeri was named by Emperor Hirohito of Japan in honor of a fellow marine biologist, Frederick Bayer?
 * ...that visual evidence of the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba which triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was found in reconnaissance photographs by CIA analysts led by Arthur C. Lundahl?
 * ...that the rent control program in New York State is America's longest-running?
 * ...that Michael G. Strain is Louisiana's first elected Republican commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry?
 * ...that the Utah Scenic Byways program includes the highest paved road in the state with a summit at 10,715 ft (3266 m)?
 * ...that Charles Morris Woodford wrote a dispatch appointing himself the first Deputy Commissioner of the Solomon Islands Protectorate, and then convinced the High Commissioner to sign it?
 * ...that the music video for "Passenger" featured the members of Powderfinger being eaten by a whale-like creature, whilst packed in suitcases?
 * ...that Culbone Church (pictured) is the smallest English parish church still holding services?
 * ...that Raspberry Island in the Gulf of Alaska boasts some of the largest Roosevelt elk ever recorded?
 * ...that the Heller House marked a turning point in Frank Lloyd Wright's shift to Prairie School architecture?
 * ...that Sumitro was a prominent Indonesian General in the early years of General Suharto's New Order, but retired after student riots in Jakarta in 1974?
 * ...that the 1999 Sydney hailstorm is the costliest natural disaster in Australian history, causing over A$1.7 billion in insured damages?
 * ...that the unusual Mexican ball game of pelota mixteca is thought to be a development of real tennis?
 * ...that the Rose Quarter sports and entertainment complex in Portland, Oregon was constructed in the parking lot of the Memorial Coliseum?
 * ...that the Winchester Model 1895 is one of the few lever-action rifles equipped with a charger guide, allowing it to be reloaded by charger clips?
 * ...that in 2002, Devon and Cornwall set up a scheme where travellers on rural railways were rewarded for visiting pubs along the route?
 * ...that a 120-year old Bodhi tree (pictured) in Jin Long Si Temple, standing over 30 m tall with a girth of 8.5 m, is the oldest and largest of its kind ever found in Singapore?
 * ...that the chief suspect in the 1919 Green Bicycle Case tried to destroy the victim's bicycle that tied him to the victim, but was nonetheless acquitted?
 * ...that scientific jury selection is used by some U.S. attorneys in high-stakes cases?
 * ...that the book This Is Not The Life I Ordered, co-authored by former California State Senator Jackie Speier, has twice reached the San Francisco Chronicle best seller list?
 * ...that Canada's first dedicated movie theater, the Ouimetoscope, was created in 1906 with an original investment of only seventy-five dollars?
 * ...that Chris Cosentino, a contestant on The Next Iron Chef famous for cooking offal, hated his grandmother's tripe as a child?
 * ...that poet Violet Kazue de Cristoforo wrote haikus while she and her family were detained in Japanese American internment camps during World War II?
 * ...that near the end of World War II, American soldiers conducted a raid behind Soviet lines to rescue the bay stallion Witez II from a Czechoslovakian stud farm at the behest of captured German officers?
 * ...that Piffles Taylor (pictured) quarterbacked the Regina Roughriders to the Western Canada rugby championship in 1919 after losing an eye in World War I?
 * ...that ethnic cleansing of Poles in 1943 Volhynia was resisted by the Defence of Przebraże?
 * ...that Joseph Throckmorton was called a "second Nero or Calligula (sic)" for his actions on his steamboat Warrior at the 1832 Battle of Bad Axe?
 * ...that in 2004, the Children's Court of Victoria in Australia granted a teenager a "divorce" from his mother?
 * ...that Goose Creek State Park, a North Carolina state park off Pamlico Sound, is in an inlet that once provided cover for Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet and other pirates?
 * ...that Lothar Neethling of the South African Police confiscated and denied crash investigators access to the aircraft flight recorders from the wreckage of the air disaster which killed President Samora Machel of Mozambique in 1986?
 * ...that Ugaritic culture hero Danel may have been a model for the Biblical Daniel of Ezekiel?
 * ...that NASCAR founder Bill France, Sr. examined photographs and newsreels for three days before determining that unofficial 1959 Daytona 500 race winner Johnny Beauchamp had actually finished second behind Lee Petty?
 * ...that the volcano Mount St. Helens is named after Alleyne FitzHerbert of Derby (pictured)?
 * ...that from 1955 to 1973, the United States conducted a scientific initiative aimed at producing gravity-manipulation technology?
 * ...that intoxication is never recognized as an excuse for crime, but settled insanity due to substance abuse is?
 * ...that former Finance Minister of Israel Pinchas Sapir was famous for carrying a "black notebook" of economics-related observations in his travels?
 * ...that G. Venkatasubbaiah is regarded as the father of the modern Kannada dictionary?
 * ...that artist R. B. Kitaj blamed the death of his second wife on the savagely negative reactions to his 1994 retrospective?
 * ...that wide receiver Mercury Hayes caught the game-winning touchdown in Lloyd Carr's Michigan coaching debut?
 * ...that Fermin Rocker, son of anarchist writer Rudolf Rocker, once sold a painting to rock star Mick Jagger?
 * ...that despite being found guilty of conspiring with Mary, Queen of Scots to assassinate Elizabeth I, Charles Paget was given the manor of Weston-on-Trent?
 * ...that the first film to take advantage of the relaxation of communism in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s was The Sun in a Net?
 * ...that the now-Polish Gliwice Canal was known as the "Adolf Hitler Canal" during WWII?
 * ...that American sports car racing driver Dick Thompson (pictured) was known as the "Flying Dentist"?
 * ...that the NATO commander in Afghanistan labelled the Siege of Sangin against Taliban insurgents the most intensive engagement involving British soldiers since the Korean War?
 * ...that sculptor Tom Otterness delivered more than four times the amount of work commissioned for his popular "Life Underground" subway installation?
 * ...that Professor Padraig O'Malley of the University of Massachusetts Boston helped bring 16 Iraqis to a conference in Finland, where they met with participants in the internal reconciliations in South Africa and Northern Ireland?
 * ...that Singapore’s Fort Tanjong Katong, one of the oldest military forts built by the British colonial government, never saw combat action and was nicknamed the "Wash-out Fort"?
 * ...that in his 1968 Declaration of Perth, British Conservative leader Edward Heath pledged his party's support for Scottish devolution, a policy later reversed by Margaret Thatcher?
 * ...that the Louisiana Tigers Confederate Army brigade were a key part of the Army of Northern Virginia and developed a reputation as fearless, hard fighting shock troops?
 * ...that the training exercises in Flash Focus were developed under the supervision of a professor at Japan's Aichi Institute of Technology?
 * ...that in January 1859, over 30,000 people gathered on Dealul Mitropoliei in Bucharest in support of Alexander John Cuza (pictured) in his election to become the first Domnitor of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia?
 * ...that the US Navy Bayfield class attack transports USS Alpine, USS Barnstable, USS Callaway, USS Cecil and USS Goshen all found use as cargo vessels after World War II but were scrapped at Kaohsiung in Taiwan in the 1970s?
 * ...that Heuneburg, an early Celtic settlement by the upper Danube, was already fortified with a massive ditch-and-bank enclosure by the Middle Bronze Age (15th to 12th century BC)?
 * ...that Derbyshire M.P. George John Venables-Vernon who enthused about Italian literature was the namesake of Vernon County in Australia?
 * ...that Harold E. Martin, a newspaper publisher and editor, won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1970 and served for twenty years on the board of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association?
 * ...that when Sir Francis Rodes bequeathed a yearly £20, it was enough to run a secondary school in the 16th century?
 * ...that a dispute over the Sudanese area of Abyei may determine the fate of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the 22-year civil war?
 * ...that the conditions at the chapel of St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn (pictured) in 1703 protected the unburied Duke Eugène de Croÿ from decaying and his body became an attraction remaining on display until 1897?
 * ...that the United States Supreme Court held in Moyer v. Peabody (1909) that the US government may imprison citizens without probable cause during an insurrection so long as it acts in good faith?
 * ...that Mafia turncoat Baldassare Di Maggio claimed that Cosa Nostra boss Totò Riina respectfully kissed former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti at a meeting?
 * ...that it was John Hollingshead who brought together Gilbert and Sullivan in 1871?
 * ...that Jüri Vilms, a member of the Estonian Salvation Committee, issued the Estonian Declaration of Independence in February 1918, and was executed by German troops less than two months later?
 * ...that Harris Wash is a 40-mile long tributary of the Escalante River within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah?
 * ...that the Mourning of Muharram, observed by Shi'a Muslims, commemorates the anniversary of the death of Imam Husayn ibn Ali at the Battle of Karbala in 680?
 * ...that London will soon have a Walk of Fame for dogs?
 * ...that Anna Laetitia Barbauld's (pictured) Lessons for Children (1778–79) revolutionized children's literature, introducing what novelist Frances Burney called a "new walk"?
 * ...that Gershwin's musical Primrose had its Broadway première more than sixty years after its 1924 London debut?
 * ...that during a copper miners' strike in Michigan in 1913, labor leader Charles Moyer was shot in the back by unknown assailants and then expelled by Calumet city police while still bleeding?
 * ...that the Praetorian Building, a high-rise in Dallas, is regarded to be the first skyscraper constructed in the Southwestern United States?
 * ...that Douglas Bruce is so associated with Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights that attempts to loosen its spending restrictions are known as "de-Brucing"?
 * ...that a prosecution was started against Benjamin Robinson for starting a school in Findern in 1693?
 * ...that Zhenzhu Khan of Xueyantuo once offered 50,000 horses, 10,000 cattle or camels, and 100,000 goats to Emperor Taizong of Tang China to serve as bride price for a princess?
 * ...that Unnale Unnale was the director Jeeva's final film before his death?
 * ...that nine workers died at India's Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Limited due to a blast that occurred when leaking water was accidentally mixed with molten steel?