Wikipedia:Recent additions 188

Did you know...

 * ...that as Burton Abbott was being executed in California's gas chamber in 1957, the governor was contacting the warden to stay the execution?
 * ...that the conflict between Communist Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu and his ideological rival Petre Borilă worsened in the early 1970s, after Ceauşescu's son Valentin decided to marry Borilă's daughter?
 * ...that although the Azad Hind Stamps (pictured) are Cinderella stamps, the Indian Postal department deems them postage stamps?
 * ...that Japanologist Hugh Borton took up his field after being posted to Japan by a Quaker service organization?
 * ...that Madison Limestone, a layer of mostly carbonate rocks formed in the Mississippian period, serves as an aquifer and an oil reservoir in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains areas?
 * ...that one of the first known instances of a composer specifically calling for the use of a bass violin, the predecessor of the modern cello, was in the opera Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi?
 * ...that the Carlsberg papyrus is the most complete of the ancient Egyptian medical papyri, containing substantial amounts of artifacts of the original papyrus?
 * ...that the forthcoming television adaptation of the BBC Radio 2 sitcom Teenage Kicks, originally for BBC Two, has been taken over by ITV?
 * ...that the United Issarak Front leader Son Ngoc Minh declared Cambodian independence on June 19 1950?
 * ...that Colorado Sen. Nancy Spence's bill to create a statewide school voucher program was the first to be enacted into law in the U.S. &mdash; and then overturned by state courts &mdash; after Zelman v. Simmons-Harris?
 * ...that a bronze bowl from the Iron Age Glastonbury Lake Village was made from the remnants of two separate vessels, before it was deposited in the peat?
 * ...that landscape and portrait painter Herbert A. Collins (pictured) made several portraits of naturalist John Muir as well as paintings of the evolution of Yosemite Valley?
 * ...that a report by the Judicial Commission of New South Wales almost led to a New South Wales judge being removed from office because of the time delays in giving decisions?
 * ...that Nguyen Truong To was called to serve Emperor Tu Duc of Vietnam despite having earlier assisted France's colonization of southern Vietnam?
 * ...that Miyazaki Ichisada was known for adding a fourth phase to periodisation of the history of China and Japan?
 * ...that at the time of his death, A. Ronald Walton was estimated to have reviewed more language programs than anyone else in the world?
 * ...that the Barasoain Church, where three major events in Philippine history took place, became known as the Cradle of Democracy in the East?
 * ...that Mary Perkins was the first female optician to be made a Dame Commander of the British Empire?
 * ...that fruit as a slang term developed in London with the costermongers and later in Cockney rhyming slang and Polari, with most variations becoming pejorative against gay men who have since reclaimed usages?
 * ...that the Crowcombe church spire was damaged by lightning in 1724 and the top has been planted in the churchyard ever since?
 * ...that the owners of the Spade Ranch (pictured) in the Nebraska Sandhills hired Civil War veterans and widows to circumvent homesteading laws?
 * ...that British art forger Shaun Greenhalgh was a self-taught artist, yet managed to fool the British Museum, the Tate Modern, and Bonhams, Sotheby's and Christie's?
 * ...that in the 2000, 2001 and 2002 seasons of the Super 12 the Highlanders rugby union team went undefeated at their home ground of Carisbrook?
 * ...that Colorado state senator John Morse had careers as an emergency medical technician, accountant, and police chief before entering the legislature?
 * ...that the Korotoa River, a small stream in Rajshahi Division of Bangladesh, was once a large and sacred river?
 * ...that the term "doomsday cult" can refer to apocalyptic groups that prophesy catastrophe, and those that attempt to bring it about?
 * ...that the ancient Kingdom of Nri in present-day Nigeria was one of the few governments in history to use no military power, instead implementing a taboo system, to govern Nri's subjects?
 * ...that a complete backstory was constructed by Mike Leigh for Vinette Robinson ' s character in Vera Drake, even though the role was minor?
 * ...that the frigate HMS Alarm was the first ship of the Royal Navy ever to have a fully copper-sheathed hull?
 * ...that Robert F. Kennedy's speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King is believed to have prevented riots from breaking out in Indianapolis?
 * ...that 18th century English obstetrician Thomas Denman (pictured) was an early advocate for inducing premature labour in cases involving a narrow pelvis or other conditions which endanger the mother's life?
 * ...that in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, when Dorothy Talbye  fell into despair with fits of violence in 1638,  she was excommunicated from the church,   bound and chained to a post, publicly whipped  and finally, after murdering her daughter,  hanged?
 * ...that the German national rail strike of 2007 is the largest strike in history affecting Deutsche Bahn?
 * ...that Adenovirus serotype 14 is an emerging virus, related to the common cold, that has recently caused 10 deaths in the United States, including at least one healthy young adult?
 * ...that Spencer Campbell regretted producing the year-long fly on the wall series The Living Soap, about students living in a purpose-built house, when some participants started deliberately avoiding the cameras after only a few days?
 * ...that USS General S. D. Sturgis was the transport ship assigned to deliver officials of the United States, Australia, Canada, Dutch East Indies, China and the Philippines to Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender ceremonies at the end of World War II?
 * ...that three out of every seventy-seven rainbow runners (pictured) have five spines, as a result of not being born with the normal six?
 * ...that Valentyn Rechmedin, a Ukrainian journalist and writer, received the Order of the Red Star after World War II?
 * ...that nineteenth century New Zealand gum-diggers retrieved 5,000 tons of kauri resin a year for the varnish trade, and that the gum was Auckland's main export?
 * ...that USNS General R. L. Howze held the record for ships assisting the 1954 mass exodus out of North Vietnam with 38 births on board during Operation Passage to Freedom?
 * ...that the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal, built along the Susquehanna River in the 1830s, had a wooden bridge with a two-tier towpath to allow mules towing cargoboats in opposite directions to cross the river simultaneously without colliding?
 * ...that Robert Ropner, who built the first trunk deck ship in 1896, was sued for patent infringment because his design was similar to that of turret deck ships?
 * ...that the Chemical Automatics Design Bureau produced the Soviet Union's only operational nuclear rocket engine?
 * ...that although Ernest Wild developed scurvy during the Ross Sea Party Antarctic expedition, and lost part of a toe and part of an ear to frostbite, he survived - but died of typhoid the next year in Malta?
 * ...that the northern whiting (pictured) has been declared an invasive species in the eastern Mediterranean, having passed through the Suez Canal as part of the Lessepsian migration?
 * ...that an offer sheet in the National Hockey League requires compensation in the form of future draft picks if a restricted free agent is signed by a different team in the league?
 * ...that the son of French Admiral Georges René Le Peley de Pléville was released as a prisoner of war with three fellow officers of his choice because the British Admiralty thanked his peg-legged father for saving a British frigate 10 years earlier?
 * ...that American academic Jackson Bailey was decorated with the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1988, the highest possible honor given by Japan to a foreigner?
 * ...that Galicia started exporting plant cuttings to other European vineyards as early as the 14th century?
 * ...that playwright Sam Thompson's Under the Bridge about Northern Irish sectarian violence became Belfast's most-seen play despite a prediction it would "offend and affront every section of the public"?
 * ...that the town of Booleroo Centre, located in the southern Flinders Ranges region of South Australia, is home to one of Australia's largest collections of tractors and steam engines?
 * ...that Felipe Agoncillo, who topped the highest possible score in a bar exam, also gained the title as the outstanding first Filipino diplomat?
 * ...that historian Holden Furber was appointed as a social science analyst to the Office of Strategic Services after the United States entered the Second World War?
 * ...that François Denhaut built the world's first flying boat, or seaplane with a hull?
 * ...that the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership has won £1,000,000 of grants to improve and promote six rural railway lines (Looe Valley Line pictured) in south-west England?
 * ...that among the founding members of Philomathes - a clandestine Polish student organization in Imperial University of Vilnius in partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - was Adam Mickiewicz, one of the three national poets of Poland?
 * ...that the establishment of Mahendra Pratap's Provisional Government of India was one of the reasons that the Rowlatt Commission was set up to investigate German and Bolshevik links to nationalist terrorism in British India?
 * ...that the author of Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography stated he had to go into hiding after receiving threats related to his yet unpublished book?
 * ...that during Operation Deep Freeze II in 1956, US Navy Rear Admiral George J. Dufek commanded the first aircraft to land at the South Pole, the C-47 Skytrain “Que Sera Sera”?
 * ...Niek Loohuis is now a Dutch First Division football (soccer) player, despite having been declared unfit and removed from FC Twente's youth academy at age 18?
 * ...that Nicaragua has the lowest electricity generation, the lowest percentage of population with access to electricity, and the highest dependence on oil for electricity generation in Central America?
 * ...that the collision between aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and destroyer HMAS Voyager is the only event in Australian history to be subject to two Royal Commissions?
 * ...that the gardens of the Petit Trianon were once thought to be haunted?
 * ...that in 1846 Albert Wilson became the first American merchant to open a store in Astoria, Oregon?
 * ...that 12,000 people paid 25 cents to view Frederic E. Church's The Heart of the Andes (pictured), a ten-foot-wide landscape painting exhibited in 1859?
 * ...that according to Jainism, the first Purva of ancient knowledge would take a volume of ink equal to an elephant to write, whereas the last would require the ink volume of 213 elephants?
 * ...that attempts to soften the harsh tannic nature of the Tannat wine grape led to the development of the winemaking technique of micro-oxygenation?
 * ...that in Rose Macaulay's novel The Towers of Trebizond (1956) the English traveller Aunt Dot aims to emancipate the women of Turkey by converting them to Anglicanism and popularizing the bathing hat?
 * ...that Myles Rudge wrote the lyrics to three Top 10 novelty songs in the 1960s, "Hole in the Ground", "Right Said Fred", and "A Windmill in Old Amsterdam"?
 * ...that Chris Dodd's 2008 presidential campaign has been endorsed by three members of the famed Kennedy family, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI), Edward Kennedy, Jr., and Eunice Kennedy Shriver?
 * ...that Colorado state representative Amy Stephens wrote an abstinence-based sex education curriculum that was translated into over a dozen languages?
 * ...that Romanian communist poet Alexandru Toma adapted several works of his Classicist predecessor Mihai Eminescu, removing their pessimistic tone and adding Socialist Realist rhetoric?
 * ...that in 1656, Judith Catchpole was tried before colonial Maryland's first all-female jury because a woman's expertise was needed to evaluate the evidence?
 * ...that the shrimp scad (pictured) was first scientifically described by Swedish naturalist Peter Forsskål in 1775, who mistook it for mackerel?
 * ...that the Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf cartoons Sheep Ahoy, A Sheep in the Deep, and Don't Give Up the Sheep were censored by ABC to remove a dynamite stick, a smoke break scene, and a spanking scene respectively?