Wikipedia:Recent additions 65

Did you know...

 * ...that the Yuba Goldfields, said to resemble intestines from the air, are a bizarre collection of gravel mountains, ponds, and streams that remained a major source of gold long after the California Gold Rush?
 * ...that Rex, Ronald Reagan's pet Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, lived at the White House in a lavish doghouse decorated with framed portraits of the First Family? (Rex, presidential dog)
 * ...that, although Louis IX of France won the Saintonge War against England, he chose not to annex Guyenne on account of dynastic sensibilities? [[Image:Louis battle.jpg|Louis IX in battle|left|100px]]
 * ...that the shortest binomial name of a species is Ia io, which belongs to the Great Evening Bat?
 * ...that Creigh Deeds lost the 2005 race for Attorney General of Virginia by only 323 votes out of almost two million cast?
 * ...that Kevin Berry, former Pictorial Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, won the 200m butterfly at the 1964 Summer Olympics?
 * ...that the Reverend John Thomson, distinguished landscape painter and former minister of Duddingston Kirk, is often credited with originating the famous Scots adage "We’re a' Jock Tamson’s bairns"?
 * ...that Michigan State University academic programs include the United States' first University-level packaging program? [[Image:MSU Wells Hall.jpg|MSU Wells Hall|right|100px]]
 * ...that the Indigenous Australian languages had no written form until colonisation, when they were transcribed into the Latin alphabet?
 * ...that according to Thomas Carlyle, Prussia's victory in the minor Battle of Hoyerswerda wrecked the 1759 campaign of the anti-Prussian coalition in the Seven Years' War?
 * ...that Lord Simon of Glaisdale ended his career as a Law Lord and cross-bench life peer, but was earlier a Conservative MP who held three ministerial positions?
 * ...that Kevin O'Halloran, a swimming gold medallist at the 1956 Summer Olympics, died after accidentally tripping and shooting himself?
 * ...that the Swiss municipality Rüegsau is connected to its neighbor Hasle bei Burgdorf by what is probably the longest wooden arch bridge in Europe, at a length of 58.5 meters?
 * ...that the Mafeking Cadet Corps, volunteer boy cadets in the Siege of Mafeking, are sometimes seen as the forerunners of the Scouts, and were depicted on one of the only British stamps not to depict the monarch? [[Image:MafekingCadets.jpg|Mafeking Cadet Corps|left|100px]]
 * ...that dead cats were reportedly thrown into the grave of "Rape-master General" Colonel Francis Charteris?
 * ...that NASA terraforming expert Christopher McKay has explored the Gobi Desert, Siberia and Antarctica to study extremophilic life forms?
 * ...that tickets bought for the ceremonial opening of Kiev Republican Stadium scheduled for June 22, 1941 were still valid 7 years later, as the event was "postponed until after the Victory" due to the Nazi invasion to the USSR?
 * ...that in the Shanghai ghetto, a part of the city occupied by Imperial Japan, about 20,000 German and Austrian Jews escaped the Holocaust?
 * ...that graves in Singapore are exhumed 15 years after burial, and the remains are cremated or re-buried?
 * ...that the Peruvian song "El Cóndor Pasa" was popularised by a 1970 cover version by Simon and Garfunkel, although the original Quechua lyrics were entirely re-written?
 * ...that in the aftermath of the Defence of the Polish Post in Danzig, in the Polish September Campaign of 1939, all the Polish civilians who had held out for 15 hours against the SS-led assault were executed?
 * ...that the vagaries of the Couesnon River place Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy rather than Brittany? [[Image:Mont Saint-Michel Couesnon.jpg|The mouth of the Couesnon at Mont Saint-Michel|right|100px]]
 * ...that until the 1990s, the Heckler & Koch MP5 and the Uzi were the only weapons designed outside of the United States, that were as widespread in Hollywood productions as the U.S.-produced Colt M1911 pistols, M16 assault rifles, Tommy Guns and revolvers?
 * ...that Marie Selipha Sesenne Descartes, better known simply as Sesenne, was a Saint Lucian singer and cultural icon who was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1972?
 * ...that the snipers of the Kremlin Regiment killed a total of more than 1,200 German soldiers and officers during the Soviet-German War? [[Image:Polk yo.jpg|left|65px]]
 * ...that bowls player Willie Wood was the first athlete to compete in 7 Commonwealth Games, despite being barred from the 1986 games in his home country of Scotland for refusing to reclassify as an amateur?
 * ...that the Russian Futurists 1912 manifesto, A Slap in the Face of Public Taste, argued that past artists such as Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy should be "heaved overboard from the steamship of modernity"? [[Image:Pobedanassolntsem.jpg|El Lissitzky's poster for the opera Victory over the Sun|right|100px]]
 * ...that Michael Matz, who trained the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, saved the lives of four children on the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 232 in 1989, and also carried the U.S. flag at the 1996 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremonies?
 * ...that the statues of St. Andrew and Samson from the Fountain of Samson in Kiev were stored in a museum before the beginning of WWI, saving them from destruction by the Bolsheviks?
 * ...that Martyn J. Fogg, a doctoral student in planetary science at the University of London and a dental surgeon, wrote the first technical book on terraforming and planetary engineering?
 * ...that the unconventionally named Boots Mallory was a teenage dancer and model who appeared in Hollywood films of the 1930s, largely as a result of her good looks?
 * ...that Miss Cranston pioneered the social phenomenon of tea rooms, introducing "fairyland"-like interiors designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh? [[Image:Catherine Cranston.jpg|Catherine Cranston|left|100px]]
 * ...that the war between Russia and Sweden from 1741 to 1743 involved a change of ruling dynasties in both countries?
 * ...that throughout the development of science, many ideas have been obliterated by incorporation?
 * ...that the Strépy-Thieu boat lift in Belgium is the tallest boat lift in the world at 73 metres high and has a structural mass of 200,000 tonnes?
 * ...that Ruparel College in Mumbai, India boasts nuclear physicist Anil Kakodkar and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai among its alumni?
 * ...that the Gaylord Building, key to building the I&M Canal, was restored so successfully that Reagan presented Gaylord Donnelly, millionaire grandson of a former owner, with a President’s Award for Historic Preservation? [[Image:GaylordBuildingToday DSCN5884.JPG|Gaylord building|right|100px]]
 * ...that Pablo Picasso's Dora Maar au Chat, a 1941 portrait of the painter's mistress, recently sold for $95.2 million?
 * ...that disqualification protests were lodged against Clare Dennis, the winner of the 200m breaststroke at the 1932 Summer Olympics, on the grounds of her "inappropriate" costume which exposed her shoulder blades?
 * ...that India's Operation Meghdoot to capture the Siachen Glacier in 1984 was the first assault launched in the world's highest battlefield?
 * ...that newly-launched First News, a British weekly newsmagazine for children with a unique focus on current events, is headed by "editorial overlord" and ex-Mirror editor Piers Morgan?
 * ...that Huron University, the first institute of higher education to grant a degree in the then-Dakota Territory, closed in 2005 after 123 years of existence and its assets were auctioned off?
 * ...that actinoform clouds form a distinct leaf-like or spokes-on-a-wheel pattern, and can spread out to over 300 kilometers across? [[Image:Actinoform cloud.jpg|Actinoform cloud over the eastern Pacific Ocean|left|100px]]
 * ...that Israfil Mamedov, the first Azeri Hero of the Soviet Union, killed about seventy Germans, including three officers during the Battle of Moscow on December 3, 1941?
 * ...that Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island was used as a staging area by the Union Army during the American Civil War, and that more than 230 Union troops were buried there?
 * ...that controlled water landings or ditchings by commercial airliners, whilst rare, can often be survived by passengers and crew?
 * ...that the final episode of Kamen Rider Stronger, a Japanese tokusatsu television series, features appearances from the main characters of every previous series in the franchise?
 * ...that in 1988 the Greek passenger ferry, City of Poros, was the victim of a terrosist attack by members of the Abu Nidal Organisation which left nine tourists dead and ninety eight injured?
 * ...that the Moorish Revival spread around the globe as a preferred style of 19th-century synagogue architecture, because the Mudéjar style was associated with the golden age of Jewry in medieval Muslim Spain?
 * ...that following the Mississauga train derailment of 1979, nearly 250,000 people had to be evacuated for up to five days while toxic chemicals that had spilled onto the railway tracks were cleaned up?