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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 19 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 19: Joppenbergh Mountain

Joppenbergh Mountain is a nearly 500-foot (150 m) mountain in Rosendale
Village, in Ulster County, New York. The mountain is composed of a
carbonate bedrock overlain by glacially deposited material. It was named
after Rosendale's founder, Jacob Rutsen, and mined throughout the late
19th century for dolostone that was used in the manufacture of natural
cement. Extensive mining caused a large cave-in on December 19, 1899,
that destroyed equipment and collapsed shafts within Joppenbergh. During
the late 1930s, Joppenbergh became the site of several ski jumping
competitions, which continued until the early 1940s. Skiing began again
in the 1960s, when a new slope was built on the mountain, and the
revived competitions continued until 1971. In March 2011, the Open
Space Institute offered to purchase Joppenbergh and sell it to the town.
The Rosendale town board initially agreed to the deal the following
month, with payment planned to come from a surplus fund. That June,
however, the board found that the surplus fund had already been
exhausted and could not cover the entire cost of the purchase.
Ultimately, the OSI completed its purchase of Joppenbergh in October
2011, without town money.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joppenbergh_Mountain>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1542:

The Prome Kingdom, in present-day central Burma, was conquered
by the Taungoo Dynasty.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prome_Kingdom>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 18 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 18: Juwan Howard

Juwan Howard (born 1973) is an American professional basketball player
who plays for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association
(NBA). He signed for the Heat (his eighth NBA team) in 2010, reaching
the playoffs for the sixth time and making his first career NBA Finals
appearance. Howard won his first NBA championship with Miami the
following year. A one-time All-Star and one-time All-NBA power forward,
he began his NBA career as the fifth overall pick in the 1994 NBA Draft
by the Washington Bullets. Before he was drafted, he starred as an All-
American on the Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team. At Michigan
he was part of the Fab Five recruiting class of 1991 that twice reached
the finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men's
Division I Basketball Championship. During his rookie year with the
Bullets, he became the first player to graduate on time with his class
after leaving college early to play in the NBA. After one season as an
All-Rookie player and a second as an All-Star and an All-NBA performer,
he became the first NBA player to sign a $100 million contract. He has
developed a reputation as a humanitarian for his civic commitment.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juwan_Howard>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1863:

American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant led his Army of
the Tennessee across the Big Black River in preparation for the Siege of
Vicksburg.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vicksburg>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 17 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 17: Flame Robin

The Flame Robin is a small passerine bird native to Australia. It is a
moderately common resident of the coolest parts of south-eastern
Australia, including Tasmania. First described by the French naturalists
Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard in 1830, it is often
simply but inaccurately called the Robin Redbreast. Like many brightly
coloured robins of the Petroicidae, it is sexually dimorphic. Measuring
12–14 cm (5–6 in) long, the Flame Robin has dark brown eyes and a
small thin black bill. The male has a brilliant orange-red chest and
throat, and a white patch on the forehead above the bill. Its upper
parts are iron-grey with white bars, and its tail black with white tips.
The female is a nondescript grey-brown. Its song has been described as
the most musical of its genus, and it employs song and plumage displays
to mark out and defend its territory. It mostly breeds in and around the
Great Dividing Range, the Tasmanian highlands and islands in Bass
Strait. With the coming of cooler autumn weather, most birds disperse to
lower and warmer areas. Classified by BirdLife International as Near
Threatened, the species has suffered a marked decline in the past
25 years.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_Robin>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1521:

English nobleman Edward Stafford, whose father had been
beheaded for rebelling against King Richard III, was himself executed
for treason against King Henry VIII.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Stafford,_3rd_Duke_of_Buckingham>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 16 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 16: Final Fantasy XI

Final Fantasy XI is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game
(MMORPG), developed and published by Square as part of the Final Fantasy
series. Designed and produced by Hiromichi Tanaka, it was released in
Japan on May 16, 2002 for Sony's PlayStation 2, and for Microsoft
Windows-based personal computers in November of that year. The game was
the first cross-platform MMORPG and the Xbox 360's first MMORPG. The
story is set in the fantasy world of Vana'diel, where player-created
avatars can both compete and cooperate in a variety of objectives to
develop an assortment of jobs, skills, and earn in-game item rewards.
Players can also undertake an array of quests and progress through the
in-game hierarchy and thus through the major plot of the game. Since its
debut in 2002, five expansion packs have also been released along with
six add-on scenarios. In 2006, between 200,000 and 300,000 active
players logged in per day, and the game was the dominant MMORPG in
Japan. Final Fantasy XI has a user base of around 500,000 subscribers,
and the total number of active characters exceeds 2 million. It is the
most profitable title in the Final Fantasy series.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XI>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1811:

Peninsular War: An allied force of British, Spanish, and
Portuguese troops clashed with the French at the Battle of Albuera south
of Badajoz, Spain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Albuera>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 15 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 15: Banksia aquilonia

Banksia aquilonia, commonly known as the northern banksia, is a tree in
the family Proteaceae native to north Queensland on Australia's
northeastern coastline. With an average height of 8 m (26 ft), it has
narrow glossy green leaves up to 20 cm (7.9 in) long and 6 to 10 cm
(2.4 to 3.9 in) high pale yellow flower spikes, known as inflorescences,
appearing in autumn. As the spikes age, their flowers fall off and they
develop up to 50 follicles, each of which contains 2 seeds. Alex
George described the plant in his 1981 monograph of the genus Banksia
as a variety of Banksia integrifolia, but later reclassified it as a
separate species. The species is found in wet sclerophyll forest and
rainforest margins on sandy soils. Banksia aquilonia regenerates after
bushfire by regrowing from epicormic buds under its bark, although
regeneration from root suckers has also been recorded. It adapts readily
to cultivation in humid or temperate climates, but is rarely cultivated.
A fast-growing plant, it can grow in acidic soils from pH 3.5 to 6.5.
Its inflorescences are energy-rich sources of food, and nectar is a food
item of many animals and birds, including the endangered mahogany
glider.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksia_aquilonia>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1891:

Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum Novarum, that
addressed the condition of the working classes and is considered to be
the foundation of modern Catholic social teaching.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_Novarum>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 14 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 14: Gender Bender (The X-Files)

"Gender Bender" is the fourteenth episode of the television series The
X-Files. The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David
Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to
the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, they investigate a
series of murders following sexual encounters, and soon discover that a
member of a religious sect living in Massachusetts may be
responsible—and may not be human. Premiering on the Fox network on
January 21, 1994, it was directed by Rob Bowman and featured guest
appearances by Brent Hinkley and Nicholas Lea. The episode was inspired
by producer Glen Morgan's desire for "an episode with more of a sexy
edge"; however, the writers found it difficult to write a story that
showed sex as scary. This difficulty led to the introduction of an
Amish-like community as well. "Gender Bender" had mixed critical
responses, facing criticism for its abrupt deus ex machina ending.
Academic analysis of the episode has placed it within a science-fiction
tradition that attributes a powerful, supernatural element to physical
contact with aliens. It has also been seen as reflecting anxieties about
emerging gender roles in the 1990s.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Bender_(The_X-Files)>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1796:

English physician Edward Jenner began testing cowpox as a
vaccine for protection against smallpox.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 13 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 13: Michigan State Trunkline Highway System

The State Trunkline Highway System in Michigan consists of all the state
highways, including those designated as Interstate, United States, or
State Trunkline highways. Maintained by the Michigan Department of
Transportation, the system comprises 9,716 miles (15,636 km) of
trunklines in all 83 counties of the state. Its components range in
scale from 10-lane urban freeways to two-lane rural undivided highways
to a non-motorized highway on Mackinac Island, where cars are forbidden.
The longest highway is nearly 400 miles (640 km) long, while the
shortest is about three-quarters of a mile (about 1.2 km). A
constitutional prohibition on state involvement in roads was removed in
the early 20th century and on May 13, 1913, the State Reward Trunk Line
Highways Act was passed, creating the system. Highway numbers were first
posted on signs in 1919, making Michigan the second state to do so.
Michigan's first freeways were built during the 1940s. Construction on
Michigan's Interstates started in the late 1950s and continued until
1992. Few additional freeways have been built since 1992, and in the
early years of the 21st century, projects are underway to bypass cities
with new highways.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_State_Trunkline_Highway_System>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1888:

Princess Isabel of the Empire of Brazil signed the Lei Áurea
into law, formally abolishing slavery in Brazil.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Brazil>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 12 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 12: Rachel Chiesley, Lady Grange

Lady Grange (1679–1745) was the wife of James Erskine, Lord Grange, a
Scottish lawyer with Jacobite sympathies. After 25 years of marriage
and nine children, the Granges separated acrimoniously. When Lady Grange
produced letters that she claimed were evidence of his treasonable
plottings against the Hanoverian government in London, her husband had
her kidnapped from her home in Edinburgh on the night of 22 January
1732. She was incarcerated in various remote locations on the western
seaboard of Scotland, including the Monach Isles, Skye and the distant
islands of St Kilda. Lady Grange's father was convicted of murder when
she was about 10 years old and she is known to have had a violent
temper; initially her absence seems to have caused little comment. No
action was ever taken on her behalf by any of her children, the eldest
of whom would have been in their early twenties when she was abducted.
News of her plight eventually reached Edinburgh however, and an
unsuccessful rescue attempt was undertaken by her lawyer, Thomas Hope of
Rankeillor. She died in captivity, after being effectively imprisoned
for 13 years. Her life has been remembered in poetry, prose and a play.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Chiesley,_Lady_Grange>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1551:

The National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in
the Americas, was founded in Lima, Peru.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_San_Marcos>

1846:
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 11 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 11: Danie Mellor

Danie Mellor (born 1971) is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist
and the winner of the 2009 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander
Art Award for a mixed media work From Rite to Ritual. Born in Mackay,
Queensland, Mellor studied at North Adelaide School of Art, the
Australian National University and Birmingham Institute of Art and
Design. He then took up a post lecturing at Sydney College of the Arts.
He works in different media including printmaking, drawing, painting,
and sculpture. The dominant theme in Mellor's art is the relationship
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian cultures. Since 2000,
Mellor's works have been included regularly in National Aboriginal &
Torres Strait Islander Art Award exhibitions and in 2003 he was awarded
a "highly commended", for his print Cyathea cooperi. His other major
exhibitions have included the Primavera 2005 show at the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney, and the National Indigenous Art Triennial at
the National Gallery of Australia in 2007. In 2012, his work was
included in the National Museum of Australia's exhibition Menagerie:
contemporary Indigenous sculpture and the second National Indigenous Art
Triennial.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danie_Mellor>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

868:

A copy of the Diamond Sutra was printed in China, making it the
world's oldest dated printed book.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Sutra>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 10 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 10: Phallus indusiatus

Phallus indusiatus, commonly called the bamboo fungus, bamboo pith, long
net stinkhorn, crinoline stinkhorn or veiled lady, is a fungus in the
family Phallaceae, or stinkhorns. It has a cosmopolitan distribution in
tropical areas, and is found in southern Asia, Africa, the Americas, and
Australia, where it grows in woodlands and gardens in rich soil and
well-rotted woody material. The fruit body of the fungus is
characterised by a conical to bell-shaped cap on a stalk and a delicate
lacy "skirt", or indusium, that hangs from beneath the cap and reaches
nearly to the ground. It was first described scientifically in 1798 by
French botanist Étienne Pierre Ventenat. Mature fruit bodies are up to
25 cm (9.8 in) tall with a conical to bell-shaped cap that is
1.5–4 cm (0.6–1.6 in) wide. The edible mushroom, grown
commercially and commonly sold in Asian markets, is rich in protein,
carbohydrates, and dietary fiber. It also contains various bioactive
compounds, and has antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. Phallus
indusiatus has a recorded history of use in Chinese medicine extending
back to the 7th century AD, and features in Nigerian folklore.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_indusiatus>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1503:

Christopher Columbus and his crew became the first Europeans to
visit the Cayman Islands, naming them Las Tortugas after the numerous
sea turtles there.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayman_Islands>
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English Wikipedia Article of the Day | 9 May 2013 07:00
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[Daily article] May 9: Hurricane Debbie (1961)

Hurricane Debbie was the most powerful cyclone on record to strike
Ireland in September. The fourth named storm of the 1961 Atlantic
hurricane season, Debbie originated from a well-defined tropical
disturbance that was first identified in late August over Central
Africa. Tracking generally westward, the system moved off the coast of
Senegal on September 5 into the Atlantic Ocean. On September 6, Debbie
passed through the southern Cape Verde Islands as a strong tropical
storm and resulted in a plane crash that killed 60 people. Thereafter
its location was uncertain until September 10 and on the following day,
Debbie attained its peak intensity as a Category 3 hurricane on the
Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale, with maximum winds of 120 mph
(195 km/h). Gradually weakening, it passed over the western Azores as a
minimal hurricane on September 15 and skirted the coast of Western
Ireland on September 16 as a powerful storm. It brought record winds to
much of the country, with a peak gust of 114 mph (183 km/h) measured
just offshore, causing widespread damage and disruption, killing
12 people (and a further 6 people in Northern Ireland) and caused
US$40–50 million in damage.

Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Debbie_(1961)>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1671:

Irish-born Colonel Thomas Blood was caught trying to steal the
English Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Blood>
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