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Did you know...[edit]

31 January 2008

23:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Indiana Historical Society (pictured) is the oldest state historical society west of the Allegheny Mountains?
...that the name Alexandra was considered unlucky by the Romanov family because so many Alexandras in the family, including Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna of Russia, died young?
...that law professor Ralph Aigler, once known as the "dominant figure in Michigan's athletics," negotiated the Big Ten's exclusive contracts with the Rose Bowl in 1946 and 1953?
...that in Test cricket, Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, with 39 centuries, leads the list of batsmen making centuries?
...that immunologist Robert A. Good documented the importance of the thymus gland and tonsils in the immune system and performed the first successful human bone marrow transplant?
...that Savanna Portage State Park preserves a historic portage trail used by Native Americans, fur traders, and explorers to cross between the watershed of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River?
...that Mretebi Tbilisi was the first openly professional football club to be founded in the Soviet Union?

13:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Kasztanka, Polish Marshal Józef Piłsudski's favorite combat mare, (pictured) was stuffed upon her death in 1927 and after World War II was destroyed allegedly on the orders of Piłsudski's enemy, Marshal Michał Rola-Żymierski?
...that Colorado state representative Victor Mitchell secured state funding for Project Lifesaver programs that would provide tracking bracelets for the cognitvely impaired?
...that Independent Learning Centre started the Railway School Car Program in 1926, in which a teacher lived in a train car that traveled to students in isolated Northern Ontario communities?
...that the Allied force which landed on Morotai in September 1944 was over a hundred times larger than the Japanese force defending the island?
...that Dr. Frederick Madison Allen prescribed a "starvation diet" for patients at his Physiatric Institute, the leading way of prolonging lives of diabetics in the days before the isolation of insulin?
...that Dell Comics issued contemporaneous comic books featuring the ABC network's 1961 TV series, Follow the Sun?
...that so far, 350,000 people have been relocated in Turkey by dam projects carried out by the State Hydraulic Works, and 250,000 more will be affected in the future?

02:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Dutch mannerist painter Cornelis Ketel began to paint with his toes towards the end of a successful career as a portraitist, (example, right) in Elizabethan London and Amsterdam?
...that Barry Coe, the winner of the Golden Globe award for "most promising" actor, missed out on becoming the fourth Cartwright brother on the television series Bonanza because of reported friction on the set?
...that Jerry Dybzinski's baserunning error in game four of the 1983 American League Championship Series ultimately cost the Chicago White Sox both the game and the series?
...that the Japanese destroyer Matsu had a very short career: just more than three months from her completion in 1944, to her sinking as she returned from her first escort mission?
...that newly crowned Miss America 2008 Kirsten Haglund's grandmother competed at Miss America 1944?
...that the boundary between Sudan and Ethiopia was defined for the region near the Pibor River in 1899 by Major H.H. Austin and Major Charles W. Gwynn of the British Royal Engineers?

30 January 2008

20:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the US Navy's Haskell class attack transports Bexar (pictured), Bottineau, Bollinger and Rockwall all participated in the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests in 1946?
...that Marie Roethlisberger placed seventh at the 1984 United States Olympic gymnastic trials (making her the alternate for the six-woman team) despite being almost completely deaf?
...that according to an Iroquois legend, a woman eating roasted acorns intimidated an evil spirit of the tribe known as The Flying Head so much he never returned?
...that the United States Navy's Naval Ordnance Station in Louisville, Kentucky was chosen due to being so far inland as to prevent enemy airstrikes?
...that Unsinkable Sam was a ship's cat of both the Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy during the Second World War who survived the sinking of all three ships on which he served?
...that Beaufort Island in Antarctica's Ross Sea was named for Sir Francis Beaufort in 1841?
...that before coaching gymnastics at the University of Michigan from 1948 to 1983, Newt Loken was the NCAA all-around gymnastics champion in 1942?

13:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Black Rock Forest (pictured) gets its name from visible magnetite deposits in it?
...that the K-1000 class was a hoax class of battleship made up by the Soviet Union at the start of the Cold War as propaganda?
...that the city of San Francisco contributed a large proportion of the funds for constructing the extension of Junipero Serra Boulevard beyond the city limits?
...that the 1937 Hal Roach/MGM musical short Our Gang Follies of 1938 features an appearance by future jazz star Annie Ross?
...that at Winter X Games XII, skier Tanner Hall set a record with his seventh career gold medal, only to be tied by snowboarder Shaun White on the last day of competition?
...that track and field athlete Anne Bersagel was a member of Team USA Minnesota while studying full time in Oslo, Norway as a Fulbright Scholar?
...that prolific American music publisher George E. Blake printed the first edition of George Frideric Handel's Messiah in the United States?

02:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

...that University of Michigan elocution professor Thomas Trueblood (pictured) received nationwide attention when the Chicago Tribune reported in 1903 that he was offering a new "course in love making"?
...that the Australian Ambassador to Chile, Crispin Conroy, once proposed marriage to Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala?
...that Son Goku, a German rock band, is named after the protagonist of the anime series Dragon Ball Z?
...that both Augustus and Eleftherios Venizelos exiled opponents to the Cyclades?
...that with little prior experience, South Korean actress Kim Ok-bin was given a leading role in her first film, Voice, and was nominated for "Best New Actress" at the Blue Dragon Film Awards?
...that through the opening of the Thomson MRT Line and Eastern Region MRT Line by 2020, Singapore's rail network density will rise from 31 km per million residents today to 51 km per million, surpassing what Hong Kong and Tokyo currently have?
...that Half-Breed Tracts were set aside for people of Mixed Blood descent in several U.S. states, including Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin?

29 January 2008

19:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

...that as Chief Herald of India, Osmond Barnes (pictured) proclaimed Queen Victoria Empress of India at Delhi in 1877?
...that the Mattancherry Palace, known popularly as Dutch Palace, in Kochi, India, was built by the Portuguese and renovated by the Dutch?
...that the Walter Byers Scholarship is considered the highest academic honor for National Collegiate Athletic Association athletes?
...that the Los Angeles attorney Bobby Diamond became nationally known a half century ago through his role as the orphaned Joey Newton in the NBC television series Fury?
...that concert organist John Walker was to teach in Taiwan on a Fulbright Fellowship, but wound up playing benefit concerts for 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake victims?
...that Antonine Barada was a 19th century mixed blood fur trader in Nebraska whose mythic strength and heroic actions against slavery prompted his status as a current-day folk hero?
...that Catherine Dolgorukov had a premonition that her morganatic husband, Tsar Alexander II, would be assassinated?
...that The Sea Island Mathematical Manual or Haidao suanjing (海岛算经) was written by mathematican Liu Hui of the Three Kingdom era (220–280) as an extension of The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art?

12:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

...that after service with the United States Navy in World War II and the Korean War, the USS Noble (pictured) was transferred to the Spanish Navy in 1964 and renamed the Aragon?
...that Roy "Wrong Way" Riegels ran in the wrong direction after recovering a fumble, which led to a safety that proved to be the winning margin in Georgia Tech's 8-7 win at the 1929 Rose Bowl?
...that tourists flocked to Casa de Estudillo in San Diego, California, to see "Ramona's Marriage Place" even though Ramona was a work of fiction?
...that the 1967 general election in Sierra Leone saw the first defeat of a ruling party in an election held under universal suffrage in sub-Saharan Africa?
...that Mohammed al-Shahwani was a talented general in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, and is now the head of Iraq's new intelligence service?
...that with the testing of the PAD missile, India became the fourth country to have successfully demonstrated an anti-ballistic missile system?
...that W.C. Fields' straightman Tammany Young was a renowned gatecrasher who managed entry to the Jack Dempsey - Georges Carpentier prize fight by claiming to be an ice man?

05:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Contracts House (pictured), located in Kiev, Ukraine, was visited by writers Honoré de Balzac, Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Pushkin, and poets Adam Mickiewicz and Taras Shevchenko?
...that during World War II, the Japanese destroyer Hatsukaze survived four major fleet actions against the American, British, Australian and Dutch fleets, but was sunk after colliding with a Japanese cruiser?
...that Scotland's North West Highlands Geopark contains some of the oldest rocks in Europe and the site of a famous geological controversy?
...that British MP Ronnie Campbell accidentally supported National Fetish Day due to his thinking that the word "fetish" meant "worry"?
...that Cliff Keen's tenure as Michigan’s wrestling coach (1925-1970) was the longest of any coach in any sport in NCAA history as of 1991?
...that Séon Carsuel, Scottish Protestant reformer, Bishop of the Isles and author of the first book to be printed in any Goidelic language, was over seven foot tall?
...that Salisbury Cathedral School was founded over 900 years ago by a saint?
...that Dorothy Canning Miller was the first professionally trained curator of the Museum of Modern Art?

28 January 2008

22:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Abbas Tyabji (pictured with Mahatma Gandhi), respectfully called the "Grand Old Man of Gujarat", was chosen at age seventy-six by Mahatma Gandhi to take over leadership of the Salt Satyagraha upon Gandhi's arrest in May, 1930?
...that historic memorabilia from the Polish National Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland were shipped in 1927 to the newly independent Poland, only to be largely destroyed during World War II?
...that Robert Bray (forest ranger Corey Stuart in CBS's Lassie), turned down a role in director Joshua Logan's 1958 hit film South Pacific, much to Bray's longstanding regret?
...that the Armenian oil magnate Nubar Gulbenkian once sued his father for $10 million after his company refused him $4.50 for a meal?
...that Bullitt's Lick was the first industry and supplier of salt in what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky?
...that the 1928–29 Boston Bruins season marked the ice hockey team's first Stanley Cup championship and their first season in the Boston Garden?

14:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Punjabi magnate Sir Malik Umar Hayat Khan (pictured) was an honorary aide-de-camp to King George V, King Edward VIII and King George VI?
...that Gerald Ford threatened to quit the Michigan football team when African-American player Willis Ward was kept out of a 1932 game in response to Georgia Tech's refusal to play an integrated team?
...that the Castle Cary Cut-Off reduced the 325½ mile distance between London Paddington and Penzance railway stations by 20¼ miles?
...that, according to Herodotus, Rhodopis was a fellow-slave with the poet Aesop?
...that stewardess Frankie Housley was called "the Bravest Woman In America"?
...that Major League Baseball pitcher Stan Baumgartner was named to the All-Big Ten Conference teams for baseball, basketball, and football in 1914?
...that the supervisor of a kosher restaurant is required to be a Shomer Shabbat, a Jew who observes the Sabbath?
...that the crowd at the 1984 funeral of assassinated Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco was estimated at between fifteen thousand and two hundred thousand people?
...that a hyperdeterminant is a generalisation of the determinant in algebra?
...that when the first portion of the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad opened in 1856, it led to the incorporation of Kingston, Pennsylvania, and to the establishment of Kingston's first public transit line?

05:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Pewee Valley Confederate Memorial (pictured) is the only American Civil War obelisk monument in Kentucky to be made of zinc?
...that London printer William Stansby published the landmark first folio collection of the works of Ben Jonson in 1616?
...that despite healthcare in Sierra Leone decreasing child mortality from 302 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 282 in 2005 Sierra Leone still has the highest level of child mortality in the world?
...that Lucien Lagrange Architects has been involved in attempts to renovate Union Station in Chicago, Illinois, for over twenty years?
...that despite German and Soviet attempts to suppress Polish culture during World War II, it was kept alive by underground activities, with the Polish Home Army even creating newsreels?
...that race car journalist and former race car driver Dr. Dick Berggren decided to stop teaching college psychology after he was called into the college president's office because he parked his racecar in the faculty parking lot?
...that the upcoming comedy film Hamlet 2 was the top purchase at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival placing it second behind the US$10.5 million record set by Little Miss Sunshine at the festival in 2006?
...that Deepak Chougule, a cricketer from the Indian state of Karnataka, created a junior world record for the most runs scored in a single day of a cricket match when he scored 400 runs in a match against Goa?
...that Houhora Mountain was the first part of New Zealand that the early explorer Kupe saw, but he thought it was a whale, according to Māori legend?

27 January 2008

23:33, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the US Navy's Haskell class attack transports Meriwether (pictured), Tazewell, Natrona, Okaloosa, Oneida and Rawlins all participated in only one battle - the invasion of Okinawa in 1945 - before being collectively struck from the Naval Register on the same day in October 1958?
...that the ceremony marking the Japanese surrender of Timor on 11 September 1945 was held aboard HMAS Moresby?
...that 24-year old Alondra de la Parra was the first Mexican woman to ever conduct a concert in New York City?
...that Al Hoisch of UCLA returned a kickoff for 103 yards and a touchdown at the 1947 Rose Bowl, a record that still stands as of the 2008 game?
...that William Fawcett, a character actor in B-films and television from 1946 to the early 1970s, held a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska and was a drama professor at Michigan State University prior to the start of his acting career?
...that the adobe house that is the centerpiece of the Alviso Adobe Community Park in Pleasanton, California, was built in 1854 and continuously in use until 1969?
...that the Garrison Union Free School in New York traces its origins back to 1793?
...that Count John A. Creighton was ennobled by Pope Leo XIII in recognition of his contributions to Creighton University, the Catholic community in Omaha, and the city of Omaha in general?

14:35, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Cleveland Cliffs ore dock (pictured, similar one at Ashland, Wisconsin) at Marquette, Michigan has been used to ship over 400 million tons of iron ore in the over 95 years since it was built?
...that the US Navy's Haskell class attack transports Montrose, Renville, and Okanogan all saw action in three major wars – World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War?
...that the village of Selworthy was rebuilt by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland in 1828 as a model village for the aged and infirm of his Holnicote Estate?
...that former child actor Richard Eyer, who played the boy who runs "afowl" of the goose in William Wyler's 1956 film Friendly Persuasion, is now an elementary school teacher in Bishop, California?
...that 1985 NCAA hurdling champion Thomas Wilcher won the Michigan High School Athletic Association team track & field championship three consecutive times, both as an athlete and a coach?
...that after winning three medals at the 1992 Summer Olympics as a 16-year-old, Anita Nall retired from competitive swimming in 2000 due to chronic fatigue syndrome?

02:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

...that according to legend, George Washington personally stopped an angry mob from burning St. Philip's Church in the Highlands (pictured)?
...that former Juneau, Alaska mayor Dennis Egan hosts a program called Problem Corner on local radio station KINY?
... that at the Battle of Noemfoor in 1944 Commodore John Collins became the first graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College to command a naval squadron in action?
...that Adam R. Johnson's Newburgh Raid, using two stovepipes, charred wood, a broken wagon, and only 27 men, resulted in the first capture of a northern town in the American Civil War?
...that director Paul Greengrass is filming a fictional thriller with Matt Damon in the lead based on the 2006 nonfiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City about the Green Zone?
...that George Jewett was the first African-American to earn a varsity letter in football at both the University of Michigan and at Northwestern University?
...that the hollow log pipes of the 1787 Mann's Lick salt furnace allegedly still existed in the 1940s?
...that a plane of Royal Canadian Air Force's No. 426 Squadron made Canada's first coast-to-coast non-stop flight?

26 January 2008

19:53, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Éolienne Bollée (pictured) is a true turbine that is worked by the wind and, unlike modern wind turbines, has a stator and a rotor?
...that the work of the Galician poet Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara presents arguments for the superiority of women to men?
...that due to its high reactivity, compounds of oxygen can be formed with all known chemical elements, apart from four noble gases?
...that as President of the College of New Jersey, John Maclean, Jr. conveyed a Doctor of Laws degree to President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War?
...that the only Edward Medal awarded in the Kent coalfield was won at Tilmanstone Colliery, one of only four successful pits in Kent out of twelve planned or built?
...that in Greek mythology Gorgythion was one of the fifty sons of King Priam of Troy?
...that the Comanche War Chief Santa Anna was the first Comanche or Kiowa Chief to visit Washington D.C. in 1847, and was so overwhelmed with what he saw, he immediately advised his people to seek peace?

12:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

...that three of the 18 holes at the Powelton Club's golf course (pictured) had to be redesigned a year after they were built when the land they were on was condemned to build U.S. Route 9W?
...that Józef Haller de Hallenburg was one of the key shapers of scouting in Poland?
...that in order to combat the erosion of fan loyalty towards professional teams, the Nashville Predators employ customer relationship management techniques to collect information about the demographics and psychographics of their fans?
...that Almaco jack have been known to remove parasites on their skin by rubbing up against scuba divers?
...that footballer John Hewitt scored the fastest recorded goal in Scottish Cup history, timed at 9.6 seconds?
...that for establishing the first successful sugar beet processing plant in the United States, E. H. Dyer became known as the father of the American beet sugar industry?
...that the 1951 Gold Coast legislative election was the first to be held in Africa under universal suffrage?
...that Australian Ingo Renner has won the World Gliding Championships four times and set two world gliding records?

06:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

...that so many squatters were living on the property of José Joaquin Estudillo (pictured) that it became known as "Squatterville"?
...that root nodules on the plant Myrica cerifera fix nitrogen faster than some legumes?
...that HMS Chanticleer had been scheduled to survey South America, but was in such poor condition that the Beagle was selected instead for the 1831 voyage that established Charles Darwin as a naturalist?
...that Nazi Germany planned to starve tens of millions of Jews, Poles and Soviet citizens in order to simultaneously eliminate "surplus population" and feed German citizens and their army?
...that Opera Jawa is a 2006 Indonesian-Austrian musical film that features traditional Javanese classical music and dance in a setting of opera, inspired by the Ramayana?
...that offensive tackle Rich Strenger told reporters that Michigan Wolverines football coach Bo Schembechler ran a more strenuous training camp at the college level than he experienced in the NFL with the Detroit Lions?

25 January 2008

21:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

...that E.Wedel (pictured), a famous confectionery company of Poland, retained its logo even under the Polish communist government?
...that Leonard Bernstein created controversy with his remarks about Glenn Gould during a New York Philharmonic concert on April 6, 1962?
...that Ripley's Believe It or Not! "Wild Goose Chase" feature on J. Dewey Soper's six year, 30,000 mile search for the Blue Goose nesting grounds earned him the nickname "Blue Goose Soper"?
...that Comanche War Chief Carne Muerte's name means "Dead Meat" in Spanish?
...that William B. Hornblower was nominated for a seat on the United States Supreme Court in 1893, but his nomination failed, largely due to a feud with Senator David B. Hill?
...that over 10,000 people attended the 1876 dedication of the Confederate Monument in Bowling Green, Kentucky?

14:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Hungarian company Zsolnay (its fountain pictured), known for its manufacture of decorative tiles, became the largest company in Austro-Hungary prior to WWI?
...that the poisonous mushroom Russula emetica, commonly known as "the sickener", is hoarded and eaten by the Red Squirrel?
...that preselection is the process by which a candidate is selected, usually by a political party, to contest an election for political office, an example being the United States presidential primary?
...that the Belgian cartoonist Karl Meersman was at first disqualified from a drawing contest at age thirteen, because the jury did not believe his drawing had been created by a child?
...that The Drug Years, a documentary chronicling illicit drug use in the United States, features never-before-seen film of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' acid-fueled bus trip across America in 1964?
...that Ian Browne and Tony Marchant won the tandem track cycling at the 1956 Olympics after being eliminated?

08:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Unknown Confederate Soldier Monument (pictured) in Hart County, Kentucky is unique for being built with geodes, and for honoring a Louisiana soldier who died accidentally by his own rifle?
...that Mayor Frank E. Rodgers served 48 years as mayor of Harrison, New Jersey, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-serving mayor in United States history?
...that James A. Forbes planned to build the first flour mill in California, but delays in construction allowed competitors to flourish, driving down prices and forcing him into bankruptcy?
...that for a pure wave motion in fluid dynamics, the Stokes drift velocity is the average velocity when following a specific fluid parcel as it travels with the fluid flow?
...that Jack Brod was the last remaining original tenant of the Empire State Building, New York City, at the time of his death in 2008?
...that Earnshaw Cook performed his early baseball statistics calculations with a mechanical calculator and slide rule, the latter of which resides in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum?

01:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

...that an abundance of olivine in a nearby collapsed cinder cone gives the sand of Mahana Beach (pictured) a distinctive green coloration?
...that Helmut Dähne has held the official motorcycle lap record on the 20.8 km (12.9 mi) long Nordschleife track in Germany since 1988?
...that the ten Revenue Marine cutters authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1790 – including the Vigilant, Active, General Green, Massachusetts, Scammel, South Carolina and Eagle – comprised the U.S. Federal government's first "armed force afloat"?
...that the Latin familia must be translated as "household" rather than as "family", since neither classical Greek or Latin had a word corresponding to modern-day family?
...that the 2003 book Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by ethnohistorian Matthew Restall debunks seven popularly held beliefs about how Spanish conquistadors conquered the Aztecs?
...that when politics threatened funding for the Fuji class battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1893, Emperor Meiji offered to pay from the expenses of the Imperial Household himself?
...that the first radio network in North America was created by the Canadian National Railway in 1923?

24 January 2008

18:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

File:Natalka-Poltavka (1936).jpg

...that the 1937 film Natalka Poltavka (poster pictured), directed by Vasyl Avramenko, was the first Ukrainian language film produced in the United States?
...that Entoloma sinuatum was implicated in 10% of mushroom poisonings in Europe in the mid-20th century?
...that Walter Bowart was a proponent of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, the writer of a seminal book on mind control, as well as a prolific publisher and editor of both newspapers and magazines?
...that in the process of carbonic maceration, which is used to produce Beaujolais wine, fermentation takes place inside the individual grape berry?
...that William Larkin was identified as the Jacobean era portraitist formerly known as "The Curtain Master" by art historian Roy Strong?
...that 250,000 kilometers (150,000 miles) of roads complement air, pipeline, hiking trail, and waterway travel to provide transportation in Saskatchewan?
...that straight pool champion "Cowboy" Jimmy Moore earned his nickname by appearing at a professional tournament wearing the required tuxedo, but nevertheless sporting cowboy boots and his signature white Stetson hat?

12:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

...that during the Revolt of the Admirals, future four-star admiral Charles D. Griffin (pictured) wrote the congressional testimony whose delivery caused Chief of Naval Operations Louis E. Denfeld to be fired?
...that construction of Lake Winfield Scott Recreation Area was the last project completed by the US Civilian Conservation Corps in the state of Georgia?
...that Ruth Maier, an Austrian Jew who found refuge in Norway until her deportation and death at Auschwitz in 1942, has been called "Norway's Anne Frank"?
...that Alice Stebbins Wells was the first female police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department?
...that the film State of Play, which began principal photography on January 11, 2008 with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck in the lead roles, was originally set to star Brad Pitt and Edward Norton?
...that Gary Baker and Frank J. Myers, who won a Grammy for writing the crossover song "I Swear", recorded an album in 1995 as the duo Baker & Myers?

05:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Clem Hill (pictured), batting with Roger Hartigan against the 1907–08 England touring team at the Adelaide Oval, set an Australian Test cricket record partnership for the eighth wicket which stands to this day?
...that the Italian wine Orvieto was historically made with noble rot, but, unlike other botrytized wines such as Sauternes, the fungus was introduced after harvest in humid storage caves?
...that Iranian dutar player and vocalist Qorban Soleimani is credited with inventing a new form of the ancient Azeri stringed instrument the gopuz?
...that the Alvin C. York Institute in Tennessee, which opened in 1929, was established as a private agricultural school by World War I hero Alvin York?
...that Scott Shafer, hired in January 2008 as the Michigan Wolverines defensive coordinator, started in football as a high school and college quarterback in Ohio?
...that London's Army and Navy Club stands on a site once partly occupied by the house of the actress Moll Davis, a mistress of King Charles II?
...that the Right Revd Graham Charles Chadwick served as a naval intelligence officer in World War II and was expelled from South Africa for anti-apartheid activism?

23 January 2008

22:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

...that The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul (pictured) was a manuscript translated, scribed, and embroidered for queen Katherine Parr by future queen Elizabeth I when the latter was eleven years old?
...that Robert McGill Loughridge co-authored the English and Muskogee Dictionary in 1890, the first English dictionary of the Creek language?
...that Cyclone Elita in January 2004 crossed Madagascar three times, an unusual event but not unprecedented?
...that German record producer and journalist Uwe Nettelbeck changed the face of German rock music in the early 1970s?
...that the SS Tararua sank off the Catlins in 1881, in New Zealand's worst civilian shipping disaster?
...that Entally was home to the poor and the depressed, and a neighbourhood where Mother Teresa started her active life in Kolkata, India?
...that Philadelphia publisher F. A. Davis brought electricity to St. Petersburg, Florida, and founded nearby Pinellas Park after hearing a lecture on Florida's medical benefits?
...that the northern half of Oklahoma State Highway 95 was once part of U.S. Route 56?

15:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

...that St. Elizabeth's Church (pictured), constructed in memory of a Russian princess, is the only Russian Orthodox church in Wiesbaden, Germany?
...that the director of the 1981 Spanish film Deprisa, Deprisa (English: Hurry, Hurry!) was accused of paying his cast in hard drugs?
...that Academy Street was part of Poughkeepsie's first planned neighborhood?
...that Prince Esper Ukhtomsky's account of Nicholas II's Eastern tour, Travels in the East of Nicholas II, was written in close consultation with the Tsar himself?
...that after his father told him to "Get out and make a living and don't ask me for a dollar!", James Rand, Jr. founded American Kardex, which purchased his father's company five years later?
...that the German Renaissance castle Schloss Brenz now regularly hosts concerts?
...that intelligence analyst Richard Barlow was fired for claiming that the Pentagon had falsified information about weapons of mass destruction in 1989?
...that the British First World War general Sir William Peyton served as Delhi Herald of Arms Extraordinary at the Delhi Durbar of 1911?

09:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Domhnall mac Raghnaill (pictured) was the founder of the MacDonald clan?
...that according to market researcher Mintel on green marketing patterns, only 12% of the U.S. population can be identified as True Greens, consumers who seek out and regularly buy so-called green products?
...that architect, former partner at Skidmore Owings & Merrill, and founder of Lucien Lagrange Architects, Lucien Lagrange was a high school dropout?
...that DBS Building Tower One, the tallest building in Singapore when completed in 1975, is an example of brutalist architecture?
...that a tornado outbreak in 1974 caused Owsley Brown Frazier to start a firearm collection large enough for a museum?
...that rugby union footballer George MacPherson was the captain of the first Scotland team to ever win a Five Nations Grand Slam?
...that in 1792, Deputy Sheriff Isaac Smith of the New York City Sheriff's Office became the first law enforcement officer to die in the line of duty in the United States?

03:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

...that opera singer Jessie Bartlett Davis (pictured) volunteered to pay for the publishing of the parlor song "I Love You Truly", the first song written by a woman to sell one million copies?
...that the Felixstowe Fury was a five-engined triplane flying boat that crashed in 1919, the day before a planned 8,000 mile (12,900 km) flight from England to South Africa?
...that the South Korean film The Host was recognized as Best Picture at the 1st Asian Film Awards, held in 2007?
...that Othniel Charles Marsh named two species of the dinosaur Coelurus from the same quarry, not knowing that the bones belonged to the same skeleton?
...that the Weekly Arizonian, first published in 1859, was Arizona's first newspaper?
...that annual construction of the St. Moritz-Celerina Olympic Bobrun in Switzerland takes three weeks, fifteen ice workers, 5,000 m³ of snow, and 4,000 m³ of water?
...that members of the Appalachian Volunteers were charged with sedition in 1967 for plotting the violent overthrow of Pike County, after the group's successful efforts led to closure of a Kentucky coal mine?
...that American swimmer Nancy Merki began swimming at age 8 after contracting polio, and set three national swimming records at age 13?

22 January 2008

20:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Felbrigge Psalter (pictured) is the oldest embroidered bookbinding in England?
...that Frank Loughran played for the Socceroos at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, scoring a goal in the first game his adopted country of Australia ever played in Olympic soccer?
...that in the Polish-Austrian War of 1809, part of the War of the Fifth Coalition, Polish forces under Józef Antoni Poniatowski neutralized an Austrian force twice their size and liberated most of the Austrian-held Polish territory?
...that New York City-born mathematician Judith Roitman serves as the guiding teacher of the Kansas Zen Center?
...that pitcher Bill Zuber was the winning pitcher for a game played on September 21, which gave the Boston Red Sox 100 victories for the 1946 season?
...that Edward Kennon replaced John S. Hunt, III, on the Louisiana Public Service Commission in 1972, and that both politicians were nephews of former Louisiana governors?

13:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

...that there is a plan to shift Kolkata's traditional wholesale market in Posta (pictured) to the newly developed New Town?
...that the Zarah Leander film La Habanera takes place in 1937 Puerto Rico but was filmed in the Canaries during the Spanish Civil War?
...that the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary is Canada's largest wildlife refuge, covering 26,000 square miles (67,000 km²)?
...that in the churchyard of Morwenstow Church is the preserved figurehead of the Scottish brig The Caledonia, which was shipwrecked nearby in 1843?
...that the effects of head trauma on memory can be seen by the post-operative results of HM, a patient who has been unable to form any new long-term memories since a surgical procedure performed in the 1950s?
...that the Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a medium-sized sparrow of the southwestern United States and Mexico, has a subspecies endemic to the Todos Santos Islands that has not been seen since the 1970s?

07:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track (pictured) in Lake Placid, New York was the first track to host the bobsleigh and luge world championships outside of Europe, doing so in 1949 and 1983, respectively?
...that the story of Stephen Foster visiting what is now My Old Kentucky Home State Park may have started in order to raise the sale value of the property?
...that in the 1936 expansion of the Ronaldsway Airport, workers discovered a mass grave believed to hold the remains of soldiers who died during the 1275 Battle of Ronaldsway?
...that in 1924, English light heavyweight boxer Jack Bloomfield fought American Tommy Gibbons in the first ever boxing match to be held at London's famed Wembley Stadium?
...that although the opposition gained 40% of the vote in the 1990 Mongolian legislative election, it only received 14% of the parliamentary seats?
...that Queen Elizabeth II was given a Louisville Stoneware musical box at the 2007 Kentucky Derby?

21 January 2008

23:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Texas Tower lighthouses (one pictured) were based on the design of off-shore oil platforms?
...that Joan Ingpen and her pet dachshund Williams were the founding partners of the Ingpen & Williams classical music talent agency?
...that the last ever train on the Plymouth to Launceston line failed to complete its journey on 29 December 1962 due to heavy snow?
...that British Conservative MP Sir Adam Butler called in the receivers at the De Lorean Motor Company while serving as minister for economic development in Northern Ireland in 1982?
...that Przemysław I Noszak, Duke of Cieszyn unsuccessfully tried to negotiate peace between England and France fighting the Hundred Years' War?
...that City Academy High School in Saint Paul, Minnesota, became the first charter school in the U.S. when it opened its doors to 30 students on September 7, 1992?
...that neurologist Michael Ashby, an expert witness for the prosecution in the 1957 trial of suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams, was widely blamed for its failure because his evidence was too indecisive?
...that Victoriatown, a Canadian village bulldozed by the Montreal government in preparation for Expo 67, was used as a setting for Ha Jin's award-winning novel, Waiting: a Novel?
...that, after helping enact abstinence-only sex education as a school board member, Colorado state senator Scott Renfroe attempted to amend statewide comprehensive sex ed standards to exempt schools in his native Weld County?

15:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Mosque of Omar (pictured) is Bethlehem's only mosque, named after the Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab, who prayed at the location of the mosque?
...that Alyosha Karamazov, the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, is based on Vladimir Solovyov, a Russian philosopher and poet?
...that none of Louisville's fortifications for the American Civil War were ever used, as Louisville was never endangered while they existed?
...that the German architect Walter Gropius visited Peru in order to attend a graduation ceremony at the National University of Engineering Faculty of Architecture?
...that in 1824, the Kentucky General Assembly responded to a disfavorable ruling by the Kentucky Court of Appeals by abolishing the court and replacing it with a new one?
...that James A. Martin was the world's oldest Jesuit priest at the time of his death at the age of 105 in 2007?
...that preservationists moved the Boscobel mansion 15 miles (24 km) up the Hudson River to save it?
...that after being convicted of first-degree murder in 2007, Jason Coday headbutted his own attorney in a Juneau, Alaska, court?
...that the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, founded in 1914 as part of the Smith-Lever Act, is the largest Cooperative Extension Service agency in the U.S.?

06:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Elizabethan Sir John Thynne (pictured) was twice imprisoned in the Tower of London?
...that the Japanese make-up artist Shu Uemura gained critical acclaim for transforming actress Shirley MacLaine into a Japanese woman?
...that Soviet literature declared Russian the "world language of internationalism", denouncing French as the "language of fancy courtiers" and English as the "jargon of traders"?
...that the ancient Olympic athlete Milo of Croton reportedly drank 10 liters of the Calabrian wine Cirò every day, and that the same wine is still being produced today?
...that in O'Donnabhain v. Commissioner, the United States Tax Court is presented for the first time with the issue of whether sex reassignment surgery is tax deductible?
...that fake names and scenes were given to actors auditioning for roles in the upcoming episode titled "Confirmed Dead" of the fourth season of ABC's television series Lost to limit the leak of spoilers?
...that the more than two centuries old Gun and Shell Factory at Cossipore, a neighbourhood in north Kolkata, is the oldest surviving factory in the Indian subcontinent?

00:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Charles Le Gendre (pictured), was born in France, married in Belgium, but died an American general in 1899, working for King Gojong, Emperor of Korea?
...that during the 1917 Kazan Gunpowder Plant fire, its manager Vsevolod Luknitski died after flooding explosives with water, in order to save the whole city from a major explosion?
...that a large coastal defense gun was temporarily installed at Oregon's scenic Cape Perpetua during World War II?
...that of the members of Australia's Quietly Confident Quartet that won the 4 × 100 m medley relay at the 1980 Olympics, Mark Tonelli, Mark Kerry and Neil Brooks were either suspended or expelled by the Australian Swimming Union while Peter Evans refused coaching orders to train harder?
...that the St. James-Belgravia Historic District of Louisville, Kentucky, the site of the 1883-87 Southern Exposition, has buildings modeled after London's Belgravia?

20 January 2008

16:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

...that space artist Jon Lomberg (artwork pictured) was Carl Sagan's principal artistic collaborator on many projects such as Cosmos and the Voyager Golden Record?
...that Lyrcus is the name shared by two ancient Greek figures?
...that Omar Osama bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, has proposed a 3000-mile horse race to replace the Dakar rally, canceled the week before due to al-Qaeda threats?
...that the Tingari cycle in Australian Aboriginal mythology embodies a vast network of Aboriginal Dreaming songlines that traverse the Western Desert region of Australia, and is frequently the subject of Aboriginal Art?
...that Republican Governor Bobby Jindal supported Joel Chaisson, a Democrat, to become the new president of the Louisiana State Senate?
...that a successful experimental system must be stable and reproducible enough for scientists to make sense of the system's behavior, but unpredictable enough that it can produce useful results?

09:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

...that St George's Church, Brighton (pictured) became so popular after Queen Adelaide started attending that in order to increase its seating capacity, master builder Thomas Cubitt built an extra gallery in one week?
...that the trophy awarded to the first winners of Norwegian film award Amanda, at a weight of 4.5 kg (9.92 lbs), was difficult for some recipients to lift?
...that future Soviet psychiatrist Yuri Nuller was sent into the Gulag for supposedly being recruited by the French secret service at the age of three?
...that the Peter C. DuBois House in Beacon, New York was reused as a sanatorium for much of the 20th century?
...that the unsuccessful, day-long Rebellion of Cao Qin within Beijing, China in 1461 forced the Tianshun Emperor to blockade the gates of the Forbidden City with debris stripped from the Imperial Waterway?
...that British-American philanthropist Rhoda Pritzker reportedly wore a life preserver on her entire trans-Atlantic voyage to the United States in 1939 due to the threat of German U-boat attacks?

03:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Santa Maria delle Carceri, a church in Prato, Italy, was built on the site of the city's old medieval jail?
...that the Italian government submitted the Medici villas (pictured) in Tuscany for designation as a World Heritage Site in 2006?
...that one of the most important advances in medieval Islamic psychology was the establishment of the first psychiatric hospitals?
...that in Slavic vampire folklore, vampires could take the form of butterflies?
...that because of the laws pertaining to birth aboard aircraft and ships, that it is possible for a person born in a British ship, anchored at a United States port, with a Chinese father and a Turkish mother, to have quadruple nationality?

01:37, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
...that German-born Guenther Podola was the last man to be hanged in Britain for killing a police officer?
...that the Koitsenko were the honorary elite of the Kiowa dog soldiers, who tribal lore says called themselves that because they had dreams or visions of dogs?
...that the genus Entomocorus includes a catfish species that lives only one year?
...that in the year 1214, the Scot Ruaidhri mac Raghnaill, Lord of Kintyre, stole the treasures of Derry from its monastery?
...that Independence Day Award is the highest state award given by the Government of Bangladesh?

19 January 2008

17:43, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

...that dhakis (pictured), traditional Bengali drummers, allegedly kill more than 40,000 egrets, pheasants, herons and open bill storks every year to decorate their instruments with feathers?
...that British Conservative politician Sir John Loveridge published poetry and exhibited paintings and sculpture after serving 13 years as a member of Parliament?
...that the Aboriginal Community Court is an Australian court which aims to reduce the overrepresentation of aboriginal criminal offenders in the justice system?
...that because of Canada's controversial cancellation of the Avro Arrow, 428 All Weather Fighter Squadron of the RCAF was disbanded on June 1, 1961?
...that New York Giants quarterback Harry Newman threw the first touchdown pass in an NFL Championship Game 75 years ago in the 1933 NFL Championship Game against the Chicago Bears?
...that less than two months after showing what would become the dress of the season for Spring 2006, Roland Mouret split from his backers and took a two-year hiatus from the fashion industry?
...that when San Francisco–based photographer William Rulofson fell to his death, he was heard to have exclaimed, "I am killed"?

11:41, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Pea Island Life-Saving Station (pictured) on the Outer Banks of North Carolina was the first station of the United States Life-Saving Service to be staffed entirely by an African American crew?
...that the passing lanes of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, California's first freeway, were paved in a different color to encourage drivers to stay in their lanes?
...that Terminonatator ponteixensis is the type and only species described for Terminonatator, a genus of elasmosaurid plesiosaur from Late Cretaceous of Saskatchewan, Canada?
...that the Cohocksink Creek was once the boundary between two Pennsylvania towns and now runs beneath the streets of the Philadelphia neighborhood of Northern Liberties?
...that 2002's Hurricane Elida was the first hurricane to be observed by the MERIS sensor aboard the ESA's satellite Envisat?
...that the former chief architect of Yerevan, Arthur Meschian, was also one of the founders of Armenian rock?
...that London's Gresham Club (1843—1991) was named after Sir Thomas Gresham, an Elizabethan merchant?
...that violent, porno-chic fashion photography in French and Italian Vogue influenced the sexualized glamor of western cosmetics in the 1970s?

04:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Roman Temple of Évora (pictured) in Portugal, was used as a butcher shop for nearly 500 years and thus survived destruction?
...that the San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway was San Francisco's first electric streetcar company?
...that the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track constructed for the 1976 Winter Olympics in Austria, was the first permanent, combination artificially refrigerated track?
...that only the shorter of the two Berks and Hants Railway lines actually entered Hants, the longer being entirely in the county of Berks?
...that Danish film director Pernille Fischer Christensen's first feature film, about the relationship between a beauty shop owner and a transvestite, won a Silver Bear prize at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival?
...that the type specimen of Dromicosuchus had damage to its jaw and neck that may have been inflicted by the teeth of the large carnivore it was found underneath?
...that Tommy Johnson holds the record for the most goals scored by a Manchester City player in a single season?
...that Solomon Bibo was a Prussian-born Jew who became the equivalent of tribal chief of the Acoma Pueblo?

18 January 2008

19:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the scientific name of the common Australian garden fungus Aseroë rubra (pictured) means 'red disgusting juice'?
...that Indian company Reliance Power attracted US$27.5 billion of bids on the first day of its initial public offering (IPO), equivalent to 10.5 times the stock on offer, thereby creating India's IPO record?
...that the statue of King Louis XVI built in 1829, currently at the Metro Hall in Louisville, Kentucky, was endangered by the Second French Revolution in 1830?
...that Midford Castle was built in the shape of the ace of clubs (♣)?
...that Edwin Q. Cannon was sent by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a missionary to establish the first LDS churches in West Africa?
...that FPT University, a college in Ho Chi Minh City specializing in information technology, became the first private university in Vietnam when it was established in 2006?

11:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Sankey Valley Park, Warrington (pictured) follows the course of the historical Sankey Canal, England's first canal?
...that Scottish film actor Moultrie Kelsall played a pivotal role in saving the dilapidated Menstrie Castle in Clackmannanshire from demolition?
...that during the reign of Beorhtwulf of Mercia, London, the chief trading centre of Mercia, was attacked twice, in 842 and again in 851, by Viking armies?
...that football manager Yvon Pouliquen led two clubs to victory in the French Cup Final and relegation from the top division in consecutive seasons?
...that the 1956 My Fair Lady by Shelly Manne & His Friends was the first album ever made consisting entirely of jazz versions of tunes from a single Broadway musical?
...that after Comanche prophet Isa-tai promised a coalition of Native American warriors they would be invulnerable in battle and they lost, he blamed a Cheyenne killing a skunk for negating his magic?

04:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

...that 2005's Hurricane Kenneth (pictured) brought heavy rainfall to Oahu and Kauai in Hawaii, enough for its name to be considered for retirement?
...that the Japanese visual novel True Tears was adapted into an animated television series that is planned to consist of thirteen episodes?
...that the One Child Policy of the People's Republic of China is based on Ma Yinchu's New Population Theory, which was criticized by the government after its publication in 1957?
...that Stubbins Ffirth drank vomit and smeared bodily fluids over himself in an attempt to prove that yellow fever was not contagious?
...that the death from disease in 951 of Gofraid mac Sitriuc, King of Dublin, was described as divine vengeance for his attack on the Abbey of Kells earlier in the year?
...that the military operation against the dervish forces of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, commonly known as the "Mad Mullah", was described by a British politician as "the cheapest war in history"?

17 January 2008

19:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the origins of Castle Lake (pictured) in California date to the Pleistocene Era (more than 10,000 years ago) when a glacier carved a basin in the location of the current lake?
...that Milwaukee Hawks player Don Boven fouled out of six consecutive NBA games in 1952—a record that still stands?
...that Italian explorer Rafael Perestrello, a cousin of Christopher Columbus, sailed on behalf of Portugal and established trading relationships for that country with the Ming Dynasty in China in 1516?
...that the Two Ladies was a euphemism used for the Ancient Egyptian deities Wadjet and Nekhbet, represented on the royal crowns of the merged Upper and Lower Egypt as a cobra and a vulture, respectively?
...that Inuit fur trader Stephen Angulalik sold umbrellas and parasols at his trading post in Northern Canada, which were covered in white cotton and used by hunters to sneak up on sleeping seals?
...that Kirill Eskov named a genus from the Linyphiidae spider family discovered by him in 1988 after Kikimora, a female spirit in Slavic mythology?

11:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

...that St Barnabas' Church (pictured), completed in Bromborough, England in 1864, has been called a "well-designed example of the work" of its architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott?
...that Ong Kim Seng is the only Asian artist outside the USA to be admitted into the American Watercolor Society, having won six awards from the society?
...that Ralph Heikkinen was the first All-American football player from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, being raised in the Finnish-American communities of the Gogebic Range?
...that the new BBC Two sitcom Never Better has been unfavourably compared with other dark sitcoms such as Curb Your Enthusiasm and Lead Balloon?
...that the English historian Sir Raymond Carr was knighted for services to History in the New Year Honours List, 1987?
...that an Enoteca, from the Italian for wine library, is a shop that offers tourists and visitors the opportunity to sample local wines for a reasonable fee?

04:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

...that there is a belief that a dip in the waters of Papanasam Beach (pictured), one of the beaches in Kerala, washes away sins?
...that the Ottoman frigate Ertuğrul disaster, which occurred in 1890 off Kushimoto, led to strengthening foreign relations between Turkey and Japan?
...that amphibious tanks which were used on D-Day were developed by Nicholas Straussler from Hungary?
...that Umberto Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space pays homage to Auguste Rodin's Walking Man?
...that the weedy scorpionfish can vary considerably in color as well as appendages depending on its environment?
...that the Matisse Museum in Le Cateau was created by Henri Matisse himself in 1952?

16 January 2008

22:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Joe Rice

...that Colorado state representative Joe Rice (pictured) resigned from the Glendale city council in 2003 when called up to serve in the U.S. Army in Iraq, where he advised the Baghdad city council?
...that it is expected to take 17 years to design and build the first of Australia's new submarines?
...that investment banker John P. Clay pursued his interest in Sanskrit literature by endowing the Clay Sanskrit Library, a 100-volume series of Sanskrit works translated into English?
...that surface weather observations play a key role in determining aircraft safety at airports?
...that Tommy Fleming was inducted into the American Soccer Hall of Fame in 2005, one of five soccer players unanimously selected to represent overlooked players from before the 1950s?
...that Abani Mukherji, co-founder of the Communist Party of India, was executed by the Soviet Union as part of the Great Purge?
...that Stanfield Wells was the first of more than ten All-American football players from Washington High School in Massillon, Ohio?
...that a coal mining spoil heap at Writhlington, England was the site for the discovery of fossilised remains of the world's earliest known Damselfly?
...that Richard C. McCarty helped launch the "Decade of Behavior" campaign to bring attention to the importance of behavioral and social research?
...that Charles Moir's first recruit as Roanoke College's basketball coach was Frankie Allen, who would eventually succeed Moir as head coach of Virginia Tech and become the school's first African American head coach?
...that the extinct Greenlandic Norse language is believed to have left loanwords in Kalaallisut?
...that Mohammad Shukri played for the Malaysian Under-15 cricket team at the age of 18, and for the Under-19 team at the age of 20?

14:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

...that on August 5, 1893, Cub Stricker (pictured) of the Washington Senators baseball team was arrested after intentionally throwing a baseball into the crowd that broke the nose of a fan?
...that Adelaide Johnson, sculptor of a memorial to women's suffrage in the US Capitol, was married in 1896 by a female minister, with two of her busts as bridesmaids?
...that the Directa Decretal (385 AD) was a strongly-worded letter by Pope Siricius reminding priests of the perpetual celibacy required of them?
...that graphic artist Rea Irvin's portrait of Eustace Tilly, a dandy peering at a butterfly through a monocle, appeared on the debut issue of The New Yorker in 1925, and annually each February until 1994?
...that the vote by Stanley Forman Reed to join the majority in Brown v. Board of Education made the ruling unanimous, helping to win public acceptance for the decision?
...that two teenage brothers from Poland escaped in 1985 to Sweden under a truck, and this event was presented in a 1989 film 300 Miles to Heaven?
...that the landmark 1924 case Tournier v National Provincial and Union Bank of England clarified English law on the obligations that a bank has to protect the confidentiality of its customers?
...that the supermassive black hole at the center of the quasar OJ287 has been measured to be 18 billion times the mass of the Sun, six times heavier than the previous record holder?
...that Karachi’s Lyari River is the major contributor to the annual discharge of 200 million gallons of sewage and Industrial waste into the Arabian Sea?
...that Cliff Friend co-wrote "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", the theme tune of the Looney Tunes cartoon series?

02:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

...that French aristocrats saw Jean-François Millet's The Gleaners (pictured) as an alarming glorification of the working classes?
...that Chardonnay grapes are very neutral in flavor with many of the characteristics commonly associated with Chardonnay wine being derived from influences like terroir and the use of oak during winemaking?
...that London's St James's Club (1857–1978) was claimed to be the only gentlemen's club with a room devoted solely to backgammon?
...that the traditional song Happy Birthday to You was first sung at the Little Loomhouse of Louisville, Kentucky?
...that before Nielsen BookScan began tracking point of sale data at bookstores, nobody knew how many copies were being sold of literary works that were published by multiple publishers and had entered the public domain?
...that when World War I aviator Stephen W. Thompson downed an Imperial German Army Air Service Albatros D.III on February 5, 1918, he became the first American to ever shoot down an enemy airplane?
...that Sydney's Alexandra Canal is an artificial waterway originally planned to join Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay?
...that when Manolo Reyes created and hosted one of South Florida's first Spanish-language newscasts in 1960, the station received a number of complaints from non-Spanish speakers?
...that St John the Evangelist's Church, Weston, Runcorn, Cheshire is known as "The Choirboys' Church" because its choirboys wrote thousands of letters to raise money to build it?

15 January 2008

20:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Robert Peake the Elder worked in the Office of the Revels under Elizabeth I before being appointed "Serjeant Painter" to James I, a role in which he was responsible for portraits of Prince Henry (pictured)?
...that years after Adolph Spreckels shot M. H. de Young, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (which he donated) and the De Young Museum merged to form the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco?
...that three different Somali government organizations have sold rights for oil exploration in Puntland in the last three years?
...that under the guidance of civil engineer Eugène Belgrand, Paris's sewer system expanded four-fold between 1852 and 1869?
...that one of the classifications used in proxemics is the classification of spaces into sociofugal or sociopetal spaces (the names being analogues of the words "centrifugal" and "centripetal")?
...that as well as being the only contemporary anthology of 17th century Scottish Gaelic verse, the Fernaig manuscript is written in a form of English orthography unique to the author?
...that Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, which ran on CBS from 1956–1961, had five spin-off series, the most successful having been Chuck Connors' The Rifleman, which ran on ABC from 1958–1963?
...that writer Ngaire Thomas was forced at the age of 15 to apologise in front of 600 members of her church congregation for "fornicating" with her cousin, when in fact she had only kissed him?
...that Peter de Villiers was named coach of South Africa's national rugby union team, the Springboks, in January 2008, the first ever black coach of the team?

14:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the largest private home in the U.S. in 1790, Hampton Mansion (pictured), was occupied by the same family until 1948 and is the first national historic site selected by the U.S. National Park Service for architectural significance?
...that Louisville's Eleven Jones Cave is the only known location for the Louisville cave beetle, Pseudanophthalmus troglodytes?
...that "Big" Alma Spreckels once successfully sued an ex-lover for "personal defloweration"?
...that the church of Hagia Thekla in Constantinople, now a mosque, was rebuilt by Emperor Isaac I Komnenos as thanks for surviving a hunting accident?
...that the six episodes of the Japanese original video animation series FLCL were produced by the FLCL Production Committee, which included Gainax, Production I.G, and Starchild Records?
...that Hurricane Henri of 1979 was only one of four tropical cyclones in the 20th century to enter the Gulf of Mexico and not make landfall?
...that Alameda Street was built by Los Angeles County, California as a "truck boulevard" to the port?
...that Jeffrey Miles, a chief justice in Australia, once heard a case in which a woman sought damages for losing the opportunity to work as a prostitute following a fall in a supermarket?
...that American lyric soprano Helen Jepson was first soprano on the original recording of Porgy and Bess?
...that Böttcherstrasse in Bremen, Germany, is an unusual ensemble of expressionist architecture?

04:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's Grande Odalisque (pictured) is thought to be painted with between two and five vertebrae "too many"?
...that at age 13 Susy Clemens wrote a biography of her father Mark Twain that was included in his posthumously published work, Chapters from my Autobiography?
...that the Chief Industrial Magistrate's Court heard the first Australian criminal prosecution of a bank for failing to protect its employees from armed holdups by improving safety at branches?
...that Towson (Md.) Methodist Church's membership split in two for 90 years after a dispute over the American Civil War?
...that Capitol Offense, the rock band of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, has opened for REO Speedwagon, Percy Sledge, Willie Nelson, and even Grand Funk Railroad?
...that Lorenzo Sawyer was the first judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit?
...that the main house of the Thaddeus Hait Farm is built of wood and stone, an unusual combination in a Federal style building?
...that Blessed Veronica of Milan unsuccessfully tried to teach herself to read until an apparition of the Virgin told her that spiritual lessons were more important?
...that Hurricane Ava was the first Pacific hurricane flown into by NOAA aircraft?
...that since its original completion in 1972, the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track in Oberhof, Germany has undergone three separate renovations?

14 January 2008

21:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Frauenfriedenskirche (pictured) at Frankfurt am Main (Germany) is an unusual expressionist church, decorated with monumental mosaics?
...that two new amphibious warfare ships of Australia to be added to the nation's fleet starting in 2012 will each be able to carry an entire infantry battalion and up to 16 helicopters?
...that The Expert at the Card Table, one of the most famous books on magic and card tricks, was written in 1902 by S. W. Erdnase, an author whose identity has been an enduring mystery for over 100 years?
...that Robert Campbell Reeve, the founder of Reeve Aleutian Airways, set a new world record for the highest landing of a ski equipped aircraft at 8,750 feet (2,667 m) on Mount Lucania in 1937?
...that the Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque in Istanbul features a cypress tree with a chain that was swung between two people who gave contradictory statements to determine which one was telling the truth?
...that William Melmoth's 1711 work The Great Importance of a Religious Life Consider'd went through thirty editions and sold over 420,000 copies by the end of the century?
...that Polly Horvath's award-winning 2001 children's novel Everything on a Waffle tells the story of Primrose Squarp, an 11-year old girl whose parents are lost in a typhoon?
...that Hurricane Greg caused one of Mexico's highest rainfall totals from a Pacific hurricane?
...that the original land deed requires that a jail cell from the original Dutchess County courthouse be preserved in the current building?
...that the Nepalese Maoist Newar National Liberation Front sponsored the 'Miss Newa' beauty pageant despite having previously demonstrated against it?

14:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

...that William Hogarth's The Distrest Poet (pictured) depicts a very poor family living in a squalid garret while the man of the family, who pursues a literary career in disregard of his family's poverty, attempts to write a poem entitled "Upon Riches"?
...that London's historic United University Club (1821-1972) is now occupied by the London Centre of the University of Notre Dame?
...that Francisco de Quevedo's 1626 novel El Buscón, a major work of Spanish literature, was published without the permission of the author?
...that Operation Camargue, one of the largest operations of the First Indochina War, failed to snare the Viet-Minh's Regiment 95?
...that in 1920, George Shima was dubbed "The Potato King" as he controlled 85% of California's potato market?
...that Think!, the Jeopardy! theme song by show creator Merv Griffin, has earned over $70 million in royalties since it debuted in 1964?
...that Vereniging Basisinkomen is an organization that advocates granting all Dutch residents a guaranteed minimum income?
...that Mike Trinh, an American attorney who represents a Guantanamo detainee on a pro bono basis, studied under Viet Dinh, author of the Patriot Act?
...that Le chemin de fer, a piano composition by Charles-Valentin Alkan, is the first musical depiction of a railway?
...that Hugh Denis Macrossan was one of Queensland's shortest serving chief justices, a post also held by his brother and his nephew?
...that Catherine O'Flynn's mystery novel What Was Lost won the First Novel Award at the 2007 Costa Book Awards?

02:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Cyclone Inigo (pictured) caused more casualties before forming than after?
...that R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck wanted to produce Uncle Tupelo's album March 16–20, 1992 after seeing the band perform a cover version of the Louvin Brothers' "Great Atomic Power"?
...that American mathematician and classical pianist Leonard Gillman received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1953, a decade after completing the required coursework?
...that the captain of the steamboat Natchez would increase his boat's speed by putting bacon and hog fat in its engines, and giving his men whiskey?
...that Pachycheilosuchus, an Early Cretaceous crocodile relative, was less than a meter (3.3 ft) long and had an armored neck?
...that the Hebrew term Illui, meaning genius, refers to Talmud scholars held in the highest regard?
...that Traffic in Towns, a 1963 report by the UK Department of Transport, warned of damage to town centres by car traffic, and offered solutions to the problem?
...that as part of the redesign of the Grand Staircase in the Truman-era White House, architect Lorenzo Winslow developed a series of maquettes, detailed scale models showing the proposed designs?
...that the current Australian prime minister and treasurer both attended Nambour State High School?
...that even as he embarked on a 24-year career in the U.S. Congress, William Alden Smith oversaw construction of the Grand Rapids, Kalkaska and Southeastern Railroad?
...that the Noric language is attested in only two inscriptions, one from Grafenstein, Austria, and the other from Ptuj, Slovenia?
...that New York City's General Motors Building sold for the record high price of $1.4 billion in 2003?
...that Hermann Göring's chief art looter, Bruno Lohse, controlled a secret vault of looted paintings, discovered in Zurich in May 2007?
...that the Rural City of Marong, a local government in Victoria, Australia, voted itself out of existence in 1994?

13 January 2008

20:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Poughkeepsie YMCA building (pictured) is the only one in the city using glazed terra cotta?
...that Doris Day rejected an offer to star in the 1957 biopic The Helen Morgan Story with Paul Newman, refusing to portray the sordid story of a character that conflicted with Day's on-screen persona?
...that the Portuguese conquest of the Jaffna Kingdom led to all the remaining royal descendants becoming nuns and monks in holy orders?
...that Sir Christopher Chancellor was selected to lead the Reuters news agency in 1944, after keeping the agency's reporting from China operating during the seven years following the Japanese invasion?
...that the BBC have used Appreciation Index ratings to gauge reactions of children to their programming?
...that the French flying boat Breguet 730 was designed in the 1930s, but didn't enter service in the French Navy until after the end of World War II due to the German occupation of that country?
...that, before building the landmark Gandy Bridge, George Gandy was known for building a large successful theatre, originally derided as "Gandy's White Elephant"?
...that Bruce Barton, in his bestselling 1925 book, The Man Nobody Knows, portrayed Jesus as "the founder of modern business"?
...that despite dropping out of a screenwriting course at university before graduating, Christopher B. Landon went on to write the box office hit film Disturbia?
...that Spanish officer Félix María Calleja del Rey was named "Count of Calderón" after leading his outnumbered forces to victory at the Battle of Calderón Bridge in the Mexican War of Independence?
...that Eric John Underwood spent 30 years researching the effects of sulphur, botulism and the nutritional value of hay on sheep at Avondale Agricultural Research Station?

13:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the large hanging nest of the Yellow-throated Scrubwren (pictured) is used by the Golden-tipped Bat as a daytime roost in the forests of Eastern Australia?
...that the Maniot pirate, Limberakis Gerakaris, was twice held as a prisoner by the Ottomans and spent the last fourteen years of his life as a Venetian prisoner?
...that freestyle swimmer Kim Peyton, a gold medalist at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, won a gold medal at the 1971 Pan American Games at age 14 and set three U.S. swimming records at ages 9 and 10?
...that the influence of Ancient Greece on wine has played a formidable role in the history of nearly every major European wine region and of wine itself?
...that Eric Clapton's guest appearance playing lead guitar on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was uncredited?
...that the Anglo-Bavarian Brewery, constructed in Somerset in 1864 and now designated as an historic site, was the first brewery in Britain to produce lager?
...that Paul Worley, a Grammy Award-winning country music record producer and guitarist, got his start in the 1970s playing guitar for Janie Fricke and Eddy Raven?
...that the Canal de Marseille, built in 1849, is an 80 kilometres (50 mi) canal which runs through Provence to bring water from the Durance to Marseille, in France?
...that David O. Selznick acquired the rights to make 1957's A Farewell to Arms from Warner Bros. by trading the foreign rights to remake A Star Is Born that Selznick owned and Warner needed?

06:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Western Australia's Number 1 sawmill, later called Deanmill (pictured), was constructed to provide timber railway sleepers for the Trans-Australian Railway?
...that Ric Williamson, the departed chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission advocated toll roads, including the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor, to increase his state's highway capacity?
...that The Hazel Scott Show was the first U.S. network television series to be hosted by a black woman?
...that despite multiple transfers of ownership, after 123 years trains still haul paper products over the White River Railroad's line?
...that Tabasco sauce heir John Avery McIlhenny stepped down as president of his family's company to serve in Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders volunteer cavalry regiment in 1898?
...that Englishman Christopher Merret wrote the first description of the méthode champenoise used to make sparkling wine, long before it was documented in the Champagne region of France?
...that Sara Gagliardi has introduced legislation in the Colorado House of Representatives to allow residents of that state to opt out from receiving junk mail?
...that Rastafarian Papa Noel Dyer, known as "the man who walked to Ethiopia" from England, actually hitchhiked?
...that some fish diseases are caused by carnivorous algae feeding on living prey?

00:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Captain (later Air Vice Marshal) William H. Anderson (pictured) and his observer, Lieutenant J.R. Bell, accounted for No. 3 Squadron AFC's first confirmed kill in World War I?
...that Alpine Club president Edward Lisle Strutt called the north face of the Eiger "an obsession for the mentally deranged of almost every nation"?
...that although American law requires proof of a defendant's "guilty mind" as an element of the crime, it is not concerned with motive?
...that Sir Condor Laucke was a member of the Parliament of South Australia and a President of the Australian Senate before serving as Lieutenant Governor of South Australia?
...that no commercial boat has beaten the steamboat Robert E. Lee's 1870 speed record between New Orleans and St. Louis of 90 hours and 14 minutes to this day?
...that a shell stitch is a crochet motif often used for decorative borders?
...that before he died, Dr William Oliver gave his coachman £100, 10 sacks of flour and a recipe for a type of biscuit named after its inventor that is still eaten today?
...that Canada and the Soviet Union were disqualified from the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships following the Punch-up in Piestany, costing Canada a potential gold medal?
...that a pig named King Neptune helped raise $19 million in war bonds between 1942 and 1946?

12 January 2008

14:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the hull of the kettuvallams, Kerala houseboats, (pictured) are built of wooden boards tied together by coir rope?
...that despite not being the most favored version of the three Mazda AZ-550 concept cars unveiled at the 1989 Tokyo Motor Show, the "Type A" ended up being selected for production?
...that the Tuanku Ja'afar Cup was a cricket tournament contested by the national sides of Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand from 1991-2004, and was won by Hong Kong in 9 of the 14 competitions?
...that French physician Edme Castaing is thought to have been the first person to commit murder using morphine, 18 years after it was discovered?
...that Nicholas de Balmyle, former Chancellor of Scotland, became Bishop of Dunblane in 1307 when he was likely in his 70s, but nevertheless lived on to hold the position for at least another 12 years?
...that the Cascade Locks and Canal, completed in 1896 to allow the steamboats of the Columbia River to bypass the Cascades Rapids, were submerged in 1938, when the Bonneville Dam was constructed?

05:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the construction of the Çanakkale Martyrs' Memorial (pictured), commemorating over 250,000 Turkish soldiers who participated in the Battle of Gallipoli in WWI, was completed with nationwide financial contributions?
...after years of studying airflow at supersonic speeds, Adolf Busemann suggested that aerodynamicists, who had forgotten his swept wing work until they got together again during Operation Paperclip, need to become 'pipe fitters'?
...that Earl Bakken who invented the wearable cardiac pacemaker and co-founded Medtronic also created The Bakken, the world's only library and museum devoted to electricity in life?
...that the Hoornbeek Store Complex in Napanoch, New York reflects the transition from the Federal style to Greek Revival in American architecture?
...that the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wheeler that the Constitution alone did not give the government of the United States the authority to prosecute kidnappers?
...that Tom Wolfe left Farrar, Straus and Giroux, his publisher for 42 years and 13 books, to make a deal with Little, Brown and Company for his forthcoming novel Back to Blood?
...that the Ladies' Confederate Memorial in Lexington, Kentucky was described by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper as "the most perfect thing of its kind in the South"?

11 January 2008

22:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

...that, in 1874, mountaineer Florence Crauford Grove led the first ascent of Mount Elbrus (pictured), the highest mountain in Europe?
...that the Battle of Dombås was a German attempt during the 1940 Norwegian Campaign at using Fallschirmjägers to cut rail and road links in central Norway?
...that Leo Laliman, while accredited for the solution to the Great French Wine Blight, was thought by many people to have introduced the pest which caused the blight?
...that former The Daily Telegraph obituaries editor Hugh Massingberd reshaped the style of the British obituary from a reverential recital of biographical data to a cunningly witty yet deadpan narrative on the decedent's life?
...that actor Loren Dean won a Theatre World Award in 1989 for his Off Broadway debut in the play Amulets Against the Dragon Forces?
...that of the vast Silva Carbonaria, "the charcoal forest" that stretched from south of Brussels to the Rhine in Merovingian days, 44.21 km² still remains in the Forêt de Soignes/Zoniënwoud?
...that in parts of the Kerala Backwaters the paddy fields are at a lower level than the water in canals, held back by dikes?

16:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

...that during World War II, No. 233 Squadron RAF (pictured) lost four aircraft out of a total of twenty-four supply flights flown at the end of D-Day, June 6, 1944?
...that 19th century magician and vaudeville star Anton Zamloch was accused, and then exonerated, of having "bewitched" a woman's wedding ring from her gloved hand?
...that in the 1783 Peace of Paris, the Dutch Republic granted to Great Britain unobstructed navigation rights in the eastern seas?
...that Australian poet and writer, Dame Mary Gilmore recorded her childhood memories of the dispossession of the Wiradjuri people and the destruction of native habitat by European settlers around Wagga Wagga?
...that in 1957, Art Houtteman was called "a pitcher of considerable promise" by Hal Lebovitz despite playing in his 12th and final Major League season that year?
...that the Workers and Peasants Party leader K.N. Joglekar successfully moved a resolution that the Indian National Congress should demand full independence for India?
...that the 1980s oil glut caused the world price of oil, which had peaked during the 1979 energy crisis at over US$35 per barrel, to dip below US$15 in the early 1980s?
...that a former principal of Tubman Elementary School in Washington, D.C. received a national award for her work which included a discipline program featuring a due process system for punishment referrals?

10:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the tropical marine fish razorbelly scad (Alepes kleinii, pictured) has a complicated taxonomic history in which the species has been described and named no less than seven times since 1793, including twice re-classified in 1833?
...that Humphrey Chetham founded Chetham's Library, the oldest public library in the English-speaking world?
...that Tiefland, Leni Riefenstahl’s last full-feature film, made it into the Guiness Book of World Records on account of its long production time?
...that Reeve Aleutian Airways was started with a down payment of $3,000 on one DC-3 aircraft, and that Robert Campbell Reeve, the founder, earned enough money in 53 days to purchase the aircraft outright and buy another three aircraft?
...that the sitcom pilot Free Agents is likely to become the third show from Channel 4's Comedy Showcase to be given a full series?
...that the East End Historic District in Newburgh, New York, has the most contributing properties of any Registered Historic District in the state?
...that the site of Endymion's cave, where Selene's beloved sleeps forever, a sanctuary on the slopes of Latmus, still exists in Aydin Province, southwestern Turkey?
...that two local Christians stopped by the dedication ceremony for Spring Glen Synagogue's Torah scrolls and presented the congregation with a Bible?
...that the BMW R1150GS motorcycle was used by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on their 2004 Long Way Round ride from London to New York?

01:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

...that San Martín Pajapan Monument 1 (pictured), a large Olmec statue of a young lord raising the axis mundi under supernatural protection, was found near the peak on an extinct volcano?
...that the Wellsville, Addison and Galeton Railroad was also known as "The Sole Leather Line"?
...that football midfielder Evan Berger was nominated for an informal Australia Day award by his local council for representing Australia in the national under-20 team?
...that the unofficial representative of Soviet Russia in the USA, Ludwig Martens, created an illegal Soviet Bureau that established links with more than one thousand American firms including J.P. Morgan banks?
...that although Were Ilu served as an organizing point for the Ethiopian army at the beginning of the First Italo-Abyssinian War, as late as 1962 this settlement was connected to nearby towns by only trails?
...that the drowning of Edwin, son of Edward the Elder, half-brother of King Athelstan of England, in 933 was described as an execution and a suicide by medieval English historians?
...that after losing the Battle of Toba-Fushimi in Japan's 1868 Boshin War, Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu took refuge on the USS Iroquois rather than spend the night in Osaka Castle?
...that All-American end Ed Frutig was the main pass receiver for Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon from 1938-1940?
...that Bury Castle in Greater Manchester was razed to the ground in 1485, 16 years after it was built, because its owner supported the losing side in the Wars of the Roses?

10 January 2008

19:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the practice of taking cats aboard ships (example pictured) dates back to the Ancient Egyptians?
...that the Louisville and Portland Canal, opened in 1830, was the first major improvement completed on a major river of the United States?
...that former Red Army Faction terrorist Stefan Wisniewski escaped from a reform school seven times in one year in his youth?
...that the Paw Paw Railroad was the shortest common carrier railroad in Michigan?
...that Joseph Lazarow, then mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey, shook over 11,000 hands in one day to break Theodore Roosevelt's record of 8,513?
...that the 2002 Pi Glilot bombing in Tel Aviv was a failed terror attack at a gas depot that could have killed thousands ?
...that in 1908 Eulabee Dix painted the last portrait from life of Mark Twain?
...that the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan organised India's first May Day celebrations in 1923?
...that after being ousted as mayor of Georgetown, Colorado, Koleen Brooks posed topless for Playboy?
...that fishes from the genus Alepes are characterised by a curve in their lateral line?
...that the anarcho-syndicalist Argentine Workers' Federation was the country's first national labor confederation?
...that E. S. Kennedy – a founding member of London's Alpine Club – proposed a modification to the mountaineering ice axe based on the American backwoodsman's axe?
...that actor Noah Bean says he was so shy as a child that his school asked his parents if there was something wrong at home?

13:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Cross of Valour and the Star of Courage (pictured) are the two highest ranks of Canadian Bravery Decorations?
...that with a rapidly declining birth rate, Japan's elderly, with the world's highest proportion at 20% of the population, is expected to double to 40% of residents by 2055?
...that although Hillary Clinton has fewer delegates than John Edwards to the state convention of the 2008 Iowa Democratic Caucuses, she would receive one more to the national convention?
...that Storm 91C of 2006 has been classified a tropical, subtropical, and extratropical cyclone?
...that the actors in the film Planet of Dinosaurs had to sign partial payment deferments on their contracts, because most of the budget was spent on stop motion dinosaurs?
...that the kitchen of the Conde-Charlotte House was originally constructed in 1822 to be the first courthouse and jail of Mobile, Alabama?
...that George the Hagiorite from Georgia who became Saint George to the Georgian Orthodox Church had his biography written in 1084 by a disciple who was called George?
...that before brick became available as a building material, churches in medieval Northern Europe were commonly built with glacial erratics and rubble?
...that in only his second Major League start, Dick Selma threw a New York Mets franchise record 13 strikeouts in a 10-inning shutout victory?
...that Bombardment of Algiers, an oil-on-canvas by Thomas Luny, depicts the titular battle in which over 1000 Christians were liberated from slavery in Algeria?
...that Job Charnock landed at Jorabagan, Sutanuti ghat in 1690, which is believed by many to be the starting point of the metropolitan growth of Kolkata?

03:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the doors of All Saints' Church, Wittenberg, Germany (pictured), in which he is also buried?
...that painter Herman Rose was noted for his Impressionistic portraits, created by painting large numbers of small blurry squares to create his highly detailed images of cityscapes?
...that Vorpostenboot, the patrol boats that the Kriegsmarine used in World War II, were in fact modified fishing ships?
...that the Japanese role-playing game Night Wizard! was adapted into an animated television series consisting of thirteen episodes?
...that Bunscoill Ghaelgagh is the only primary school that teaches only in the Manx language?
...that the Little Guilin in Singapore is given its name because of its resemblance to the scenery in Guilin, China?
...that Winston's Hiccup refers to the huge zigzag in Jordan’s eastern border with Saudi Arabia, supposedly because Winston Churchill hiccuped as he drew the boundary of Transjordan after a generous and lengthy lunch?
...that the Sturmtrupp-Pfadfinder, founded in 1926, was the first coed Scout association in Germany, and that they had strong ties to Scouts in the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia?
...that Sir James Hutchison, known as the "Pimpernel of the Maquis" for his liaison work with the French Resistance, was so well known to the Gestapo that he had plastic surgery before being parachuted into France after D-Day?

9 January 2008

21:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Hood Mockingbird (pictured) will occasionally attack people in an attempt to get fresh water from them?
...that despite its northern location, the Ahr produces more red wine from grapes like Pinot noir than any other wine region in Germany?
...that Pearson's Candy Company, a Saint Paul, Minnesota confectioner, once produced the Seven Up Bar and the Chicken Dinner Bar?
...that upon his 1915 arrest from the lines of the 12th Cavalry at Meerut, Vishnu Ganesh Pingle is said to have had enough explosives to blow up an entire regiment?
...that Ælfwynn became the second woman to rule the Mercians when her mother Æthelflæd died in 918, but was deposed by King Edward the Elder and sent into exile in December of that year?
...that when Rudolf Rocker became the editor of the short-lived Yiddish anarchist newspaper Dos Fraye Vort, he did not speak Yiddish?
...that the amino acid glutamine can be broken down to produce glutamate, aspartate, carbon dioxide, pyruvate, lactate, alanine and citrate?
...that James Duncan helped co-found both the American Federation of Labor and the International Labor Organization?
...that the Warsaw Armoured Motorized Brigade of the Polish Army during the German invasion in 1939, was commanded by Stefan Rowecki, who later became the first commander of the Polish resistance Armia Krajowa?

12:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

...that significant buildings of the Brick Gothic style (pictured), which came after Brick Romanesque and before Brick Renaissance, survive in 10 Northern European countries?
...that during the American Civil War, Indiana, a Northern state, saw one township secede from the Union?
...that the West India Fruit and Steamship Company's ferries carried cars and rail freight between the United States and Cuba until the American embargo on trade with Cuba?
...that children's TV show Supernormal was developed by the creators of the controversial internet cartoon Happy Tree Friends?
...that the 1951 Polish-Soviet territorial exchange was one of the biggest border corrections in Europe after 1945?
...that although South African rugby union player Werner Greeff scored only four tries, one of them was named his country's try of the year in 2002?
...that the Canadian Order of Military Merit has three different classes?
...that Siam Park, a water park under construction in Adeje, Tenerife, will have the world's largest collection of Thai buildings outside Thailand?
...that, despite being added to California's state highway system in 1933, the portion of State Route 190 over the Sierra Nevada remains unconstructed?
...that in addition to the 22 suspects listed by the Los Angeles District Attorney in the notorious unsolved Black Dahlia case of 1947, about 60 people confessed to the crime?
...that the Genoese troubadour Simon Doria was podestà of both Savona and Albenga?

05:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track (pictured) in Altenberg was constructed under armed security on order from East Germany's Stasi minister Erich Mielke?
...that New Zealand rugby union footballer Ali Williams did not start playing until he was aged 17, but earned three international caps before he was 22?
...that John "Jack" Frost, the highest-scoring South African Air Force ace of World War II, went missing in action, and his body and plane have never been found?
...that the 49th Hutsul Rifle Regiment of the Polish Army destroyed a large part of the SS Germania Regiment, in a night bayonet attack during the Polish September Campaign?
...that Czech figure skater Petr Barna was the first to successfully land a quadruple jump in Olympic competition, at the 1992 games?
...that in Greek mythology, Dorus is the name of the son of Hellen who was the eponymous founder of the Dorians?
...that Colorado state representative Cherylin Peniston won two Fulbright Scholarships while a public school teacher?
...that coach Harry Kipke had to travel to the home of All-American Maynard Morrison in 1930 to seek his father's permission to switch Morrison from a fullback to a center?
...that the Roman emperor Probus may have introduced Syrah vines to the Côte-Rôtie wine region with cuttings from the Sicilian province of Syracuse?

8 January 2008

23:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the tropical fish cleftbelly trevally (A. atropos, pictured) has no scales on its chest between its pectoral and pelvic fins?
...that the first major international chess tournament took place in London in 1851?
...that California State Route 174, which includes a historic 1924 bridge, was not designated a State Scenic Highway due to opposition by residents concerned about their property rights?
...that Helen Abbott Michael, originally trained as a pianist, became a plant chemist and earned her MD after a chance purchase of Helmholtz's Treatise on Physiological Optics on a trip to Europe?
...that Yvon Pedneault is the only person to have worked full-time for all three Montreal daily papers, as well as every television station that has carried Montreal Canadiens games?
...that Lód, the most recent book by Polish science-fiction writer Jacek Dukaj, is an alternate history novel of over 1000 pages?
...that a trio of pet Mexican Spinytailed Iguanas released on Gasparilla Island, Florida by a resident in the 1970s has led to a current population explosion of over 12,000 lizards?

15:33, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Westinghouse Time Capsules (pictured) of the 1939 New York World's Fair and the 1964 New York World's Fair were made of special metal alloys to resist corrosion for 5000 years, the time span of all previous recorded human history?
...that the Soviet 16th 'Lithuanian' Rifle Division had more enlisted Jews than any other division in the Red Army?
...that Lilstock church only holds one service a year, and the last marriage held there was in 1834?
...that Ben Finney, one of the Polynesian Voyaging Society founders who designed, built, and sailed the Hokulea on its first voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti, wrote his thesis on surfing for his M.A. degree?
...that the ticket lottery site for the December 2007 Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert featuring Led Zeppelin, crashed due to over a billion page views of fans seeking to purchase the 20,000 tickets on sale?
...that yards from scrimmage, total offense, all-purpose yardage, and return yards are all American and Canadian football statistics to measure advancement of the football?
...that the testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty, High Duke of Poland, in 1138, led to the fragmentation of Poland which lasted for 200 years?

04:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

...that smocking (sampler pictured) is an embroidery technique that mimics the effects of elastic?
...that the Soviet 383rd Rifle Division was originally comprised completely of miners from the Ukrainian Donets Basin?
...that the Caltech hacker who used a remote control to alter the scoreboard at the 1984 Rose Bowl received college credit for the prank?
...that radio broadcaster Scruff Connors hosted a continuous 36-hour program to raise funds for cancer research in 1980?
...that the marketing campaign for the reality television series Paranormal State featured the first commercial use of directional audio in a billboard?
...that only 42 players have scored five or more goals in an NHL game since the league started in 1917?
...that Hilf al-Fudul was a 7th-century alliance created by various Meccans, most notably Muhammad, to establish fair commercial dealing?

7 January 2008

21:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

...that a steam-powered portable engine (example pictured) drove the dynamo for the first floodlit football match in the UK in 1878?
...that the 1929 film The Surprise of a Knight is the earliest known gay, hardcore pornographic film in American cinematic history?
...that the Byzantine Empire and the Mongol Empire formed an alliance in 1263, and 4,000 Mongol soldiers were dispatched in 1282 to help defend Constantinople?
...that, according to the martyrology, the early 4th century Christian martyr Aedesius of Alexandria was tortured and drowned for striking a judge who had been forcing consecrated virgins to work in brothels?
...that the Midwestern United States territory band leader Nat Towles' fear of losing his best musicians kept him from striving for national prominence in the 1930s and 40s?
...that Oxford economist Włodzimierz Brus could not return to his homeland, Poland, in the 1990s, because his wife Helena Wolińska faced charges for her involvement in the execution of General Fieldorf?
...that the thirteen episodes of the Rental Magica anime were shown in a nonlinear order, meaning that the order the episodes were aired in is different from the episodes' chronological order?

14:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the future headquarters of the European Central Bank will be located at the Frankfurt Großmarkthalle (pictured), the former wholesale markets, an example of expressionist architecture by Martin Elsaesser?
...that although Horse-eye jack (Caranx latus) generally fear scuba divers, schools of them have been known to swarm divers because they are attracted to the bubbles a person exhales?
...that despite never surpassing 2,500 copies in circulation, the Jewish anarchist journal Germinal had a readership on four continents as a result of Eastern European Jewish migration?
...that the BBC's Bitesize online study resource has sections in Welsh and Gaelic?
...that All-American fullback Bill Daley is the only person ever to win Little Brown Jug games playing for both Minnesota and Michigan?
...that in Frendak v. United States the court ruled that a competent defendant, who experts testified was probably insane when he committed the crime, cannot be forced to use the insanity defense?

04:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Indianapolis's Scottish Rite Cathedral (pictured) is the largest building dedicated to Freemasonry in the United States, and features many measurements in multiples of 33?
...that many streets in Coconut Grove, Northern Territory, Australia are named after victims of the shipwreck of SS Gothenburg off the coast of Queensland in 1875?
...that the German Agricultural Society sets the assessment scale for the German wine classification system?
...that due to a lack of freight crossings of the Hudson River, trains must take a 280-mile (450 km) detour, the Selkirk hurdle, to cross into New York City from the south or west?
...that the Vlaamse Druivenveldrit Overijse, a cyclo-cross race held in Overijse, Belgium, was won 11 consecutive times in the 1980s by former four-time world champion Roland Liboton?
...that the sources of William Shakespeare's Hamlet lie in legends which may trace to an Indo-European origin?
...that Nigerian John Ezzidio, who was freed from a slave ship and landed in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1827, became the city's mayor eighteen years later, in 1845?

6 January 2008

19:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

...that All-American footballer Paul G. Goebel (pictured) recommended Gerald Ford to the coach of the Michigan football team and later urged Ford to run for Congress?
...that Nicholas Medforth-Mills, grandson of King Michael of Romania, is third in the line of succession to the defunct throne of Romania, and future Head of the Romanian Royal Family?
...that some animals interrupt their hibernation a couple of times during winter so that they can sleep?
...that the U.S. Navy and NSF Plateau research station on the Antarctic Plateau, though operational for only three years from 1966 to 1969, measured the coldest average monthly temperatures on Earth?
...that besides a mobile library, the Mobile Public Library also operates a system of libraries with eight branches and a local history and genealogy division with permanent addresses in Alabama?

12:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Black Spiny-tailed Iguana (pictured) of Central America is the world's fastest lizard, being clocked at 21.7 miles (34.9 km) per hour?
...that State Route 70, a National Scenic Byway through California's Feather River Canyon, was constructed using an access road laid out by the Utah Construction Company when it built the Western Pacific Railroad in the canyon?
...that the B-24 Liberator in which Air Marshal Sir Peter Drummond was travelling when lost at sea in 1945 had previously been the personal transport of Winston Churchill?
...that Yve Lavigueur, who initially became famous as a member of a family that won the biggest lottery jackpot in Canadian history in 1986, later published a book in 2000 on how they lost it all?
...that the atmosphere of Triton produces a surface pressure only 1/70,000th of that on Earth?
...that the 1920 French film Le Menage Moderne Du Madame Butterfly is the earliest known hardcore pornographic film to depict bisexual and homosexual intercourse?

05:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

...that it took an act of the Ohio General Assembly in 1894 to settle a property dispute regarding the Pennsylvania Company's use of the state-owned Walhonding Canal (pictured) lands for one of its railroads?
...that businessman Petr Kellner is the wealthiest man in the Czech Republic with an estimated net worth of US$6 billion?
...that Peter Shergold is currently Australia's most senior public servant?
...that the Marion, Illinois tornado outbreak in 1982 killed ten people and extensively damaged the town of Marion, Illinois?
...that the main opposition party of Zambia, the United National Independence Party, boycotted the 1996 Zambian Presidential election after their leader was prevented from standing?
...that Russian lawyer Vasily Aleksanyan was imprisoned just five days after his promotion to the position of Executive Vice-President of Yukos oil company?
...that German-American inventor Philip Diehl invented the ceiling fan in 1887 using a sewing machine motor?
...that the Emir of Katsina in northern Nigeria Usman Nagogo played polo with the highest handicap of any African?

5 January 2008

21:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

...that during the War of the Spanish Succession, 10,000 French soldiers attempted to take Schloss Hellenstein (pictured), a castle near Heidenheim in the Swabian Alb, but retreated without firing a shot because it was deemed too costly to attack?
...that a legend says that when Philip de Braose irreverently spent the night in a church dedicated to Saint Afan, he was struck blind the next morning and his hunting dogs went mad?
...that in attempting to stop U-30 from sinking the SS Fanad Head, two Blackburn Skuas managed to cripple themselves with their own bombs, causing them to crash?
...that after Bernard Natan directed and acted in hardcore heterosexual and bisexual pornographic films from 1920 to 1927, by 1929 he owned the giant French movie studio Pathé and later helped develop the anamorphic film lens?
...that while neighboring Bordeaux estates were still looking for a cure to heal their infected grapevines, Château Pavie-Macquin was one of the first to begin grafting phylloxera resistant American rootstock on their vines?
...that the question before the U.S. Supreme Court in Stogner v. California was whether ex post facto laws should also apply to sex offenders victimizing minors?

14:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Klevner de Heiligenstein, one of the few Alsatian wines that are not varietally labeled, is made from the Savagnin rose grape that is almost indistinguishable from Gewürztraminer (pictured)?
...that Eddie Hill was the first drag racer to hold the land and water quarter mile speed records simultaneously?
...that Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes survived the 1959 Turkish Airlines Gatwick crash almost uninjured, but was executed by hanging a year and a half later?
...that Ukrainian realist artist Apollon Mokritsky played the significant role of introducing the former serf and talented artist Taras Shevchenko to the Ukrainian and Russian intelligentsia?
...that Jerry Mathers, as The Beaver, was one of the few stars of the classic TV series Leave It to Beaver who appeared in the pilot It's a Small World, which never aired as an episode within the series?
...that Flight Lieutenant Eric Lock was the most successful British ace during the Battle of Britain, shooting down 16.5 German aircraft over the course of the 17-week long battle?
...that the Peruvian playwright Juan de Espinosa Medrano wrote plays both in Spanish and in Quechua during the 17th century?

05:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich of Russia (pictured) shared his mistress with one of his cousins for almost two decades?
...that college football's 2007 Holiday Bowl featured a bizarre play, involving a non-player staff member of the Texas Longhorn team?
...that until the French Revolution, the Belgian village of Moorsel was divided into two distinct sections?
...that one of the music scores depicted by Caravaggio in his painting The Lute Player is by Franco-Flemish composer Jacquet de Berchem?
...that Dennis Robbins, formerly a member of the rock band The Rockets, was the first artist signed to Giant Records' country music division?
...that the Society of the Friends of Peasants had significant influence on the Danish Constitution of 1849?
...that the Battle of Kansas was the crash program initiated by U.S. Army Air Force General Hap Arnold to expedite construction of the B-29 Superfortress at Boeing's massive plants in Wichita, Kansas?
...that British police detective Walter Dew was involved in hunting both Jack the Ripper and Dr Crippen?

4 January 2008

22:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

...that a group of Lakota Indian separatists have announced that they are withdrawing from treaties between their tribe and the United States and are setting up an independent Republic of Lakotah (possible boundary pictured)?
...that Sicilian Mafia boss Giuseppe Falsone has been on the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy since January 1999, a list of criminals considered extremely dangerous by the Polizia di Stato?
...that slain Canadian Mi'kmaq activist Nora Bernard was responsible for the largest class-action lawsuit in Canadian history?
...that during the Bisbee Deportation, Phelps Dodge Corporation executives seized control of the town's telegraph and telephones to prevent news of the kidnappings from being reported?
...that the Dewoitine D.33 was an aircraft built in 1930, set a long distance record in that year, and was used extensively by Air France?
...that Italian aeronautical engineer Corradino D'Ascanio developed a record-setting early helicopter in 1930 and designed the original Vespa motor scooter in 1946?

16:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the current Foreign Minister of Chile, Alejandro Foxley (pictured), served both in the cabinet of Salvador Allende in the 1970s and in the first cabinet after the restoration of democracy in 1990?
...that Tang Chinese scholar Yao Silian was the lead author of the official histories of both Liang and Chen Dynasties?
...that the "Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne", based on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, exhibits Voltaire's rejection of optimism and Providence and is considered an introduction to his famous work Candide?
...that Hurricane Rick of 1997 caused coffee prices on the New York Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange to jump 4.7%, because it threatened coffee crops at a time when they were vulnerable to winds blowing them down?
...that Tabasco sauce heir Edward Avery McIlhenny was an arctic explorer who, in 1897 and 1898, helped to rescue over a hundred whaling fleet sailors stranded at Point Barrow, Alaska?
...that, although former Michigan Wolverines wide receiver Marquise Walker was selected in the third round of the 2002 NFL Draft, he was Jon Gruden's first draft pick as Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach?

09:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

...that red and black were the most common colors of traditional Ukrainian embroidery (pictured)?
...that the Boy Rangers of America was an early scouting program in the United States for boys ages 8 through 12, a precursor to the Cub Scouting program of the Boy Scouts of America?
...that Elise Primavera, author and illustrator of the 1999 book Auntie Claus, says she gets her best ideas in the shower?
...that the Taiwan Cypress (Chamaecyparis taiwanensis) is treated as a species by Taiwanese botanists, and as a variety of the Hinoki cypress (C. obtusa) in the Occident?
...that Cuban politician Raúl Chibás defected to the United States via motor boat to Miami after initially supporting Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution?
...that through directing, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority founder Osceola Macarthy Adams helped to start careers of Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte?

03:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the year 1345 saw both the completion of the Notre Dame de Paris (pictured) and the writing of important works on Buddhist cosmology?
...that LPI Media is the largest publisher of gay and lesbian material in the United States with its magazines alone having more than 8.2 million copies distributed each year?
...that during the Spanish Civil War, Eduard Pons Prades forged his age so that he could join the Republican army at age 16?
...that, after eluding capture for three months when his B-25 bomber was shot down behind enemy lines in World War II, Bob Chappuis was the MVP of the Rose Bowl 60 years ago?
...that Jose R. Velasco's research on the coconut was instrumental in him becoming a National Scientist of the Philippines?

3 January 2008

20:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Fruit and Vegetable Hall at the Fremantle Markets (pictured) was rebuilt using recycled materials following a fire in 1992?
...that Ade Schwammel of the Oregon Agricultural College football team was part of the 1933 "Pyramid Play", where a player stood on the shoulders of two others to block a kick, a ploy since banned?
...that Dohäsan, last undisputed Principal Chief of the Kiowa people, was battlefield leader in the First Battle of Adobe Walls, one of the largest ever fought between the Plains tribes and the U.S. Army?
...that the Battle of Kostiuchnówka during the Brusilov Offensive in summer 1916 is considered the largest and most vicious of the battles involving the Polish Legions?
...that scientist and concert pianist Manfred Clynes used principles of neuroscience to develop SuperConductor, a computer program that can "perform" classical music with its own expressive intonation?

14:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the conclusions of the fact-finding McNamara Taylor mission (Maxwell Taylor pictured) to South Vietnam were drafted before the trip had started?
...that French adventurer Marie-Charles David de Mayréna was supposed to negotiate treaties with the local people in an 1888 expedition to present-day Vietnam, but instead formed a new Kingdom of Sedang with himself as the king?
...that the Ballarat Botanical Gardens in Victoria features a collection of busts of all 25 predecessors of the recently elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd?
...that when the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad opened to the public in 1892 it took 14 minutes to travel the 3.6 mile (5.8 km) route?
...that French anarchist Theodule Meunier, responsible for several bombings in Paris in 1902, was featured as a Sherlock Holmes antagonist in René Réouven's L'Assassin du Boulevard?
...that Ukrainian impressionist Ivan Trush painted a number of portraits of famous Ukrainians, among them Vasyl Stefanyk, Lesya Ukrainka, Mykhailo Drahomanov, Mykola Lysenko, and Ivan Franko?

08:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Society for Savings Building (pictured), a high-rise building in Cleveland, is widely considered to be the first modern skyscraper in the state of Ohio?
...that portrait painter John Michael Wright painted both Charles II and the daughter of Oliver Cromwell?
...that quarterbacks Billy Joe Tolliver and David Archer were teammates as backups in the National Football League, but competed against each other as starters in the Canadian Football League?
...that the capture of King Louis IX during the Seventh Crusade prompted as many as 60,000 young shepherds in France to participate in the Shepherds' Crusade in 1251?
...that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sylvan Fox was a classically trained pianist who attended, but never graduated from, the Juilliard School?
...that Pampa Sarovar, the place in Hindu mythology where Shiva's consort Parvati performed penance to show her devotion to him, is a lake in Karnataka?
...that Cuban economist Felipe Pazos was ordered to be executed by Raúl Castro in 1959, but was ultimately spared and allowed to leave the country?

02:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Gothic Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha (pictured) in Coimbra, Portugal, stayed abandoned under mud and water for over 300 years before it was rescued in an archaeological intervention?
...that despite its name, the Chicago, Kalamazoo and Saginaw Railway connected neither to Chicago nor Saginaw?
...that the first episode of talk show Shomoyer Kotha drew media attention when a former U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh jokingly commented that Bangladeshis sometimes tend to be conspiratorial?
...that an Anglo-Allied army of 23,000 men failed to capture the Spanish port of Tarragona from a small Franco-Italian force of 1,600 during the Peninsular War, sending the losing general to a court-martial afterwards?
...that the tallest building in Tulsa, Oklahoma is the 667-foot (203 m) BOK Tower?
...that Patricia Kirkwood was the first woman to have her own series on BBC TV?
...that the Soviet Armenian biochemist Norair Sisakian was considered as one of the founders of space biology?
...that United States Navy Rear Admiral Charles A. Curtze qualified for the 1936 Summer Olympics as a gymnast, but the State Department prohibited him from traveling to Nazi-ruled Germany?

2 January 2008

20:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Polish painter Alexander Kucharsky is best known for his portraits of the French royal family, including the doomed Louis XVII (portrait pictured)?
...that, in November 2002, autonomous regions replaced departments as the first-level administrative subdivisions of Peru in an attempt to achieve an effective decentralization of the country?
...that the Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway is the only reference route in New York owned by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation?
...that ancient jousting battles near Smisby in Derbyshire provided the inspiration for a similar scene in the book Ivanhoe?
...that Bill Jenkins' dragsters were known as "Grumpy's Toys"?
...that excavations of earthworks conducted in the 19th century revealed evidence of possible Belgic fortifications at the site of Sharsted Court, a manor house near Newnham, Kent, England?
...that Jan IV Oświęcimski, the duke of Oświęcim from 1445 to 1456, harassed the King of Poland so much that he was paid a debt that was promised him four years earlier?
...that the German 15 cm sFH 18 was the first field gun to use Rocket Assisted Projectiles?
...the divergent conclusions in the Krulak Mendenhall mission to South Vietnam led John F. Kennedy to ask his staff if Joseph Mendenhall and Victor H. Krulak had visited the same country?

12:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Judy Garland

...that Judy Garland (pictured) is considered a gay icon for her "wonderfully over-the-top" film characters including her portrayal of Dorothy Gale in the The Wizard of Oz?
...that as the result of a deal before the 2000 general election, Paul Bérenger became the first non-Hindu Prime Minister of Mauritius in 2003?
...that a platoon of the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion was the first segregated African-American unit of the US Army to receive a Distinguished Unit Citation?
...that Wythenshawe Aerodrome was Manchester's first purpose-built municipal airfield, but was closed after one year due to the completion of Barton Aerodrome?
...that Christian anarchist Dave Andrews was excommunicated from the parachurch Youth With A Mission?
...that the Caribou Inuit people are defined by their fur clothing, use of sled dogs and their snowhouses?
...that gay screenwriter Marco Pennette was outed in front of his parents on the People's Choice Awards red carpet by a colleague who asked him about his boyfriend?
...that the Hindu serpent goddess Manasa, the "destroyer of poison", is worshiped mostly in the rainy season when the snakes are most active?

01:42, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the GAM-63 RASCAL (pictured), introduced in 1952 by the United States Air Force, was the first American standoff nuclear missile, capable of being launched by a plane up to 100 miles from its target?
...that the region of Cieszyn Silesia was in 1920 divided by the Spa Conference between Poland and Czechoslovakia and remains divided to date?
...that the Hoover Dam is an arch-gravity dam, combining the load-bearing features of a gravity dam and an arch dam?
...that the final text of the Durban Declaration produced by the governments meeting at the World Conference against Racism 2001 does not contain the language that caused the Israeli and United States delegations to withdraw halfway through?
...that former Michigan Wolverines football player Keith Bostic was elected by his teammates as the toughest guy on the National Football League Houston Oilers defense?
...that the Western Islands Planning Area in Singapore houses the world's third largest refining centre, located in Jurong Island?
...that in 1386, Georgia was invaded by Tamerlane and his Turco-Mongol forces, who sacked Tbilisi and captured the Georgian king Bagrat V?
...that when Gyo Obata designed Great American Insurance Building at Queen City Square, he was inspired by Princess Diana's tiara for the top of the building?

1 January 2008

19:41, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Mezhyhirskyi Monastery (pictured) in Ukraine, mentioned in Nikolai Gogol’s novel Taras Bulba, is thought to have included the lost library of Yaroslav the Wise?
...that Cliff Mapes, a Major League outfielder who played only three full seasons, was the starting right fielder for the New York Yankees' first of five consecutive world championships, in 1949?
...that National Scientist Dr. Fe del Mundo was the first Filipina enrolled in Harvard Medical School and the only female student at that time?
...that a PRR Class E6 steam locomotive powered train equipped with a mobile darkroom for developing newsreels en route, delivered footage from Washington to New York faster than a chartered plane?
...that All-American Bump Elliott and his brother Pete Elliott played halfback and quarterback for the Michigan football team that beat the USC Trojans 49-0 in the Rose Bowl 60 years ago on 1 Jan. 1948?
...that in 1999, Song Il-gon became the first Korean filmmaker to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival?
...that the name of Stob Choire Claurigh in Scotland translates from Gaelic as “Peak of the Brawling Corrie”, referring to the roaring of the stags inhabiting the corries of the mountain during the breeding season?

12:49, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

...that Heinrich Steinhowel, a 15th-century German scholar and humanist who was physician to Eberhard, Count of Württemberg, is better known for translating Aesop's Fables (pictured) into German?
...that wine made from the Italian grape Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso was praised by Pliny the Elder and a favorite of Caesar Augustus' wife Livia?
...that the Brocard points, the Brocard circle and the Brocard triangle are named after French geometer Henri Brocard, who spent most of his life studying meteorology with no notable original contributions to the subject?
...that Ernest Dynes, best known as an English cricketer in the 1920s and 1930s, served as Aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth II between 1955 and 1957, for which he was awarded the CBE?
...that William W. Bedsworth, a judge at the California Courts of Appeal, is also a goal judge with the National Hockey League?
...that prior to the emergence of anarcho-pacifism at the outbreak of World War II, there was a general agreement among anarchists that violence was inevitable?
...that Campanula gelida, an endemic species of a bellflower, grows in nature only on one rock in the Czech Republic?

02:46, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

...that the Crested Shelduck (pictured) is a critically endangered duck that has not been definitively seen since 1964, despite a handful of possible sightings and numerous surveys of its presumed habitat?
...that the 2007 film 10 MPH documents a 100-day, 4,064-mile journey across the United States on a Segway scooter?
...that Danish-American artist Antonio Jacobsen was called the "Audubon of Steam Vessels" for the scope, breadth and intricate details in the 6,000 works of sail and steam ships he painted?
...that the Stora Istad wind park had to reduce its power output to below 10 MW in order to comply with Swedish law?
...that Soviet sculptor Sergey Merkurov was the author of the three biggest monuments of Joseph Stalin erected in the USSR during the period of Stalinism?
...that U.S. Route 199 is numbered as a spur of U.S. Route 99, which no longer exists?
...that carbonate hardgrounds were most commonly formed during calcite sea intervals in the Ordovician and Jurassic periods in Earth's history, but were virtually absent from the aragonite seas of the Permian era?
...that The Faun, a rare sculpture by Paul Gauguin, displayed for a decade by the Art Institute of Chicago and the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam was actually a fake by British forger Shaun Greenhalgh?