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30 September 2013
16:00, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
... that in a bid to improve the water supply in Gibraltar, much of the east side of the
Rock of Gibraltar was covered with giant metal catchments (pictured) to trap rainwater?
... that French artist Maximilien Luce(self-portrait pictured) published an album of lithographs documenting his experiences as a political prisoner?
... that the Eurasian Wryneck sometimes feigns death and hangs limply with eyes closed?
... that Time journalist Michael Grunwald said, "I can't wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out [WikiLeaks founder]
Julian Assange"?
... that in Bartaman Bharat (1905),
Swami Vivekananda felt that India was in a "terrible danger" and suggested not to foolishly imitate the West?
... that the
World War I-era Warrior-class cruiser had "the reputation of being the best cruisers we ever built" by the
Royal Navy, according to naval historian Oscar Parkes?
... that newborn Hodgson's bats are about 2.15 centimetres (0.85 in) long and start to fly in their third week of life?
... that
Kaapa Tjampitjinpa's award-winning 1971 artwork Gulgardi was painted on an old cupboard door that still had rusty nails in it, and holes where the handle used to be?
07:40, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
... that populations of the endangered Albanian water frog(pictured) are declining due to over-collection for the food industry and pet trade?
... that after HMS Grasshopper was sunk following the
Battle of Singapore, two of the crew managed to sail 2,680 miles (4,310 km) to India using a map torn out of a child's
atlas?
... that John Irwin, one of the founders of Toronto book publisher Clarke, Irwin & Company, left the company in 1943, only to have it purchased more than forty years later by a company run by his son?
... that Josephine MacLeod, an American devotee of
Swami Vivekananda considered the day she met the Swami for the first time as her "spiritual birthday"?
... that the extinct
sumacRhus rooseae was described from fossils over 35 million years old?
... that a letter in the hand of Sir George Browne, later beheaded, containing the cryptic message "It shall never come out for me", survives among the
Paston letters?
05:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
... that the American wandering spider(pictured) only stores up to 10 μl of crude
venom in its glands, and uses lower amounts of it on smaller victims?
... that a chandelier in the sewers under Cologne provides light for jazz and classical music performances?
13:15, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
... that the
Shanghai Museum(pictured) was said to have been "willed into existence" by Ma Chengyuan, who committed suicide nine years ago today?
... that Lake Uniamési in East Africa would have been larger than the
Black Sea – if it had existed?
... that the school shark was at one time used as a source of
vitamin A as its
liver was shown to have higher levels of this vitamin than any other fish tested?
... that Sir Adrian Poyning's orders for the English forces at
Newhaven included the stricture that "Any English who shall fight without the town shall lose his right hand"?
... that Orda Cave underneath the Ural Mountains in Russia is the largest underwater
gypsum cave in the world?
... that Kim Am, an 8th-century Korean scholar,
shaman and "master of
yin-yang", was the only person to hold the title of the "Great Professor of Astronomy" in
Korean history?
... that an
Arizona schoolteacher was fired in 1971 on allegations she claimed to be a witch and taught
witchcraft to her students?
... that
Jacques Dutronc only got the opportunity to record his debut single because of an envious, disappointed and trigger-happy record company executive?
... that U Bein Bridge is believed to be the oldest and longest teak wood bridge in the world?
... that the sweet tooth mushroom is sometimes bitter?
00:00, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
... that the Merkel-Raute(pictured) has been described as "probably one of the most recognisable
hand gestures in the world"?
... that 1951–52 Michigan Wolverines basketball team was integrated months after the Inter-Racial Association alleged "a deliberate and conscious policy of discrimination against Negro athletes"?
... that the Cent Quatre arts centre in Paris used to contain 300 horses, 6,000 coffins and 50,000 litres (11,000 imp gal; 13,000 US gal) of water?
... that
kangaroo rats in the family Heteromyidae do not need to drink because they obtain sufficient water from metabolising their food?
22 September 2013
16:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
... that The Sand-Covered Church(pictured) is a 14th-century Danish church partly demolished in the 1800s when the sand from the nearby dunes threatened it, leaving only the church tower still visible?
... that as
education minister, Abd al-Wahhab Hawmad launched the largest foreign scholarship program in
Syrian history, sending 300 students to study abroad at Western universities?
... that golden spindles grow on the ground in grassy areas?
... that
Yunakov has popularized Bulgarian wedding music in the United States where his band presents a "number of dances at breakneck speed, warbling their instruments all the way"?
... that the Blue Wing Inn, started as a one-room hotel in Sonoma, California, in 1836, was also a saloon, a gambling hall, a stagecoach depot, a grocery store, a winery, a museum, and a retail center?
... that Ingemar Eliasson has served as government minister, county governor, member of Parliament, and finally as
Marshal of the Realm, reporting directly to the
King?
... that soldier, monk, kitchen boy, loafer, and bicyclist costumes were prohibited at the Bal des Quat'z'Arts?
... that despite being a gambler, Lady Harrington was considered an epitome of virtue in a society notorious for loose morals, with
her younger sister cuckolding her husband with 27 men?
08:00, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
... that spores are produced on the outer, not inner, surface of the cup-like head of the pod parachute fungus (pictured)?
... that
Henry Sewell, New Zealand's first
Premier, much regretted the Simeon family's return to England as they were the only people he and his wife socialised with?
00:00, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
... that when he left the
United States Senate in 1897, John Sherman(pictured) had served longer in that body than any other Senator in its history?
... that in 1960, at Ahu Akivi(pictured) on
Easter Island, archeologists took a month to raise the first
moai, but less than a week to raise the seventh?
... that forested uplands in the Tutuala in
East Timor inhabited by the ratu clan groups included walled and open settlements of Lata and also caves (veraka) which housed ancestral figures?
... that despite the species only being described for the first time this year, the distribution of Glutinoglossum heptaseptatum may span four continents?
... that Dutch artist
Wim T. Schippers is responsible for Pindakaasvloer, a 4-by-12-metre (13 ft × 39 ft) floor covered in peanut butter, and Torentje van Drienerlo(pictured), a church spire sticking up from a pond?
... that when the Desert Wheatear finds an insect too large for it to swallow, it sometimes
displays in front of it by fluttering its wings?
... that
Vice-AdmiralJames Young was so incensed when the Dutch island of
St. Eustatius gave the first foreign salute to the American flag, that he instigated a blockade of it?
... that Sister Christine(pictured) said that
Swami Vivekananda's mere uttering of the word "
India" stirred emotions of "love, passion, pride, longing, adoration, tragedy, chivalry, heimweh, and again love"?
... that in United States v. Ramsey, the
Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. could try a white person for murdering an Indian on former reservation land?
... that when the roller coaster White Canyon was shut down at
Yomiuriland, thousands of trees were planted in its honor?
00:00, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
... that the Darnall Works in
Sheffield(heat treatment workshop pictured) is the only remaining works to have produced
crucible steel on a large scale?
... that Ryder Lynn, a character created for The Glee Project winner
Blake Jenner in Glee's fourth season, is set to be a starring role for the show's upcoming fifth season?
... that a bearded headmaster of Wixenford School who has been described as "kindly but rather frightening" succeeded another who wore his hair in two horns above his ears?
... that Great Dane Juliana received a medal for extinguishing an
incendiary bomb by urinating on it?
00:00, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
... that Connie Hill(pictured), captain of the first hockey team to win the
Frozen Four, received a Ph.D. for his dissertation, "Mood, self-derogation and anomia as factors in response unreliability"?
... that the use of the term "Arab street" to refer to public opinion in the
Arab world has been re-imported into
Arabic media from the U.S., where it had been derived from Arabic originally?
... that Yves Gaucher, a Canadian artist, was expelled from the
Collège Brébeuf for drawing "immoral pictures" which were actually copied from his textbook?
08:00, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
... that symptoms of envenomation can appear within twenty minutes of being bitten by a southern tree funnel-web(pictured)?
... that Leonard Brumm organized an inmate hockey team at a maximum security prison, coached the first professional female hockey player, and co-founded the Kuwait National Hockey League?
... that Cuban performer
Celia Cruz was the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement accolade at the Lo Nuestro Awards?
... that the proceeds from the music in the upcoming Glee episode "The Quarterback" will initiate a fund in the name of the late actor
Cory Monteith, whose character,
Finn Hudson, dies in the episode?
... that Park Express was completely blind when she gave birth to the
Epsom Derby winner
New Approach, and required bells to locate her foal?
... that the butt fumble, an infamous play in
American football, was retired as an undefeated champion of SportsCenter's "Worst of the Worst" poll, having won a record-breaking 40 weeks in a row?
... that although its
edibility is not definitively established, one source suggests that the rare mushroom Tubaria punicea(pictured) tastes similar to "bland beef"?
... that the track awarded for Regional/Mexican Song of the Year at the 2002 Lo Nuestro Awards has the record for most weeks at number one on a Billboard magazine BDS-based airplay chart?
... that John Worsley helped another British officer escape their POW camp by making a dummy to replace him at roll call, with blinking ping-pong ball eyes powered by a pendulum made from a sardine tin?
9 September 2013
16:00, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
... that Margaret of Burgundy(pictured), a princess as "plain as an owl", was twice envisaged to become
Queen of France, but ended up married to
a man she considered too beneath her in rank?
... that
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Luis Garcia spent two years out of baseball working as a
barber before returning in 2013 and making his major league debut?
... that in August 1942 HMCS Trail rescued survivors from the American passenger ship Chatham that had been torpedoed and sunk by Nazi submarine
U-517?
... that the Kumarakottam Temple(pictured) is one of the 21 major temples in
Kanchipuram and an important pilgrimage centre?
... that Sybil Campbell, who was appointed a
stipendiary magistrate in 1945, was the first woman to become a professional judge in the United Kingdom?
... that the venom of the Darling Downs funnel-web spider becomes more toxic in the early summer when male spiders are roaming looking for a mate?
... that the smoking tobacco brand Bigger Hair was originally named Nigger Hair?
... that American aid workers
Heather Mercer and
Dayna Curry's memoir, Prisoners of Hope, recounts them killing 150 flies a day during their 2001 imprisonment by the Taliban?
... that the Chinese
junk shipAqua Luna was launched in 2006 after 18 months of construction in traditional style, but is powered by a motor rather than its three sails?
... that Devil Goddess (1955) was the last film in which
Johnny Weissmuller acted as Johnny Weissmuller, as well as the last film Weissmuller acted in?
... that when three of Whitney Houston's recorded songs on her first album became number-one singles, it was the first time three songs from a debut album reached the top of the
Billboard Hot 100?
... that Daniel Scott was an investor in a company that paid for Fremantle prisoners to build a tunnel that gave easy access between the
High St. and
the beach, and which ran beneath
their prison?
... that a pet feed, which is now manufactured in several countries, originated from a recipe devised and cooked by a French vet in his garage?
... that Derrick Green, rated the No. 1
running back in the college football recruiting Class of 2013, has been described as follows: "Look at him from the back and the side, he's a huge human being"?
... that English and French monarchs were believed to possess the supernatural touch that could cure a form of
tuberculosis known as the
King's Evil(ritual pictured)?
... that although the video game Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Fallen attracted positive reviews, its lack of
multiplayer was criticised as "one of the worst game-design decisions" made that year?
... that basketball player Miles Aiken, although not drafted by an
NBA team after a college knee injury, rebounded to lead
Real Madrid to back-to-back
Euroleague championships?
... that condemned murderer Lum You enjoyed such sympathy from his captors that they left his cell door unlocked at night and encouraged him to escape?