The Wikipedia article of the day for July 31, 2016 is Smooth toadfish.
The smooth toadfish (Tetractenos glaber) is a species in the pufferfish family Tetraodontidae. It is native to shallow coastal and estuarine waters of southeastern Australia, where it is widespread and abundant. French naturalist Christophe-Paulin de La Poix de Fréminville described the species in 1813, though early records confused it with what is now the only other member of its genus, the common toadfish (T. hamiltonii). Up to 16 cm (6 1⁄4 in) long with distinctive leopard-like dark markings on its upperparts, the smooth toadfish has a flattened belly and an elongate body tapering to a slender tail. Its back and fins are rounded. Unlike most of its relatives, it does not have prominent spines on its body. Like other pufferfish, it can inflate itself with water or air. It forages for its preferred foods—molluscs and crustaceans—in sandy or muddy sediment. Often an unwanted catch by anglers, the smooth toadfish’s flesh contains the poison tetrodotoxin, and eating it may result in death.
Archives for July 2016
Wikipedia article of the day for July 31, 2016
Wikipedia article of the day for July 30, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 30, 2016 is Orel Hershiser’s scoreless innings streak.
In 1988, Orel Hershiser set the record in Major League Baseball for consecutive scoreless innings pitched. The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher’s streak of 59 innings spanned from the sixth inning of an August 30 game against the Montreal Expos to the tenth inning of a September 28 game against the San Diego Padres, not counting eight scoreless innings he pitched to start Game 1 of the 1988 National League Championship Series on October 4. The previous record of 58 2⁄3 innings was set by former Dodger pitcher Don Drysdale in 1968; as the team’s radio announcer, Drysdale called Hershiser’s streak as he pursued the new record. Following the regular season, Hershiser was awarded the National League Cy Young Award. In the playoffs, he earned both the National League Championship Series Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) and the World Series MVP Award. He also secured Sportsman of the Year and Associated Press Athlete of the Year honors. He continued to be an effective pitcher for many seasons, making two additional appearances in the World Series and winning the 1995 American League Championship Series MVP Award.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 29, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 29, 2016 is Silverplate.
Silverplate was the codename for the United States Army Air Forces’ participation in the Manhattan Project during World War II. Originally the name for the aircraft modification project for the B-29 Superfortress bomber to enable it to drop an atomic weapon, Silverplate eventually came to identify the training and operational aspects of the program as well. Modifications began in November 1943 on a prototype B-29 known as the “Pullman”, used for bomb flight testing at Muroc Army Air Field in California commencing in March 1944. Seventeen production Silverplate aircraft were ordered in August 1944 for 509th Composite Group training, and to allow the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit to test bomb configurations. In February 1945, 28 more were ordered, including Bockscar (pictured), the plane that carried out the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945. A total of 65 Silverplate B-29s were made. The use of the Silverplate codename was discontinued after the war; modifications to an additional 80 aircraft continued under a new codename, Saddletree.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 28, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 28, 2016 is Horace Greeley.
Horace Greeley (1811–1872) was editor of the New-York Tribune, as well as the Democratic and Liberal Republican candidate in the 1872 U.S. presidential election. Born to a poor family in New Hampshire, Greeley in 1831 went to New York City to seek his fortune. He lived there the rest of his life, but also spent much time at his farm in Chappaqua. In 1841, he founded the Tribune, which became the highest-circulating newspaper in the country. He urged the settlement of the American West, popularizing the phrase “Go West, young man, and grow up with the country”, though it is uncertain if he invented it. Greeley was briefly a Whig congressman from New York, and helped found the Republican Party in 1854. When the Civil War broke out, he mostly supported President Abraham Lincoln, and urged the end of slavery. Greeley ran in 1872 in an attempt to unseat President Ulysses Grant, whose administration he deemed corrupt, but lost in a landslide. Devastated at the defeat, he died three weeks after Election Day.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 27, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 27, 2016 is SS Washingtonian (1913).
SS Washingtonian was a cargo ship launched in 1913 by the Maryland Steel Company, one of eight sister ships for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company and the largest cargo ship under American registry at the time. During the American occupation of Veracruz in April 1914, the ship was chartered by the Department of the Navy for service as a refrigerated supply ship for the U.S. fleet stationed off the Mexican coast. In January 1915, after a little more than one year of service, Washingtonian collided with the schooner Elizabeth Palmer off the Delaware coast after the cargo ship’s captain misjudged the schooner’s rapid pace. Washingtonian sank in ten minutes with the loss of a $1,000,000 cargo of raw Hawaiian sugar. In the days after the sinking, the price of sugar in the United States increased almost 9%, partly attributed to the loss of this cargo. Lying under approximately 100 feet (30 m) of water, the wreck is one of the most popular recreational dive sites on the eastern seaboard.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 26, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 26, 2016 is Pavo (constellation).
Pavo is a constellation in the southern sky with the Latin name for peacock. It is one of twelve constellations conceived by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. First appearing on a 35 cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius, it was depicted in Johann Bayer’s star atlas Uranometria of 1603. The constellation’s brightest member, Alpha Pavonis, is also known as Peacock and appears as a 1.91-magnitude blue-white star, but is actually a spectroscopic binary. Delta Pavonis is a Sun-like star some 19.9 light years distant. Six of the star systems in Pavo have been found to host planets, including HD 181433 with a super-earth, and HD 172555 with evidence of a major interplanetary collision in the past few thousand years. The constellation contains NGC 6752, the third-brightest globular cluster in the sky, and the spiral galaxy NGC 6744, which closely resembles our Milky Way but is twice as large.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 25, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 25, 2016 is 1880 Democratic National Convention.
The 1880 US Democratic National Convention met June 22–24, 1880, at the Music Hall (pictured) in Cincinnati, Ohio, nominating Winfield S. Hancock of Pennsylvania for president and William H. English of Indiana for vice president. Six men were officially candidates for nomination at the convention, and several more received votes. The two leading candidates were Hancock and Thomas F. Bayard, a conservative senator from Delaware. Many Democrats believed that Samuel J. Tilden of New York had been unjustly deprived of the presidency in 1876 and hoped to rally around him in the 1880 campaign, but his intentions were unclear. The first round of balloting was inconclusive. After learning of Tilden’s withdrawal before the second round of balloting, the delegates flocked to Hancock, a career soldier and Civil War hero, who was nominated. English, a conservative from a swing state, was nominated for vice president. Hancock and English were narrowly defeated by Republicans James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur that autumn.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 24, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 24, 2016 is Chalciporus piperatus.
The fungus Chalciporus piperatus, commonly known as the peppery bolete, is a small mushroom of the family Boletaceae found in mixed woodland in Europe and North America, and occasionally in Brazil. It has also become naturalised in Tasmania, under native myrtle beech trees. A small bolete, it has a 1.6–9 cm (0.6–3.5 in) orange-fawn cap with cinnamon or brown pores underneath, and a 4–9.5 cm (1.6–3.7 in) stalk. The rare variety hypochryseus, found only in Europe, has yellow pores and tubes. Described by Pierre Bulliard in 1790 as Boletus piperatus, it is only distantly related to other members of the genus Boletus and was reclassified as Chalciporus piperatus by Frédéric Bataille in 1908. Chalciporus was an early branching lineage in its family and appears to be related to boletes with parasitic properties. Previously thought to be symbiotic with tree roots, C. piperatus is now suspected of being parasitic on the mushroom Amanita muscaria. The flesh of C. piperatus has a very peppery taste, and can be used as a condiment or flavouring.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 23, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 23, 2016 is Ian Dougald McLachlan.
Ian Dougald McLachlan (23 July 1911 – 14 July 1991) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). A Duntroon cadet before he joined the Air Force, McLachlan took command of No. 3 Squadron in December 1939, leading it into action in the Middle East less than a year later. He was posted to the South West Pacific in 1943, commanding successively Nos. 71 and 73 Wings. He took over Southern Area Command in 1944, and No. 81 Wing in the Dutch East Indies the following year. Raised to air commodore in 1946, McLachlan served with the British Commonwealth Air Group in Japan until 1948. After leading North-Eastern Area Command in 1951–53, he attended the Imperial Defence College, London. Promoted to air vice marshal, he returned to Australia in 1957 as Air Officer Commanding Training Command, carrying out major reviews on the RAAF’s educational and command systems. He was Deputy Chief of the Air Staff in 1959–61, and then Head of the Australian Joint Services Staff in Washington, DC, until 1963. McLachlan’s final post before retiring in 1968 was as Air Member for Supply and Equipment. He was a consultant to Northrop after leaving the RAAF.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 22, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 22, 2016 is Mischief Makers.
Mischief Makers is a 1997 side-scrolling platform video game, the first for the Nintendo 64, developed by Treasure and published by Enix and Nintendo. The player assumes the role of Marina, a robotic maid who grabs, shakes and throws objects in her journey to rescue her creator from the emperor of Planet Clancer. The game is presented in 2½D, with pre-rendered 3D backgrounds behind 2D gameplay. A 12-person team developed the game over two years as Treasure’s first title for a Nintendo console. It was first shown at the 1997 Electronic Entertainment Expo and released later that year. The game’s reviews were mixed: they praised its inventiveness, personality, and boss fights, but criticized its brevity, low difficulty, low replay value, sound, and harsh introductory learning curve. Retrospective reviewers disagreed with the originally poor reception, and several highlighted Marina’s signature “Shake, shake!” sound bite. In 2009, GamesRadar called it “possibly the most underrated and widely ignored game on the N64”.
