The Wikipedia article of the day for June 22, 2017 is Tidus.
Tidus is a role-playing video game character, introduced as the protagonist of Final Fantasy X in 2001. He is a 17-year-old star blitzball player who joins a pilgrimage to destroy a creature that attacked Zanarkand, his hometown. He has appeared in other video games, including the Final Fantasy X sequel Final Fantasy X-2, the Kingdom Hearts series, and several Square Enix crossover games. The cheerful Tidus was designed by Tetsuya Nomura. Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima gave him frequent monologues describing the game’s setting. Tidus is voiced in English by James Arnold Taylor and in Japanese primarily by Masakazu Morita, who also performed the motion capture. Video game critics judged Titus an appealing protagonist, with excellent character development. Although reviewers and fans were divided on Taylor’s voice work, Tidus enjoyed popularity with fans, often ranking as one of the best Final Fantasy characters in polls. He is a popular cosplay character.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 22, 2017
Wikipedia article of the day for June 21, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 21, 2017 is Ram Narayan.
Ram Narayan (born 1927) is an Indian musician who popularised the bowed sarangi of Hindustani classical music as a solo concert instrument and became its first international virtuoso. He was born near Udaipur and learned to play at an early age. He studied under sarangi players and singers and, as a teenager, worked as a music teacher and travelling musician. All India Radio, Lahore, hired him as an accompanist for vocalists in 1944. He moved to Delhi following the partition of India in 1947 and moved to Mumbai in 1949 to work in Indian cinema. He had his first success as a concert solo artist in 1956 and has since performed at major music festivals in India. After sitar player Ravi Shankar successfully performed in Western countries, Narayan followed his example. He recorded solo albums and made his first international tour in 1964 to America and Europe with his older brother Chatur Lal, a tabla player who had toured with Shankar in the 1950s. Narayan taught Indian and foreign students and performed into the 2000s. He was awarded India’s second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2005.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 20, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 20, 2017 is Melbourne Castle.
Melbourne Castle was an incomplete medieval castle, founded in 1311 by Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, in Melbourne, Derbyshire. It was built on the site of an earlier royal manor house that had provided accommodation for noblemen hunting in a nearby royal park in the reign of King John. After the earl’s execution in 1322 for opposing Edward II, the castle was mainly in the possession of the Crown or the Earls and Dukes of Lancaster. Improvements and repairs were made by John of Gaunt and others, and the building was in generally good condition throughout the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. John I, Duke of Bourbon, was kept at Melbourne for 19 years after his capture at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and it was considered as a possible prison for Mary Queen of Scots. The castle was in decline by the end of the reign of Elizabeth I. It was purchased in 1604 by Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon, who had his own castle in nearby Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and was gradually demolished for its building materials. All that remains is a short section of wall and some foundations. The ruins are grade II listed and the site is a scheduled monument, with no public access.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 19, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 19, 2017 is Auriscalpium vulgare.
Auriscalpium vulgare, the pinecone mushroom, is a species of fungus in the family Auriscalpiaceae. It was first described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus, who included it as a member of the tooth fungi genus Hydnum. British mycologist Samuel Frederick Gray recognized its uniqueness in 1821 and created the genus Auriscalpium for it. It is widely distributed in Europe, Central America, North America, and temperate Asia. The small, spoon-shaped mushrooms grow on conifer litter or on conifer cones in soil. The dark brown cap is covered with fine brown hairs, and reaches a diameter of up to 2 cm (0.8 in). The underside of the cap has an array of tiny tooth-shaped protrusions up to 3 mm long. The dark brown, hairy stem, up to 55 mm (2.2 in) long and 2 mm thick, attaches to one edge of the cap. High levels of humidity are essential for optimum mushroom development, while excesses of either light or darkness inhibit growth. A. vulgare is generally too tough to be considered edible, but some historical literature says it used to be consumed in France and Italy.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 18, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 18, 2017 is 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état.
A coup in Guatemala, launched on 18 June 1954, deposed the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz (pictured in mural). The result of a covert operation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), it ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–54, a period of representative democracy and liberal reform. The U.S. government was motivated by a Cold War predisposition to assume Árbenz was a communist, and by lobbying from the United Fruit Company for his overthrow. The CIA, authorized in August 1953 by Dwight Eisenhower to carry out the operation, armed, funded, and trained a force of 480 men led by Carlos Castillo Armas. Most of the offensives of the invasion force were repelled, but a heavy campaign of psychological warfare and the possibility of a U.S. invasion intimidated the Guatemalan army, which eventually refused to fight. Árbenz resigned on 27 June, and Castillo Armas became president ten days later, the first in a series of authoritarian rulers in the country. The coup was widely criticized internationally, and contributed to long-lasting anti-U.S. sentiment in Latin America.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 17, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 17, 2017 is Upper Pine Bottom State Park.
Upper Pine Bottom State Park is a 5-acre (2.0 ha) Pennsylvania state park near the southern end of what has been called the “Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania”, Pine Creek Gorge. The park is in Lycoming County on Upper Pine Bottom Run, a tributary of Pine Creek in the West Branch Susquehanna River drainage basin. Local streams have cut through five major rock formations from the Devonian and Carboniferous periods. The earliest recorded inhabitants of the area were the Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannocks; they were followed by the Iroquois, Lenape, and Shawnee. Upper Pine Bottom Run was the site of a furnace for pig iron in 1814. The first sawmill was built on it in 1815, and in 1825 an earlier bridle path across its headwaters became a turnpike. The park is surrounded by 105,000 acres (42,000 ha) of the Tiadaghton State Forest, which was created after the lumber industry clearcut the area in the 19th century. Upper Pine Bottom State Park is one of the smallest state parks in Pennsylvania.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 16, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 16, 2017 is OK Computer.
OK Computer is the third studio album by English alternative rock band Radiohead (pictured), released on 16 June 1997 in the UK by EMI subsidiaries Parlophone and Capitol Records. The band made a deliberate attempt to distance themselves from the guitar-oriented, lyrically introspective style of prior works like The Bends. OK Computer’s abstract lyrics, densely layered sound and eclectic range of influences laid the groundwork for the more experimental style Radiohead adopted beginning with their next album, Kid A. Although record label executives feared the progressive album would be difficult to market, it reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and became the band’s highest album entry on the American charts at the time, debuting at number 21 on the Billboard 200. The album’s lyrics, depicting a world fraught with rampant consumerism, social alienation, emotional isolation and political malaise, are often interpreted as having prescient insight into the mood of 21st-century life.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 15, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 15, 2017 is Sweet Track.
The Sweet Track is an ancient causeway in the Somerset Levels, England. Built in 3807 or 3806 BC along an earlier structure, the Post Track, it was the oldest unearthed timber trackway in Northern Europe until the 2009 discovery of a 6,000-year-old trackway in Plumstead, London. It extended close to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) across the now largely drained marsh between what was then an island at Westhay and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick. Various artefacts, including a jadeitite ceremonial axe head, have been found along its length. Construction was of crossed wooden poles, driven into the waterlogged soil to support a walkway that consisted mainly of planks of oak, laid end-to-end. The track was abandoned after 10 years of use, probably due to rising water levels. Following its discovery in 1970, most of the track has been left in its original location, with active conservation measures taken, including a water pumping and distribution system to maintain the wood in its damp condition. Some of the track is stored at the British Museum and a reconstruction of a section was built at the Peat Moors Centre near Glastonbury.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 14, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 14, 2017 is The Last of Us.
The Last of Us is an action-adventure survival horror video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony, released for the PlayStation 3 worldwide on June 14, 2013. Players control Joel (Troy Baker), a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenager, Ellie (Ashley Johnson), across a post-apocalyptic United States. In third-person perspective, players use firearms, improvised weapons, and stealth to defend against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated Cordyceps fungus. Up to eight players may engage in cooperative and competitive gameplay online. The game received universal acclaim for its narrative, gameplay, visual and sound design, characterization, and depiction of female characters. The month of its release, it was the PlayStation 3’s fastest-selling game that year: over 1.3 million units within a week, and over 3.4 million within three weeks. It won year-end accolades, including many Game of the Year awards, and is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. An enhanced edition, The Last of Us Remastered, was released for the PlayStation 4 in 2014, and a sequel, The Last of Us Part II, was announced in 2016.
Wikipedia article of the day for June 13, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for June 13, 2017 is Macrotarsomys petteri.
Macrotarsomys petteri, Petter’s big-footed mouse, is a Malagasy rodent. It is the largest in its genus, with a head and body length of 150 mm (5.9 in) and body mass of 105 g (3.7 oz). The upperparts are brown, darkest in the middle of the back, and the underparts are white to yellowish. The animal has long whiskers, short forelimbs, and long hindfeet. The tail ends in a prominent tuft of long, light hairs. The skull is robust and the molars are low-crowned and cuspidate. The species most resembles, and may be most closely related to, the greater big-footed mouse. The specific name, petteri, honors French zoologist François Petter for his contributions to the study of Malagasy rodents. M. petteri is now found only in southwestern Madagascar’s Mikea Forest, which is threatened by human development. Subfossil records indicate that it used to be more widely distributed in southern Madagascar; climatic changes and competition with introduced species may have led to the shift in its distribution.
