Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 December 9

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From today's featured article

Exsudoporus frostii, Frost's bolete, is a fungus first described in 1874. The mushrooms it produces have tubes and pores instead of gills on the underside of their caps. E. frostii is distributed in the eastern United States from Maine to Georgia and Arizona, and south to Mexico and Costa Rica. It is typically found associating with hardwood trees, especially oak. Its mushrooms can be recognized by their dark red sticky caps, the red pores, the network-like pattern of the stem, and a variable blue-staining reaction after tissue injury. Another characteristic of young, moist fruit bodies is the amber-colored drops exuded on the pore surface. Although the mushrooms are considered edible, they are generally not recommended for consumption because of the risk of confusion with other poisonous red-pored, blue-bruising boletes. E. frostii may be distinguished from other superficially similar red-capped boletes by differences in distribution, associated tree species, bluing reaction, or morphology. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Uncape parrots

... that almost all the Cape parrots in captivity are actually uncape parrots (pictured)?
... that the British-Hawaiian politician Ferdinand William Hutchison was influential in the development of the leper colony of Kalaupapa, to which his son Ambrose K. Hutchison was exiled in 1879?
... that in the stratified social system of the African Zarma people, the lowest stratum inherited slavery?
... that Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath explores "shocking stories of abuse, heartbreak and harassment" of former members of the Church of Scientology?
... that Sam Manekshaw was the first Indian Army officer to be promoted to the rank of field marshal?
... that Neues Geistliches Lied, a genre of contemporary songs for use at church, was performed by around 1,895 choirs and bands in German dioceses according to a 2001 report?
... that the third wife of Bohemond III of Antioch was described as a witch by William of Tyre, and as a whore by Michael the Syrian?
... that after decades of prohibition, hemp in Kentucky is a legal crop?

In the news

AP-BHO, the aircraft involved in the crash of PIA Flight 661, at Quetta International Airport in 2011

Pakistan International Airlines ATR 42 that crashed

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 661 (aircraft pictured) crashes near Havelian, Pakistan, killing all 47 people on board.
More than 100 people are killed when an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 strikes Aceh, Indonesia.
Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key announces his resignation.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev wins the Uzbekistani presidential election.
Alexander Van der Bellen wins the Austrian presidential election in a re-run of the second round.

On this day...

December 9: Fête de l'Escalade begins in Switzerland (2016); 100th birthday of actor Kirk Douglas

The surrender of Jerusalem

1872 – P. B. S. Pinchback took office as Governor of Louisiana, the first African American governor of a U.S. state.
1905 – Legislation establishing state secularism in France was passed by the Chamber of Deputies of France, triggering civil disobedience by French Catholics.
1917 – First World War: Hussein al-Husayni, the Ottoman mayor of Jerusalem, surrendered (pictured) the city to the British.
1948 – The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention, which defines genocide in legal terms and advises its signatories to prevent and punish such actions.
1968 – Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS).

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From today's featured list

During or shortly after World War II, 457 servicemen of the Waffen-SS received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Along with its variants, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was the highest award in the military of the Third Reich. Of the 457 recipients, 411 presentations were formally made and evidence of the award is available in the German Federal Archives. One recipient, Hermann Fegelein, was court-martialed and executed on 29 April 1945. According to German law he was deprived of rank and all awards previously. Fegelein must therefore be considered a de facto but not de jure recipient. A further 46 Knight's Cross, 8 Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and 4 Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords recipients are either lacking the evidence to sustain their listings or received the award under questionable legal terms. However, all of them were accepted by the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients as legitimate recipients. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy Rear Admiral. She was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer in 1944, invented the first compiler for a computer programming language, and helped popularize the idea of machine-independent programming languages. This led to the development of COBOL, one of the first high-level programming languages.

In recognition of Hopper's contributions, the destroyer USS Hopper is named for her, as is the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC.

Photograph: James S. Davis

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