Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 May 14

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From today's featured article

Main building and Cadet Corps of Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1916

The school that became Texas A&M University, the first public institution of higher education in Texas, was founded in 1871 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. Established under the Morrill Act of 1862, it was originally proposed as a branch of the yet-to-be-created University of Texas, but the Texas legislature never gave that university any authority over Texas A&M. For much of its first century, enrollment was restricted to white men who were willing to participate in the Corps of Cadets and receive military training. Shortly after World War II, the legislature redefined Texas A&M as a university and the flagship school of the Texas A&M University System, cementing the school's status as an institution separate from the University of Texas. In the 1960s, the state legislature renamed the school Texas A&M University, with the "A&M" becoming purely symbolic. Membership in the Corps of Cadets became voluntary, and the school became racially integrated and coeducational. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Butterfly stub filter

... that distributed element circuits include butterflies (pictured)?
... that while posted to London during the First World War, journalist Beatrice Nasmyth had her brother smuggle her articles back to Canada to avoid censorship?
... that the title of Schlafes Bruder (Brother of Sleep), a 1992 novel set in a mountain village in Vorarlberg, refers to Bach's setting of "Komm, o Tod, du Schlafes Bruder"?
... that the last railroad in Ohio to be powered by third rail delivered coal to the Picway Power Plant?
... that the partial eye-ring of the male green iora looks like a pair of bright yellow eyelids?
... that when the Opémiska Community Hall fire broke out, people inside did not immediately evacuate because they thought the fire was part of a performance?
... that an American report on the refugee camps in post-World War II Europe led to an inquiry regarding Palestine?
... that the footballer Gary Gill suffered a broken leg during a match in 1989 but carried on playing after being given the magic sponge?

In the news

Netta Barzilai

In association football, the English Premier League concludes with Manchester City winning the title.
Suicide bombers attack three churches in Surabaya, Indonesia, killing at least 13 people.
Netta (pictured), representing Israel, wins the Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon, Portugal, with the song "Toy".
The Supreme Court of the Philippines removes Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno from office.
In the Malaysian general election, opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan, led by Mahathir Mohamad, wins a parliamentary majority.

On this day...

May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias (Roman Catholicism)

Skylab

1264 – Second Barons' War: King Henry III was defeated at the Battle of Lewes and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
1868 – Boshin War: Troops of the Tokugawa shogunate withdrew from the Battle of Utsunomiya Castle and retreated north towards Nikkō and Aizu.
1943 – Second World War: Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, killing 268 people aboard.
1948 – David Ben-Gurion publicly read the Israeli Declaration of Independence at the present-day Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, officially establishing the state of Israel in parts of the former British Mandate of Palestine.
1973 – The NASA space station Skylab (pictured) was launched from Cape Canaveral.

Sambhaji (b. 1657) · Fanny Imlay (b. 1794) · Marjory Stoneman Douglas (d. 1998)

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From today's featured list

A flower from the Ranunculus auricomus complex, part of the Ranunculus genus

There are 57 genera of flowering plants estimated to contain at least 500 described species. The largest of these is currently the legume genus Astragalus (milk-vetches), with over 3,000 species. The sizes of plant genera vary widely from those containing a single species to genera containing thousands of species, and this disparity became clear early in the history of plant classification. The largest genus in Carl Linnaeus' seminal Species Plantarum was Euphorbia, with 56 species; Linnaeus believed that no genus should contain more than 100 species. Part of the disparity in genus sizes is attributable to historical factors. According to a hypothesis published by Max Walters in 1961, the size of plant genera is related to the age, not of the taxon itself, but of the concept of the taxon in the minds of taxonomists. The introduction of infrageneric taxa (such as the subgenus, section and series) in the 19th century by botanists including Augustin Pyrame de Candolle allowed the retention of large genera that would otherwise have become unwieldy. (Full list...)

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Luidia senegalensis is a tropical species of starfish in the family Luidiidae. It has nine long, slim tapering arms attached to a small circular central disc and grows to a diameter of about 30 to 40 centimetres (12 to 16 in). It can be found from the coasts of Florida as far south as southern Brazil, where it favours sandy, muddy or shelly seabeds in sheltered locations such as lagoons. It feeds primarily on molluscs, small crustaceans, and polychaete worms, which it swallows whole by everting its stomach and engulfing its prey.

Photograph: Andrea Westmoreland

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