Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 May 6

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From today's featured article

Russula virescens is a fungus that produces a mushroom commonly known as the green-cracking Russula. It has a distinctive pale green cap up to 15 cm (6 in) wide, with a surface covered with angular patches in a darker green. It has white gills and a firm white stalk up to 8 cm (3 in) tall and 4 cm (1.6 in) thick. With a taste that is variously described as mild, nutty, fruity, or sweet, it is regarded as one of the best edible mushrooms of the genus Russula. Popular in Spain and China, it can be grilled, fried, sautéed, or eaten raw. The species fruits singly or scattered on the ground in both deciduous and mixed forests, and is symbiotic with roots of broadleaf trees such as oak, European beech, aspen, and some Asian lowland rainforest trees of the family Dipterocarpaceae. First described in 1774 by Jacob Christian Schaeffer, the species is native to Asia, North Africa, Europe, Central America, and possibly North America. The mushroom contains a unique laccase enzyme that can break down various dyes in laboratory and textile wastewater. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

£1 note, issued in 1805

... that the Bank of England £1 note (1805 issue pictured) ceased to be legal tender in 1988 and was replaced by the one pound coin?
... that David Hall bought Benjamin Franklin out of his printing business?
... that the Canadian classical scholar Elizabeth Caskey supervised and summarised annual archaeological trench excavations in Greece?
... that the literary historian Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga, once a member of the Romanian Communist Party's central committee, became a nun late in life?
... that the extinct lacewing Prosisyrina is described from fossils found in Cretaceous amber?
... that American football player Devin Fuller toured as a youngster with singer Luther Vandross?
... that the British modern pentathlete Joe Choong is studying for a degree in maths at the University of Bath?
... that the Seri Rambai cannon in Penang, Malaysia, is considered a fertility symbol?

In the news

Evacuation of Fort McMurray

A wildfire (pictured) in Canada displaces 88,000 people and destroys more than 1,600 buildings in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
In association football, Leicester City win the English Premier League for the first time.
Mark Selby defeats Ding Junhui to win the World Snooker Championship.
The Kenyan government burns the largest-ever pile of ivory to combat illegal ivory trade.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is re-elected President of Equatorial Guinea.
An EC225LP Super Puma crashes near Bergen, Norway, killing all 13 on board.

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On this day...

May 6: Saint George's Day in Bulgaria

Grand Palace of Bangkok

1536 – The army of Inca Emperor Manco Inca Yupanqui began a 10-month siege of Cuzco against a garrison of Spanish conquistadors and Indian auxiliaries led by Hernando Pizarro.
1782 – Construction began on the Grand Palace (pictured) of Bangkok, the official residence of the King of Thailand.
1941 – American entertainer Bob Hope performed the first of his many shows for the United Service Organizations.
1991 – Time magazine published "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power", an article highly critical of the Scientology organization, leading to years of legal conflict that ended when the Church of Scientology's petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case was denied in 2001.
2002 – Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by animal rights and environmental activist Volkert van der Graaf in Hilversum, marking the first political murder on Dutch soil since 1672.

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From today's featured list

Publicity photo of Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino's film career started with his appearance as an uncredited extra in My Official Wife (1914), although this is now a lost film. The Italian-born Valentino appeared in several films in a minor role until 1921. He got his major break when he appeared in the role of Julio in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and he went on to play leading roles in fourteen films as a romantic figure. All the films in which he appeared were silent; those in which he played a romantic role within the action genre were the more successful at the box office including The Sheik (1921) and his final two works The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). Valentino died suddenly of peritonitis in August 1926, at the age of 31. The subsequent extensive media coverage turned his funeral into a national event. Two of Valentino's films, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Son of the Sheik have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. (Full list...)

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Crater Lake is situated in a 7,700-year-old caldera in the Cascades of south-central Oregon, United States. The focus of Crater Lake National Park, it is famous for its intense blue color and the clarity of its water. The lake is the deepest in the United States at 594 m (1,950 ft) and, though no rivers flow into or out of it, its waters are replaced every 250 years through rain and snowfall. A post-caldera cinder cone forms Wizard Island.

Photograph: WolfmanSF

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