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The Wikipedia article of the day for February 5, 2018 is White-breasted nuthatch . The white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) is a small songbird that breeds in old-growth woodland across much of temperate North America. It is a stocky nuthatch with a large head, short tail, powerful bill, and strong feet. The upperparts are pale blue-gray, and the face and underparts are white. It has a black cap and a chestnut lower belly. The nine subspecies differ mainly in the color of the body plumage. Like other nuthatches, the white-breasted nuthatch forages for insects on trunks and branches and is able to move head-first down trees. Seeds form a substantial part of its winter diet, as do acorns and hickory nuts that were stored by the bird in the fall. The nest is in a hole in a tree, and a breeding pair may smear insects around the entrance as a deterrent to squirrels. Adults and their young may be killed by hawks, owls, and snakes, and forest clearance may lead to local habitat loss,

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 4, 2018 is 1998 NFC Championship Game . The 1998 NFC Championship Game was a National Football League game played on January 17, 1999, to determine the National Football Conference (NFC) champion for the 1998 NFL season. The visiting Atlanta Falcons defeated the heavily favored Minnesota Vikings 30–27 in sudden death overtime to win their first conference championship and advance to the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance. The Vikings had gone undefeated in their home stadium, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, during the regular season, and their placekicker, Gary Anderson, had become the first kicker in NFL history to convert every field goal and extra point attempt in a season. At a critical moment late in the game, Anderson missed a field goal that would have given the Vikings a nearly insurmountable 10-point lead. Instead, the Falcons scored a touchdown to tie the game on their ensuing drive, and in overtime they won by a field

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 3, 2018 is Plunketts Creek (Loyalsock Creek tributary) . Plunketts Creek is a 6.2-mile-long (10.0 km) tributary of Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming and Sullivan counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Its watershed drains 23.6 square miles (61 km2) in the Chesapeake Bay basin by way of the West Branch Susquehanna and Susquehanna rivers. The creek is named for Colonel William Plunkett, who led a Pennsylvania expedition in the Pennamite–Yankee War to forcibly remove settlers arriving from Connecticut, who were claiming lands that were also claimed by Pennsylvania. For his services, Plunkett was granted land that included the creek's mouth. The creek flows southwest and then south through the dissected Allegheny Plateau, through rock from the Mississippian sub-period and Devonian period. Much of the Plunketts Creek valley is composed of glacial deposits, chiefly alluvium. A potentially large source of natural gas, the Marcellus Shale, lies

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 2, 2018 is Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, BWV 125 . Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (With peace and joy I depart), BWV 125, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, composed in Leipzig in 1725 for the Candlemas feast on 2 February. The cantata is based on Martin Luther's 1524 hymn of the same name. The gospel for the feast day, the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, includes Simeon's canticle (painting pictured), which Luther paraphrased in his hymn. For Bach's chorale cantata cycle, an unknown librettist retained the first and the last of Luther's four stanzas, paraphrasing the second stanza for an aria, and including its original text line by line in a recitative. Bach framed four solo movements with choral music, a chorale fantasia and a closing chorale. He scored the work for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir, horn, flauto traverso, oboes, strings and basso continuo. In the third movement, Bach uses

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 1, 2018 is 250t-class torpedo boat . Eight 250t-class torpedo boats were built by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino for the Austro-Hungarian Navy between 1913 and 1916 for service in World War I. They were among 27 high-seas torpedo boats that undertook anti-submarine operations in the Adriatic Sea, shore bombardment missions along its Italian coastline, and convoy, and escort and minesweeping tasks. Under the terms of the post-war Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the boats were surrendered to Romania, Portugal, Greece, and the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia). By 1940, 13 torpedo boats had been lost or scrapped. During World War II, the five remaining Greek boats were sunk by Axis aircraft during the German-led invasion of Greece in April 1941. The two Romanian boats that survived the war performed escort tasks in the Black Sea before being taken over by the Soviet Navy for service in the Black Sea Fleet

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 31, 2018 is Cape sparrow . The Cape sparrow (Passer melanurus) is a southern African bird. A medium-sized sparrow at 14–16 centimetres (5.5–6.3 in), it has distinctive grey, brown, and chestnut plumage, with large pale head stripes in both sexes. The male has some bold black and white markings on its head and neck. The species inhabits semi-arid savannah, cultivated areas, and towns, from the central coast of Angola to eastern South Africa and Swaziland. Cape sparrows primarily eat seeds, along with soft plant parts and insects. They typically breed in colonies, and search for food in large nomadic flocks. The nest can be constructed in a tree, bush, cavity, or disused nest of another species. A typical clutch contains three or four eggs, and both parents are involved, from nest building to feeding the young. The species is common in most of its range and coexists successfully in urban habitats with two of its relatives, the native southern

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 30, 2018 is Oviri . Oviri is an 1894 ceramic sculpture by the French artist Paul Gauguin. It depicts a Tahitian goddess of mourning, with long pale hair, large breasts, and wild eyes. She smothers a wolf with her feet, while clutching a cub in her arms. Art historians have suggested multiple complex interpretations; its alternative title, "Savage", may refer to Gauguin's own view of himself. The work's form and tone was inspired by a number of ancient sources, including Majapahit mummies and an Assyrian relief of a master of animals. Other possible influences include preserved skulls from the Marquesas Islands, figures found at Borobudur, and a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in central Java. Gauguin made three casts, each in partially glazed stoneware. The original is housed at the Musée d'Orsay, in France. It was exhibited at the 1906 Salon d'Automne where it was seen by Pablo Picasso, who used it as the bas

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 29, 2018 is Baltimore railroad strike of 1877 . In the Baltimore railroad strike of 1877, at least ten people were killed and more than 150 were injured. The unrest in Baltimore, Maryland, was part of a national railroad strike, following the global depression and economic downturns of the mid-1870s. On July 16, when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) scheduled 10 percent wage reductions, strikes broke out. Violence erupted in Baltimore on July 20, and police and soldiers of the Maryland National Guard clashed with crowds of thousands gathered throughout the city. In response, President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered federal troops to Baltimore, local officials recruited as many as 500 additional police, and two new national guard regiments were formed. Peace was restored two days later. Negotiations between strikers and the B&O were unsuccessful, and most strikers quit rather than return to work at reduced wages. The company easily

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 28, 2018 is Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi . Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi is a fourth-century Latin poem arranged by Faltonia Betitia Proba after her conversion to Christianity. A cento rearranges verses written by other poets; this one repurposes Virgil to tell stories from the Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible. Much of the work focuses on the story of Jesus Christ. The poem was widely circulated, eventually being used in schools to teach the tenets of Christianity, often alongside Augustine of Hippo's De Doctrina Christiana. Although the poem was popular, critical reception was mixed. A pseudonymous work purportedly by Pope Gelasius I disparaged the poem, deeming it apocryphal, and St. Jerome may have written negatively of it, and of Proba. Other thinkers like Isidore of Seville, Petrarch, and Giovanni Boccaccio wrote highly of her, and many praised her ingenuity. During the 19th and 20th centuries the poem

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 27, 2018 is Finnish Civil War . The Finnish Civil War (27 January – 15 May 1918) marked the transition from the Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Russian Empire, to an independent state. Arising during World War I, it was fought between the Reds, led by the Social Democratic Party, and the Whites, led by the conservative Senate. In February 1918, the Reds carried out an unsuccessful offensive, supplied with weapons by Soviet Russia. A counteroffensive by the Whites began in March, reinforced by the German Empire's military detachments in April. The decisive engagements were the battles of Tampere and Vyborg, won by the Whites, and the battles of Helsinki and Lahti, won by German troops, leading to overall victory for the Whites and the German forces. The 39,000 casualties included political terror deaths. Although the Senate and Parliament were initially pressured into accepting the brother-in-law of German Emperor William II as the K

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 26, 2018 is Australian Defence Force . The Australian Defence Force (ADF) comprises all of the country's armed forces, including the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army, and Royal Australian Air Force. With a strength of just under 80,000 full-time personnel and active reservists, it is supported by the Department of Defence and other civilian agencies. During the first decades of the 20th century, the Australian Government established the armed services as separate organisations, each with an independent chain of command. In 1976, the government made a strategic change and established the ADF to place the three services under a single headquarters. The degree of integration has increased over time, and tri-service headquarters, logistics and training institutions have supplanted many single-service establishments. Technologically sophisticated, the ADF is the largest military in Oceania, with approximately 58,000 full-time active-du

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 25, 2018 is Lycoperdon perlatum . Lycoperdon perlatum, the common puffball, is a widespread species of fungus in the family Agaricaceae. It forms an off-white medium-sized puffball tapering to a wide stalk, 1.5 to 6 cm (0.6 to 2.4 in) wide by 3 to 10 cm (1.2 to 3.9 in) tall. Its top is covered in short spiny bumps that are easily rubbed off to leave a net-like pattern on the surface. When mature it becomes brown, and a hole in the top opens to release spores in a burst when the body is compressed by touch or falling raindrops. It is edible when the young internal flesh is completely white, but can be mistaken for an immature fruit body of several poisonous Amanita species. L. perlatum can usually be distinguished from similar puffballs by differences in surface texture. Its chemical compounds include the unusual amino acid lycoperdic acid and volatile sterol derivatives that give the puffball its flavor and odor. Laboratory tests indicate t

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 24, 2018 is August Meyszner . August Meyszner (3 August 1886 – 24 January 1947) was an Austrian gendarmerie officer, right-wing politician, and senior Ordnungspolizei (order police) officer of Nazi Germany. He held the post of Higher SS and Police Leader in the German-occupied territory of Serbia from January 1942 to March 1944, during World War II. During his tenure, he oversaw regular reprisal killings and sent tens of thousands of forced labourers to Germany and occupied Norway. His Gestapo detachment also used a gas van to kill as many as 8,000 Jewish women and children who had been detained at the Sajmište concentration camp. Meyszner's time in Belgrade was characterised by friction and competition with German military, economic and foreign affairs officials, and by his visceral hatred and distrust of Serbs; he was considered one of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's most brutal subordinates. Extradited by the Allies to Yugosla

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 23, 2018 is Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed . Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed is a painting by English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1830. It shows a scene from the Histories by Herodotus, in which Candaules, king of Lydia, invites his bodyguard Gyges to hide in the couple's bedroom and watch his wife Nyssia undress. After Nyssia notices Gyges, he kills Candaules and takes his place as king. The painting shows the moment at which Nyssia, unaware of Gyges, removes the last of her clothes. Etty hoped to impart the moral that women are not chattels and that men violating their rights should be punished, but he made little effort to explain this to audiences. The painting was immediately controversial, seen as a cynical combination of pornography and a violent unpleasant narrative, and criti

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 22, 2018 is S-50 (Manhattan Project) . The S-50 Project was the Manhattan Project's effort to produce enriched uranium by liquid thermal diffusion during World War II. The process was developed by Philip H. Abelson and other scientists at the United States Naval Research Laboratory, and was one of three technologies for uranium enrichment pursued by the Manhattan Project. Pilot plants were built at the Anacostia Naval Air Station and the Philadelphia Navy Yard. A facility at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was the only production-scale liquid thermal diffusion plant ever built. It could not enrich uranium sufficiently for use in an atomic bomb, but it could begin the process of enrichment that was completed by the Y-12 calutrons and the K-25 gaseous diffusion plants. It sped up the production of enriched uranium for the Little Boy bomb used in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This plant ceased production in September

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 21, 2018 is Saguaro National Park . Saguaro National Park is a United States national park in southeastern Arizona that preserves Sonoran Desert landscapes, fauna, and flora, including the giant saguaro cactus. The 92,000-acre (37,000 ha) park has two separate areas—the Tucson Mountain District (TMD) about 10 miles (16 km) west of the city of Tucson and the Rincon Mountain District about 10 miles (16 km) east of the city. The Rincon Mountains are part of the Madrean Sky Islands between the southern Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico; they are significantly higher and wetter than the Tucson Mountains, and support many plants and animals that do not live in the TMD. Earlier residents of and visitors to the lands in and around the park before its creation included the Hohokam, Sobaipuri, Tohono O'odham, and Apaches, as well as Spanish explorers, missionaries, miners, homesteaders, and ranchers. In 1933, President Herbe

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 20, 2018 is Reg Pollard (general) . Reg Pollard (20 January 1903 – 9 March 1978) was a senior commander in the Australian Army, serving as Chief of the General Staff from 1960 to 1963. He was mentioned in despatches in 1941 after seeing action with the 7th Division in the Middle East. In 1942 he became senior staff officer of the division in New Guinea, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions. Pollard's early post-war roles involved recruit training, administration, and planning. In 1953 he took command of the Australian Army Component of the British Commonwealth Forces Korea. In 1957 he was promoted to lieutenant general and took charge of Eastern Command in Sydney. Knighted in 1961, he presided over the Army's reorganisation as Chief of the General Staff, and helped Royal Military College, Duntroon become a degree-granting institution. In 1962, he oversaw deployment of the first team of Australian military

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 19, 2018 is Sonic Spinball . Sonic Spinball is a pinball video game developed by the Sega Technical Institute and published by Sega. It was originally released for the Mega Drive/Genesis in North America and Europe in November 1993 and in Japan the following month. It was later ported to the Game Gear and Master System in 1994 and 1995 respectively. The game has been re-released on eleven different consoles and has been included in Genesis-related compilations. The player controls Sonic the Hedgehog, who is manipulated like a pinball in various machine-like environments for most of the game, while the series antagonist Doctor Robotnik tries to enslave the population on the planet Mobius. Sonic Spinball was commissioned by Sega when it became clear that a new Sonic the Hedgehog game could not be completed in time for the 1993 holiday season, since the majority of their staff were developing Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The game was hastily develope

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 18, 2018 is Cleopatra Selene of Syria . Cleopatra Selene (died 69 BC) was a queen of Seleucid Syria (83–69 BC). The daughter of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III of Egypt, she became the queen of Egypt in 115 BC when she was married to her brother, King Ptolemy IX, and later probably married King Ptolemy X. In 103 BC, Cleopatra III established an alliance with the Seleucid ruler Antiochus VIII; Cleopatra Selene was sent to be his bride, and stayed with him until his assassination in 96 BC. The widowed queen married her previous husband's brother, Antiochus IX, who died in 95 BC. She then married her stepson, Antiochus X, who probably died in 92 BC. She hid somewhere in Syria with her children until 83 BC, when the Seleucid thrones in Antioch and Damascus became vacant. Declaring her son Antiochus XIII king, she ruled alongside him, according to depictions on coins from the period. She was ousted when the people of Antioch and Damascus, exh

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 17, 2018 is Eastbourne manslaughter . The Eastbourne manslaughter (R v Hopley) was an 1860 legal case in Eastbourne, England, about the death of a teenage pupil at the hands of his teacher, Thomas Hopley. Reginald Cancellor's parents gave Hopley permission to use corporal punishment to overcome what he perceived as the boy's stubbornness. After the boy died, the teacher insisted that the beating was justifiable and that he was not guilty of any crime. An inquest into Cancellor's death began when his brother requested an autopsy. As a result of the inquest Hopley was arrested and charged with manslaughter. He was found guilty at trial and sentenced to four years in prison. Hopley's conviction was upheld by the Court of King's Bench (Chief Justice Alexander Cockburn pictured), which said that a schoolmaster "may for the purpose of correcting what is evil in the child, inflict moderate and reasonable corporal punishmen