Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 2018

Today's featured articles for April 2018

Today's featured article archive

April 1

RAF Uxbridge (1 April 1918 – 31 March 2010) was a Royal Air Force station in the London Borough of Hillingdon. In the Second World War, it was the headquarters of No. 11 Group RAF, responsible for the aerial defence of London and south-east England during the Battle of Britain. Hillingdon House served as the group's headquarters. What is now called the Battle of Britain Bunker was built nearby to house the 11 Group Operations Room, which was also responsible for air support during the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 and the D-Day landings in 1944. It was here that Winston Churchill first said, "Never in the history of mankind has so much been owed by so many to so few", repeating the sentiment to Parliament in a speech four days later. When the Uxbridge station closed in 2010, many of its units moved to nearby RAF Northolt. Much of the land around the River Pinn has been designated as green belt. All listed buildings on the property were retained after redevelopment, including the bunker, which is now a museum. (Full article...)

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April 2

The Boat Races 2017 took place on 2 April. Held annually, the Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing race between crews from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge along a 4.2-mile (6.8 km) tidal stretch of the River Thames in south-west London. For the second time in the history of the event, the men's, the women's and both reserves' races were all held on the Tideway on the same day. In the men's reserve race, Cambridge's Goldie were beaten by Oxford's Isis, and in the women's reserve race, Cambridge's Blondie defeated Oxford's Osiris. In the women's race, Cambridge won by a large margin following a disastrous start by the Oxford boat. This win, their second in ten years, took Cambridge's advantage in the overall standings to 42–30. The Oxford men's boat won their race after leading from the start, their fourth victory in five years, taking the overall record in the event to 82–80 in Cambridge's favour. The races were watched by around a quarter of a million spectators live, including, for the first time, on YouTube. (Full article...)

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April 3

Banksia sphaerocarpa, the fox banksia, is a shrub (occasionally a tree) in the family Proteaceae. Generally 1–2 m (3.3–6.6 ft) high, this banksia has narrow green leaves and, from January to July, brownish, orange or yellow round flower spikes. The species is widely distributed across the southwest of Western Australia, growing exclusively in sandy soils. A dominant plant in scrubland or low woodland, it is pollinated by, and is a food source for, birds, mammals, and insects. First described in 1810 by botanist Robert Brown, the species has a complicated taxonomic history, and several taxa once classified as part of a broadly defined B. sphaerocarpa have since been named as species in their own right. Most authorities recognise five varieties; the largest, B. sphaerocarpa var. dolichostyla (ironcap banksia), is sometimes given species rank as B. dolichostyla. According to the Wildlife Conservation Act of Western Australia, B. sphaerocarpa is not threatened. None of the varieties is commonly seen in cultivation. (Full article...)

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April 4

The 2014 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 5 October 2014 at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Mie. It was the 15th race of the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship, and the 30th Japanese Grand Prix of the Formula One era. The 44-lap race was won by Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, increasing his lead in the World Drivers' Championship to ten points over his teammate, Nico Rosberg, who finished second. Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel came in third. Heavy rain from Typhoon Phanfone soaked the track surface and reduced visibility. Jules Bianchi lost control of his Marussia on the 43rd lap and collided with a tractor crane that was tending to Adrian Sutil's car, which had spun off on the previous lap. Bianchi sustained severe head injuries and died nine months later, the first death of a driver in a Formula One Grand Prix since Ayrton Senna's in 1994. Formula One's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, investigated and found that the crash had no single cause. (Full article...)

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April 5

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, pictured in 1968

"On the Mindless Menace of Violence" was a speech given by United States Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. He delivered it at the Sheraton-Cleveland Hotel on April 5, 1968, in the wake of riots and chaos following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American civil rights leader. Speechwriters worked early into the morning on a full response to the assassination. After revising the draft, Kennedy spoke for only 10 minutes in front of 2,200 people at the City Club of Cleveland, outlining his views on violence in American society. He faulted both the rioters and the white establishment who, from his perspective, were responsible for the deterioration of social conditions in the United States. He proposed no specific solutions, but urged the audience to seek common ground and cooperation. Journalist Jack Newfield framed the address as a suitable epitaph for the senator, who was himself assassinated two months later. (Full article...)

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April 6

Damage from Hurricane Fabian on Bermuda

The 2003 Atlantic hurricane season was unusually active, with tropical cyclone activity both before June and after November for the first time in 50 years. There were three major hurricanes, and the sixteen named storms tied for the sixth highest total on record. The strongest hurricane of the season was Isabel, which reached Category 5 on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale northeast of the Lesser Antilles, and later struck North Carolina at Category 2, causing damage worth $3.6 billion and 51 deaths across the Mid-Atlantic United States. In early September, Hurricane Fabian struck Bermuda as a Category 3 hurricane, the strongest since 1926; it caused four deaths and $300 million in damage (example pictured) on the island. Hurricane Juan wreaked considerable destruction on Nova Scotia, particularly Halifax, as a Category 2 hurricane, the first of significant strength there since 1893. The minimal hurricanes Claudette and Erika struck Texas and Mexico, respectively. (Full article...)

Part of the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season featured topic.

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April 7

Drama dari Krakatau (Drama of Krakatoa) is a 1929 vernacular Malay novel written by Kwee Tek Hoay, first published as a serial in his magazine Panorama between 7 April and 22 December 1928. Inspired by Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1834 novel The Last Days of Pompeii and the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, the book centres on two families in 1920s Batam, linked by a brother and sister who were separated in 1883. The brother becomes a political figure, while the sister marries a Baduy priest-king who ultimately sacrifices himself to calm a stirring Krakatoa. Before the final instalment had been published, the novel had already been adapted for the stage. Although Kwee was known as a realist and researched the volcano before writing, Drama dari Krakatau is replete with mysticism. Thematic analyses have focused on the depiction of indigenous cultures by Kwee (himself ethnic Chinese), as well as geography and nationalism. As with other works of Chinese Malay literature, the book is not considered part of the Indonesian literary canon. (Full article...)

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April 8

Withypool Stone Circle is a Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age ring of thirty small gritstones near the village of Withypool, in Exmoor in the south-western English county of Somerset. It is one of many stone circles built across Britain, Ireland and Brittany as part of a megalithic tradition between 3300 and 900 BCE. Archaeologists speculate that they may be prehistoric religious sites with supernatural associations. Although many monuments were built on Exmoor during the Bronze Age, only one other stone circle survives in this area, at Porlock. The Withypool ring sits in an area of heathland on the south-western slope of Withypool Hill. It is about 36.4 metres (119 feet 5 inches) in diameter. There may originally have been around 100 stones; there are conspicuous gaps on the northern and western sides of the monument. The site was rediscovered in 1898 and surveyed by the archaeologist Harold St George Gray in 1905. (Full article...)

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April 9

Possible depiction,
published 1765

The Lesser Antillean macaw (Ara guadeloupensis) was a parrot of the Guadeloupe islands. There are no conserved specimens, but this macaw is known from several contemporary accounts, and the bird is the subject of some illustrations. Austin Hobart Clark made a species description based on these accounts in 1905. A phalanx bone from the island of Marie-Galante confirmed the existence of a similar-sized macaw predating the arrival of humans, and was correlated with the Lesser Antillean macaw in 2015. According to contemporary descriptions, the body was red, the wings were red, blue and yellow, and the solid red tail feathers were between 38 and 51 cm (15 and 20 in) long; apart from the tail feathers and its smaller size, this description matches the scarlet macaw. These accounts also said that it ate fruit (including the poisonous manchineel), nested in trees and laid two eggs once or twice a year. Although it was said to be abundant in Guadeloupe, by 1760 it was becoming rare and was soon eradicated, probably by disease and hunting. (Full article...)

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April 10

Original charter

Æthelstan A is the name given by historians to an unknown scribe who drafted charters (example pictured) for land grants made by King Æthelstan of England between 928 and 935. Providing far more information than other charters of the period, they contain the date and place of the grants and an unusually long list of witnesses, including kings of Wales and occasionally Scotland and Strathclyde. The charters commence shortly after Æthelstan conquered Northumbria in 927, making him the first king to rule the whole of England. They give him titles such as "King of the English" and "King of the Whole of Britain", reflecting his claim to a higher status than previous West Saxon kings. The charters are written in the elaborate hermeneutic style of Latin, a hallmark of the English Benedictine Reform; the style became dominant in Anglo-Latin literature in the mid-tenth century. The scribe stopped drafting charters after 935, and his successors returned to a simpler style, suggesting that he was working on his own rather than as a member of a royal scriptorium. (Full article...)

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April 11

State Route 520 (SR 520) is a 13-mile (21 km) state highway and freeway in the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. Connecting Seattle to the Eastside region of King County across the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge on Lake Washington, it intersects Interstate 5 (I-5) in Seattle, I-405 in Bellevue, and SR 202 in Redmond. It was designated as a freeway in 1964, but was not fully constructed until the late 1970s. Increased traffic on the corridor, spurred in part by expansion of the Microsoft headquarters in Overlake, led to the addition of high-occupancy vehicle lanes and new interchanges in the 1990s. In April 2016, the original floating bridge was replaced by a wider one as part of a multibillion-dollar expansion program that is scheduled to be completed in the 2020s. The program includes the construction of a new bicycle and pedestrian path, bus stations, and interchanges. (Full article...)

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April 12

Imogen Holst (12 April 1907 – 9 March 1984) was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher and festival administrator. In the 1940s she helped to establish Dartington Hall as a major centre of music education, and for the next 20 years was the joint artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. The only child of the composer Gustav Holst, she attended the Royal College of Music, but was unable for health reasons to follow her ambitions to be a pianist or a dancer, and became a full-time organiser for the English Folk Dance and Song Society. In the early 1950s she became Benjamin Britten's musical assistant. In later years she concentrated on the preservation of her father's musical legacy, and wrote several books on his life and works. The music she wrote is not widely known and has received little critical attention. She received numerous academic honours, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1975. (Full article...)

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April 13

Carousel (1945) is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics), after their hit Oklahoma! (1943). It was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting the setting to the U.S. state of Maine. Carousel barker Billy Bigelow's romance with millworker Julie Jordan cost them their jobs; after he attempts a robbery that goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. The show includes the songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". It opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, and was an immediate hit with both critics and audiences. It initially ran there for 890 performances, and duplicated its success in the West End in 1950. It has been repeatedly revived and recorded. A 1992 production by Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in London, in New York, and on tour. Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals. In 1999, Time magazine named it the best musical of the 20th century. (Full article...)

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April 14

Château de Tancarville. Urse was a tenant of the lords of Tancarville.

Urse d'Abetot (c. 1040 – 1108) was a Sheriff of Worcestershire and royal official under Kings William I, William II and Henry I. Urse's lord in Normandy was present at the Battle of Hastings, and Urse moved to England shortly after the Norman Conquest, where he was appointed sheriff around 1069. His castle in the town of Worcester encroached on the cathedral cemetery there, angering the Archbishop of York. He helped to put down a rebellion against King William I in 1075, and quarrelled with the Church in his county over the jurisdiction of the sheriffs. He continued in the service of William's sons after the king's death, and was appointed constable under William II and marshal under Henry I. He earned a reputation for extortion, and during the reign of William II, he was considered second only to the king's minister Ranulf Flambard in his greediness. Through his daughter, Urse is an ancestor of the Beauchamp family, who eventually became Earls of Warwick. (Full article...)

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April 15

The sinking of the RMS Titanic in the early morning of 15 April 1912, four days into the ship's maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City, was one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history, killing more than 1,500 people. The largest passenger liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The ship had received six warnings of sea ice but was travelling at near maximum speed when the lookouts sighted the iceberg. Unable to turn quickly enough, the ship suffered a glancing blow that buckled the starboard side and opened five of sixteen compartments to the sea. The disaster caused widespread outrage over the lack of lifeboats, lax regulations, and the unequal treatment of the three passenger classes during the evacuation. Inquiries recommended sweeping changes to maritime regulations, leading to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (1914), which continues to govern maritime safety. (Full article...)

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April 16

A. farreri, the first taxon that Stearn described

William T. Stearn (16 April 1911 – 9 May 2001) was a British botanist. Born in Cambridge in 1911, he was largely self-educated. He was librarian at the Royal Horticultural Society in London from 1933 to 1952 and then moved to the Natural History Museum as a scientific officer in the botany department until 1976. After retirement, he became President of the Linnean Society and taught botany at Cambridge University. He is known for his work in botanical taxonomy, botanical history, and botanical illustration and for his studies of the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus. He is the author of Botanical Latin, as well as the Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners, a popular guide to the Latin names of plants. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1957. Considered one of the most eminent British botanists of his time, he is the botanical authority for over 400 plants that he named and described. An essay prize in his name from the Society for the History of Natural History is awarded each year. (Full article...)

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April 17

Yvonne Fletcher was fatally wounded on 17 April 1984 by a shot coming from the Libyan embassy on St James's Square in London. She had been deployed as a constable of the Metropolitan Police to monitor a demonstration against the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. During the protest, two unknown gunmen opened fire with Sterling submachine guns, killing Fletcher and wounding eleven Libyans. The inquest found that she was "killed by a bullet coming from one of two windows on the west side of the front on the first floor of the Libyan People's Bureau". After an eleven-day siege of the embassy, those inside were expelled from the United Kingdom, and diplomatic relations with Libya were severed. In 1999 a warming of diplomatic relations with Britain led to the payment of compensation and a statement from the Libyan government admitting culpability in Fletcher's shooting. British police continued their investigation until 2017, but no one has been convicted of Fletcher's murder. (Full article...)

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April 18

Famous Fantastic Mysteries was an American science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine published from 1939 to 1953, edited by Mary Gnaedinger. It was launched by the Munsey Company to reprint stories from their magazines, including Argosy. Frequently reprinted authors included George Allan England, A. Merritt, and Austin Hall. The artwork, including some of the best work of Virgil Finlay and Lawrence Stevens, contributed to the success of the magazine. In late 1942 Popular Publications acquired the title from Munsey, and Famous Fantastic Mysteries stopped reprinting short stories from the earlier magazines. It continued to reprint longer works, including titles by G. K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells, and H. Rider Haggard. Original short fiction also began to appear, including Arthur C. Clarke's "Guardian Angel", which later formed the first section of his novel Childhood's End. In 1951 the publishers experimented briefly with a large digest format, but returned quickly to the original pulp layout. (Full article...)

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April 19

The 6th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was a peacetime infantry regiment that was activated by the Union army in the American Civil War. On April 19, 1861, the regiment was on its way to Washington, D.C. in response to President Abraham Lincoln's initial call for troops when it was attacked by a crowd in Baltimore, Maryland, during the Baltimore Riot. Private Luther C. Ladd of the 6th Massachusetts was wounded and later died, becoming the war's first Union soldier to be killed in action. April 19 was the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolution in 1775, and the men of the 6th Massachusetts (some of whom were descended from soldiers of that war) were often called the "Minutemen of '61". After proceeding to Washington, the regiment returned to Baltimore to guard locations within the city as well as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad station at Elkridge, Maryland. In April and May 1863, the regiment saw action near Suffolk, Virginia, in the Siege of Suffolk and the Battle of Carrsville. (Full article...)

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April 20

Knuckles' Chaotix is a side-scrolling platform game developed and published by Sega for the 32X, first released on April 20, 1995. A spin-off of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the game features Knuckles the Echidna and the four Chaotix, who try to prevent Doctor Robotnik and Metal Sonic from conquering a mysterious island. Development of the game can be traced to Sonic Crackers, a 1994 prototype for the Sega Genesis featuring Sonic and Tails. Development transitioned to the 32X under the working title Knuckles' Ringstar. Sonic and Tails were removed from the game and replaced by Knuckles and four other characters, including Mighty the Armadillo, who first appeared in the arcade game SegaSonic the Hedgehog (1993). Critical reception to Knuckles' Chaotix has been mixed, and the physics of a new tethering system was faulted as cumbersome. Some characters and concepts introduced in the game were featured in later Sonic games and media. Despite interest from fans, the game has not been rereleased beyond a brief period through GameTap in the mid-2000s. (Full article...)

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April 21

Neferirkare Kakai was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the third king of the Fifth Dynasty. The eldest son of the previous pharaoh, Sahure, he reigned for eight to eleven years, sometime in the early-to-mid 25th century BCE. His contemporaries viewed him as a kind and benevolent ruler, willing to intervene on behalf of his courtiers. During his rule the number of administration and priesthood officials increased, and they used their expanded wealth to build sophisticated mastabas (tombs) where they recorded their biographies for the first time. He was the last pharaoh to significantly modify the royal naming conventions, separating the throne name from the birth name, in front of which he added the "Son of Ra" epithet. In the royal necropolis of Abusir he started a pyramid for himself conceived as a step pyramid, a form not seen since the Third Dynasty about 120 years earlier. A modified plan represented the monument as a true pyramid, the largest in Abusir, but this pyramid was never completed. (Full article...)

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April 22

The regiment's cap badge

The Gloucestershire Regiment (1881–1994) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, formed from two regiments originally raised in 1694 and 1758, which first saw action in the Second Boer War. During the First World War, 16 battalions fought under the regiment’s colours, winning 72 different battle honours. In the Second World War, the 2nd and 5th Battalions fought in the Battle of France. Most of the 2nd Battalion soldiers were taken prisoner in the Battle of Dunkirk, but the rebuilt unit returned to France on D-Day at Gold Beach. The 1st Battalion saw action during the Japanese conquest of Burma, and the 10th Battalion fought in the Burma Campaign 1944–45. During the Korean War, the 1st Battalion held out for three nights against overwhelming Chinese forces in the Battle of the Imjin River, and received the American Presidential Unit Citation. The stand was described by the commander of the United Nations forces as "the most outstanding example of unit bravery in modern war". (Full article...)

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April 23

[[File:|165px|The Destroying Angel... (central figures) ]]

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The Destroying Angel and Daemons of Evil Interrupting the Orgies of the Vicious and Intemperate is an oil painting by English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1832. With this openly moral piece, Etty hoped to respond to critics who found his nude paintings indecent and in poor taste. It depicts a classical temple under attack from a destroying angel and a group of daemons. Some of the occupants are dead or unconscious; others flee in terror or struggle against the daemons. When first exhibited The Destroying Angel was widely praised for its technical brilliance, but critics were divided on the subject matter. Some praised its vividness and ability to mix fear and beauty without descending into tastelessness; others criticised its theme as inappropriate, and chastised Etty for wasting his talents. Joseph Whitworth donated the painting in 1882 to the Manchester Art Gallery, where it remains. (Full article...)

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April 24

The 1867 Manhattan earthquake struck Riley County, Kansas, in the United States on April 24. The strongest earthquake to originate in the state, it measured 5.1 on a seismic scale based on reports of how strongly it was felt in the area. Its epicenter was near the town of Manhattan. On the Mercalli intensity scale, its maximum perceived intensity was VII, "very strong". There were reports of minor damage in Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was felt as far away as Indiana and Illinois, and perhaps Ohio, though the latter reports have been questioned. Manhattan is near the Nemaha Ridge, a long anticline structure that is bounded by several faults. A 2016 hazard map from the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a 1% or lower risk for a major earthquake in Kansas for the following year, though the nearby Humboldt Fault Zone continues to pose a threat to the city, and scientists from the agency think an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 remains possible. (Full article...)

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April 25

The Lancashire Fusiliers War Memorial is a First World War memorial originally dedicated to members of the Lancashire Fusiliers killed in that conflict, and later rededicated to all fusiliers killed in action. It was unveiled on 25 April 1922, the seventh anniversary of the landing at Cape Helles, part of the Gallipoli Campaign in which the regiment suffered particularly heavy casualties. It is now located outside the Fusilier Museum in Gallipoli Gardens in Bury, Greater Manchester (historically in Lancashire), in north-west England. The prominent architect Edwin Lutyens, whose father and great uncle were officers in the regiment, designed a tall, slender obelisk in Portland stone, with inscriptions containing the regiment's motto and a dedication, and the regiment's cap badge carved near the top. The memorial was designated a Grade II listed building in 1992. It was upgraded to II* in 2015, and later that year was recognised as part of a national collection of Lutyens' war memorials. (Full article...)

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April 26

Dubrovnik was a flotilla leader built for the Royal Yugoslav Navy by Yarrow Shipbuilders in Glasgow in 1930 and 1931. One of the largest destroyers of the time, she was a fast ship with a main armament of four Czechoslovak-built Škoda 140 mm (5.5 in) guns in single mounts. During the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Dubrovnik was captured by the Italians. After a refit, she was commissioned into the Royal Italian Navy as Premuda. In June 1942, she joined the Italian force that attacked the Allied Operation Harpoon convoy attempting to relieve the island of Malta. Premuda was the most important and effective Italian war prize ship of World War II. After the Italian surrender to the Allies in September 1943, the destroyer was seized by Germany and commissioned into the German Navy as TA32. In March 1945, the ship took part in the Battle of the Ligurian Sea against two Royal Navy destroyers. She was scuttled the following month as the Germans retreated from Genoa. (Full article...)

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April 27

Gomphus clavatus, the violet chanterelle, is an edible species of fungus native to Eurasia and North America. The fruit body is vase- or fan-shaped with wavy edges on its rim, and grows up to 15 cm (6 in) wide and 17 cm (6+3⁄4 in) tall. The upper surface or cap is orangish-brown to lilac, while the lower spore-bearing surface, the hymenium, is covered in wrinkles and ridges rather than gills or pores, and is a distinctive purple color. Described by Jacob Christian Schäffer in 1774, it is found in coniferous forests and is associated particularly with spruces and firs. It is more common at elevations of greater than 2,000 ft (600 m), in moist, shady areas with plenty of leaf litter. Although widespread, G. clavatus has become rare in many parts of Europe and extinct in the British Isles. It is on the national Red Lists of threatened fungi in 17 European countries and is one of 33 species proposed for international conservation under the Bern Convention. (Full article...)

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April 28

Billie the white horse

The 1923 FA Cup Final was an association football match between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United on 28 April, the first to be played at the original Wembley Stadium in London. This Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup), the showpiece match of English football's primary cup competition, drew a chaotic crowd of up to 300,000, far exceeding the stadium's official capacity of around 125,000. Mounted policemen, including one on a light-coloured horse (pictured) that became the defining image of the day, had to be brought in to clear the crowds from the pitch. (The match is still referred to as the "White Horse Final".) Although West Ham started strongly, Bolton proved the dominant team for most of the match and won 2–0. David Jack scored a goal two minutes after the start of the match and Jack Smith added a controversial second goal during the second half. The pre-match events prompted discussion in the House of Commons and led to the introduction of safety measures for future finals. (Full article...)

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April 29

Subfossil lemurs are primates from Madagascar, especially the extinct giant lemurs, represented by subfossils (partially fossilized remains) dating from nearly 26,000 to around 560 years ago. Almost all of these species, including the sloth lemurs, koala lemurs and monkey lemurs, were living around 2,000 years ago, when humans first arrived on the island. The extinct species are estimated to have ranged in size from slightly over 10 kg (22 lb) to roughly 160 kg (350 lb). The subfossil sites found around most of the island demonstrate that most giant lemurs had wide distributions. Like living lemurs, they had poor day vision and relatively small brains, and developed rapidly, but they relied less on leaping, and more on terrestrial locomotion, slow climbing, and suspension. Although no recent remains of giant lemurs have been found, oral traditions and reported recent sightings by Malagasy villagers suggest that there may be lingering populations or very recent extinctions. (Full article...)

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April 30

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition dollar was a commemorative gold coin series dated 1903. The coins were designed by Charles E. Barber, Chief Engraver of the United States Bureau of the Mint. The pieces were issued to promote the Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in 1904 in St. Louis. They were struck in two varieties at the urging of exposition authorities, including numismatic promoter Farran Zerbe: one depicted former president Thomas Jefferson, and the other, the recently assassinated president William McKinley. The price for each variety was $3, the same cost whether sold as a coin, or mounted in jewelry or on a spoon. Although not the first American commemorative coins, they were the first in gold. They were intended to help fund the Exposition, originally scheduled to open in 1903. Congress authorized the coins in 1902, but they did not sell well, and most were later melted. They regained their issue price by 1915, and are now worth between a few hundred and several thousand dollars, depending on condition. (Full article...)

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