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jeudi 1 octobre 2020

Vermilion flycatcher

Vermilion flycatcher.
The vermilion flycatcher (Pyrocephalus obscurus) is a tyrant flycatcher found in South America and southern North America. The male (pictured) has a bright red crown and underparts, and brownish wings and tail; females lack the red coloration. The male's chirpy song is used in establishing a territory in riparian or semi-open habitat. Its diet of insects are caught in flight. Although monogamous, females may lay their eggs in another pair's nest, and extra-pair copulation occurs. Females build cup nests and are fed by the male while they incubate the two to three speckled whitish eggs; two broods are laid in a season. Both parents feed the chicks, which are ready to fledge after fifteen days. A long molt begins in summer. The species was first described from specimens caught by Charles Darwin. The taxonomy of the genus was revised in 2016, creating several new species from this flycatcher's former subspecies. Populations have declined because of habitat loss, although numbers remain in the millions.

mercredi 30 septembre 2020

Rwandan Civil War

Rwandan Civil War.
The Rwandan Civil War was a conflict between the Hutu-led Rwandan Armed Forces and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), founded by Tutsi refugees. The war began on 1 October 1990 with an RPF invasion but the army, assisted by French troops, had largely defeated the RPF by the end of the month. Paul Kagame (pictured, left) took command of the rebels and in a few months began a multi-year guerrilla war. In 1992, after a series of protests, Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana (pictured, right) began peace negotiations with the RPF and domestic opposition parties. Despite disruption by the extremist group Hutu Power and a fresh RPF offensive, the Arusha Accords were signed in August 1993. United Nations peacekeepers were installed, but Hutu Power was steadily gaining influence. After the assassination of Habyarimana in April 1994, between half a million and a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed in the Rwandan genocide. The RPF quickly resumed the war, capturing the capital and taking control of the country by July.

mardi 29 septembre 2020

Herbert Maryon

Herbert Maryon.
Herbert Maryon (1874–1965) was an English sculptor, conservator, goldsmith, archaeologist and authority on ancient metalwork. Maryon was the first director of the Arts and Crafts–inspired Keswick School of Industrial Art, then taught at the universities of Reading and Durham until 1939. During this time he designed the University of Reading War Memorial, excavated one of the oldest gold artefacts in Britain, and authored the standard Metalwork and Enamelling. Maryon left retirement to join the British Museum, and is best known for his conservation work on the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, including restorations of the shield, the drinking horns, and the iconic Sutton Hoo helmet. In other work he restored a Roman helmet, coined the term pattern welding, and wrote a paper influencing a painting by Salvador Dalí. Maryon was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 1956; asked by Queen Elizabeth II what he did, Maryon responded: "Well, Ma'am, I am a sort of back room boy at the British Museum."

lundi 28 septembre 2020

Valston Hancock

Valston Hancock.
Valston Hancock (31 May 1907 – 29 September 1998) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Hancock transferred to the RAAF in 1929 and qualified as a pilot. After fifteen years of occupying staff and training posts, he saw combat in the Aitape–Wewak campaign of the Pacific War during 1945. Flying Bristol Beaufort light bombers, he led No. 100 Squadron, and later No. 71 Wing, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, Hancock became the inaugural commandant of RAAF College, followed by a succession of senior positions, before being promoted to air marshal and serving as Chief of the Air Staff from 1961 to 1965. He was knighted in 1962. In his role as the Air Force's senior officer, Hancock continued the policy of developing a chain of forward airfields in Northern Australia. He also evaluated potential replacements for the RAAF's English Electric Canberra bomber.

dimanche 27 septembre 2020

Rigel

Rigel.
Rigel is a blue supergiant star in the constellation of Orion, approximately 860 light-years (260 pc) from Earth. It is the brightest and most massive component of a star system of at least four stars that appear as a single blue-white point of light to the naked eye. A star of spectral type B8Ia, Rigel is calculated to be anywhere from 61,500 to 363,000 times as luminous as the Sun, and 18 to 24 times as massive. Its radius is over 70 times that of the Sun, and its surface temperature is 12,100 K. Rigel varies slightly in brightness, its apparent magnitude ranging from 0.05 to 0.18. It is classified as an Alpha Cygni variable. It is generally the seventh-brightest star in the night sky and is usually the brightest star in Orion, though it is occasionally outshone by Betelgeuse. With an estimated age of 7 to 9 million years, Rigel has exhausted its core hydrogen fuel, expanded and cooled to become a supergiant. It will end its life as a type II supernova.

samedi 26 septembre 2020

Margaret Macpherson Grant

Margaret Macpherson Grant.
Margaret Macpherson Grant (1834–1877) was a Scottish heiress and philanthropist. Born in Aberlour parish to a local surgeon, she was educated in Hampshire and inherited a large fortune from her uncle, Alexander Grant, a planter and merchant who had become rich in Jamaica. Macpherson Grant took up residence in Aberlour House, which had been built for her uncle by William Robertson. She lived unconventionally for a woman of her time, entering into what was described as a form of marriage with a female companion, Charlotte Temple, whom she met in London in 1864. Macpherson Grant donated generously to charitable enterprises, establishing an orphanage (now the Aberlour Child Care Trust) and founding St Margaret's Episcopal Church in Aberlour. She made several wills over the course of her life that would have left her estate to Temple, but after Temple left her to marry a man, Macpherson Grant revoked her will, and the bulk of her fortune went to cousins, who were probably unknown to her.

vendredi 25 septembre 2020

Banksia blechnifolia

Banksia blechnifolia.
Banksia blechnifolia is a species of flowering plant that was first described by Victorian state botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in 1864. Its leaves are reminiscent of the fern genus Blechnum. B. blechnifolia is one of several closely related species that grow as prostrate shrubs, with horizontal stems and thick, leathery upright leaves. The red-brown flower spikes are up to 20 centimetres (8 in) high and appear from September to November. As the spikes age, they turn grey and develop as many as 25 woody seed pods. Insects such as bees, wasps, ants and flies pollinate the flowers. Found in sandy soils in the south coastal region of Western Australia in the vicinity of Lake King, B. blechnifolia is non-lignotuberous, regenerating by seed after bushfire. The plant adapts readily to cultivation, growing in well-drained sandy soils in sunny locations. It is suitable for rockeries and as a groundcover.

jeudi 24 septembre 2020

Tower Hill Memorial

Tower Hill Memorial.
The Tower Hill Memorial is a pair of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials in Trinity Square, on Tower Hill in London, England. The memorials, one for the First World War and one for the Second, commemorate more than 36,000 men and women of the Merchant Navy and fishing fleets who were killed as a result of enemy action and have no known grave. The dead are named on bronze panels ordered by the ships they served on. The first memorial, the Mercantile Marine War Memorial (pictured), was commissioned following the heavy losses sustained by merchant shipping in the First World War. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled by Queen Mary in 1928. The second, the Merchant Seamen's Memorial, is a semi-circular sunken garden designed by Sir Edward Maufe and unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in November 1955. A third memorial, commemorating merchant sailors who were killed in the 1982 Falklands War, was added to the site in 2005. The memorials to the world wars are listed buildings.

mercredi 23 septembre 2020

Erin Phillips

Erin Phillips.
Erin Phillips (born 1985) is an Australian rules footballer for the Adelaide Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW) competition and a former professional basketball player. With the launch of the AFLW in 2017, Phillips began her football career at age 31. Despite not having played competitive football since she was 13 years old, Phillips won the AFLW best and fairest award by a wide margin twice in her first three seasons in 2017 and 2019. In both years, she also led Adelaide to the premiership and won best on ground in the AFLW Grand Final. Before her football career, Phillips played nine seasons in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), winning her first WNBA title with the Indiana Fever in 2012 and another with the Phoenix Mercury in 2014. She also represented Australia on the women's national basketball team, winning a gold medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship for Women and serving as a co-vice captain at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

mardi 22 septembre 2020

Ealdred (archbishop of York)

Ealdred (archbishop of York).
Ealdred (died 1069) was Abbot of Tavistock, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York in Anglo-Saxon England. After becoming a monk at the monastery at Winchester, he became abbot around 1027 and a bishop in 1047. Besides his clerical duties, Ealdred served Edward the Confessor as a diplomat in Hungary and as a military leader in Wales. In 1058, he undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the first bishop from England to do so. In 1060, Ealdred was elected to the archbishopric of York. During his archiepiscopate, he built and embellished churches in his diocese, and worked to improve his clergy by promulgating regulations for the priesthood. Following King Edward's death in 1066, Ealdred supported Harold as king, but when Harold was defeated at the Battle of Hastings, Ealdred eventually endorsed William the Conqueror and crowned him on Christmas Day in 1066. William never quite trusted Ealdred, and Ealdred had to accompany William back to Normandy in 1067, but he had returned to York by the time of his death in 1069.

lundi 21 septembre 2020

Jomo Kenyatta

Jomo Kenyatta.
Jomo Kenyatta (c. 1897 – 1978) was an anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its prime minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first president from 1964 to his death in 1978. He was the country's first indigenous head of government and played a significant role in the transformation of Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic. In 1947, he began lobbying for independence from British colonial rule through the Kenya African Union, attracting widespread indigenous support. In 1952, he was among the Kapenguria Six arrested and charged with masterminding the anti-colonial Mau Mau Uprising. Although protesting his innocence—a view shared by later historians—he was convicted. Upon his release in 1961, he led the Kenya African National Union party until his death. During his presidency, he secured support from both the black majority and white minority with his message of reconciliation.

dimanche 20 septembre 2020

Bat

Bat.
Bats, of the order Chiroptera, are the only mammals capable of sustained flight. Their wings, spread-out fingers covered by a thin membrane, make them more manoeuvrable than birds. Bats range in size from Kitti's hog-nosed bat, weighing 2–2.6 g (0.07–0.09 oz), to the giant golden-crowned flying fox, up to 1.6 kg (4 lb) with a wingspan of up to 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in). The second largest order of mammals after rodents, bats comprise about 20% of all mammal species, with over 1,200 species distributed across the world. Most bats are nocturnal. They are mostly insect- and fruit-eaters, but some are carnivorous, such as vampire bats. Some are important for pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds; others consume insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides. Bats harbour the agents of many communicable diseases, such as rabies and coronaviruses. They are often associated with darkness, malevolence, vampires, and death.

samedi 19 septembre 2020

Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele

Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele.
Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele is a large oil-on-oak panel painting completed around 1434–1436 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It shows the painting's donor, Joris van der Paele, within an apparition of saints. Van der Paele was then elderly and gravely ill, and intended the work as his memorial. The Virgin Mary is enthroned at the centre of the semicircular space, which likely represents a church interior, with the Christ Child on her lap. Saint Donatian stands to her right, Saint George to her left. The saints are identifiable from Latin inscriptions lining the borders of the imitation bronze frame. The Virgin's throne is decorated with carved representations of Adam and Eve, prefigurations of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, and scenes from the Old Testament. The panel is considered one of van Eyck's most fully realised and ambitious works, and has been described as a "masterpiece of masterpieces".

vendredi 18 septembre 2020

Alfred Worden

Alfred Worden.
Alfred Worden (1932–2020) was an American test pilot and astronaut who in 1971 was the command module pilot of the Apollo 15 lunar mission. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1955, and was commissioned in the Air Force. He proved adept at flying fighter planes, becoming a test pilot prior to his selection as an astronaut in 1966. Worden served on the support and backup crews for Apollo 9 and 12 before selection for Apollo 15. He spent three days alone in lunar orbit, becoming the person who was the furthest from any other human being, a record he still holds, and also performed the first deep-space extravehicular activity, or spacewalk. His astronaut career was effectively ended by a scandal over carrying postal covers to the Moon, and he retired from NASA in 1975. The author of three books, he subsequently entered the private sector, unsuccessfully ran for Congress, undertook charitable works and promoted a renewed space program.

jeudi 17 septembre 2020

Opisthocoelicaudia

Opisthocoelicaudia.
Opisthocoelicaudia is a genus of sauropod dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous discovered in the Nemegt Formation in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Named and described by Polish paleontologist Maria Magdalena Borsuk-Białynicka in 1977, the type species is Opisthocoelicaudia skarzynskii. A well-preserved skeleton lacking only the head and neck was unearthed in 1965 by Polish and Mongolian scientists, making Opisthocoelicaudia one of the best known sauropods from the Late Cretaceous. Tooth marks on this skeleton indicate that large carnivorous dinosaurs had fed on the carcass. Two more specimens have been found, including part of a shoulder and a fragmentary tail. A relatively small sauropod, Opisthocoelicaudia measured about 11.4–13 metres (37–43 ft) in length. Like other sauropods, it would have been characterised by a small head sitting on a very long neck and a barrel-shaped trunk carried by four column-like legs. It may have been able to rear on its hind legs.

mercredi 16 septembre 2020

Infinity Science Fiction

Infinity Science Fiction.
Infinity Science Fiction was an American science fiction magazine, edited by Larry T. Shaw and published by Royal Publications. The first issue (cover pictured) was on newsstands in September 1955, with a November cover date. Among the short stories in the first issue was Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star", about a planet destroyed by a supernova seen from Earth as the Star of Bethlehem; it won the 1956 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. Harlan Ellison's "Glowworm" appeared in the second issue. Shaw obtained stories from some of the leading writers of the day, including Brian Aldiss, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Sheckley, but the material was of variable quality. In 1958 the owner of Royal Publications, Irwin Stein, decided to shut down Infinity; the last issue was dated November 1958. The title was revived a decade later by Stein's publishing house, Lancer Books, as a paperback anthology series. Five volumes were published between 1970 and 1973, edited by Robert Hoskins.

mardi 15 septembre 2020

1989 (Taylor Swift album)

1989 (Taylor Swift album).
"Style" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift (pictured) for her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). It was written and produced by Max Martin, Shellback, and Ali Payami, with additional writing by Swift, and released to US radio stations as the album's third single. Musically, "Style" incorporates disco, funk, and pop rock. The song garnered generally positive reviews from critics, many of whom deemed it the album's highlight. It earned an APRA Music Award nomination for International Work of the Year and appeared on year-end lists of Pitchfork and The Village Voice. "Style" peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, becoming 1989's third consecutive Hot 100 top-ten single, and received multi-platinum certifications in Australia and Canada. Swift included "Style" on regular set lists for two of her world tours: The 1989 World Tour (2015) and the Reputation Stadium Tour (2018).

lundi 14 septembre 2020

2006 Subway 500

2006 Subway 500.
The 2006 Subway 500 was the 32nd stock car race of the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the sixth in the ten-race Chase for the Nextel Cup. It was held on October 22, 2006, before a crowd of 65,000, at Martinsville Speedway (pictured) in Martinsville, Virginia, one of five short tracks to hold NASCAR races. The 500-lap race was won by Jimmie Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports; Denny Hamlin finished second, and Bobby Labonte came in third. Kurt Busch won the pole position with the fastest time in qualifying; Johnson started from ninth position. There were 18 cautions and 16 lead changes by five different drivers during the race. Johnson's win was his fifth of the 2006 season, and the 23rd of his career. The result advanced him to third in the Drivers' Championship, 41 points behind Matt Kenseth, who took over the championship lead after Jeff Burton retired from the race. Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship with four races left in the season.

dimanche 13 septembre 2020

U.S. Route 141

U.S. Route 141.
US Highway 141 is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs for about 169 miles (272 km) in the states of Wisconsin and Michigan. The highway runs north-northwesterly from Bellevue, Wisconsin, near Green Bay, to an intersection near Covington, Michigan. In between, it follows city streets in Green Bay and a freeway section north of that city. Most of the remainder of US 141 is a rural two-lane highway that crosses into Michigan, back into Wisconsin and then finally back into Michigan again. Originally on creation in 1926, the northernmost section in Michigan was numbered US 102, and US 141 extended farther south from Bellevue to Milwaukee. Two years later, US 141 was extended north into Michigan to replace US 102. Since then, parts of the highway have been converted to freeway; the highway has ended southeast of Green Bay in Bellevue since the 1980s—the southern segment was redesignated as I-43. (This article is part of a featured topic: U.S. Highways in Michigan.)

samedi 12 septembre 2020

Super Mario All-Stars

Super Mario All-Stars.
Super Mario All-Stars is a 1993 compilation of platform games for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It contains remakes of Nintendo's four Super Mario titles released for the Nintendo Entertainment System and its Family Computer Disk System add-on: Super Mario Bros. (1985), Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (1986), Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988), and Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988). They are faithful recreations that adapt the games' original premises and level designs with updated graphics and music. Parallax scrolling was added, physics simulations were modified, and some glitches were fixed. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto (pictured) suggested that Nintendo develop the compilation. It received critical acclaim and is one of the bestselling Super Mario titles, with 10.55 million copies sold by 2015. Reviewers praised the effort that went into remastering the compilation's games and appreciated the updated graphics and music, but criticized its lack of innovation.