Amanita phalloides is a poisonous basidiomycete fungus, one of many in
the genus Amanita. Widely distributed across Europe, A. phalloides
associates with various deciduous and coniferous trees. Adaptations
have expanded its range outside of Europe after it was accidentally
introduced alongside oak, chestnut, and pine. The large fruiting
bodies (i.e. the mushrooms) appear in summer and autumn; the caps are
generally greenish in colour, with a white stipe and gills.
Unfortunately, these toxic mushrooms resemble several edible species
commonly consumed by humans, increasing the risk of accidental
poisoning. A. phalloides is one of the most poisonous of all known
toadstools. It has been involved in the majority of human deaths from
mushroom poisoning, including the Roman Emperor Claudius and Holy
Roman Emperor Charles VI. It has been the subject of much research and
many of its biologically active agents have been isolated. The
principal toxic constituent is α-amanitin, which damages the liver and
kidneys, often fatally. No antidote is known.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_phalloides
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Today's selected anniversaries:
533:
Belisarius and his legions defeated Gelimer and the Vandals at the
Battle of Ad Decimum near Carthage, and began the "Reconquest of the
West" under Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ad_Decimum)
1814:
War of 1812: The bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of
Baltimore inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled
Banner," which later became the national anthem of the United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baltimore)
1956:
IBM unveiled the 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and
Control), the first commercial computer that used magnetic disk
storage.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_305_RAMAC)
1987:
Goiânia accident: A radioactive item was stolen from an abandoned
hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating hundreds of people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident)
1993:
After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, PLO leader Yasser
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (pictured with U.S.
President Bill Clinton) formally signed the Oslo Peace Accords.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords)
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Wiktionary's Word of the day:
fermata: (music): A notation to hold a note for longer than its usual
duration, until the conductor cuts it off.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fermata)
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Wikiquote of the day:
Worldly renown is naught but a breath of wind, which now comes this
way and now comes that, and changes name because it changes quarter.
-- Dante Alighieri
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri)
The Hamlet chicken processing plant fire was an industrial disaster
that took place at the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant in
Hamlet, North Carolina, USA, on September 3, 1991 after a failure in a
faulty modification to a hydraulic line. Twenty-five people were
killed and fifty-four injured in the fire as they were trapped behind
locked fire doors. Due to a lack of inspectors, the plant had never
received a safety inspection in eleven years of operation, and it is
thought that a single inspection would have easily prevented the
tragedy. A full federal investigation was launched, which resulted in
the owner receiving a 20-year prison sentence, and the company
received the highest fines ever handed out in the history of North
Carolina. However, the investigation also highlighted failings in the
authoritative enforcement of existing safety regulations, and resulted
in a number of worker safety laws being passed. Accusations of racism
were leveled at both the fire service and the city of Hamlet in the
aftermath of the fire. The plant was never reopened. The fire remains
the worst industrial disaster ever to strike North Carolina, and the
third worst American industrial disaster, with only the 1947 Texas
City disaster and the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire being
worse.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_chicken_processing_plant_fire
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Today's selected anniversaries:
301:
San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's
oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino)
1260:
Egyptian Mamluks defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in
Palestine, marking the point of maximum westward expansion of the
Mongol Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ain_Jalut)
1783:
Great Britain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris,
formally ending the American Revolutionary War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_%281783%29)
1901:
The National Flag of Australia, a Blue Ensign defaced with the
Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross, flew for the first time atop
the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Australia)
1976:
The NASA Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars and took the first
close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_2)
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Wiktionary's Word of the day:
sublimate: (<i>physics</i>): To change state from a solid to a gas (or
from a gas to a solid) without passing through the liquid state.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sublimate)
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Wikiquote of the day:
A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since
adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows
strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something
to give in return. -- Sarah Orne Jewett
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sarah_Orne_Jewett)
William Goebel was a controversial American politician who served as
Governor of Kentucky for a few days in 1900 before being assassinated.
Goebel remains the only state governor in the United States to be
assassinated while in office. A skilled politician, Goebel was well
able to broker deals with fellow lawmakers, and equally able and
willing to break them if a better deal came along. His tendency to use
the state's political machinery to advance his personal agenda earned
him the nicknames "Boss Bill", "the Kenton King", "Kenton Czar", "King
William I", and "William the Conqueror". Goebel's abrasive personality
made him many political enemies, but his championing of populist
causes, like railroad regulation, won him many friends. This conflict
of opinions came to a head in the Kentucky gubernatorial election of
1900. Goebel, a Democrat, divided his party with self-serving
political tactics at a time when Kentucky Republicans were finally
gaining strength, having elected the party's first governor four years
previously. These dynamics led to a close contest between Goebel and
William S. Taylor. In the politically chaotic climate that resulted,
Goebel was assassinated.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Goebel
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1537:
The Honourable Artillery Company, currently the oldest surviving
regiment in the British Army, was formed by Royal Charter from King
Henry VIII.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honourable_Artillery_Company)
1609:
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei demonstrated his first telescope,
a device that became known as a terrestrial or spyglass refracting
telescope, to Venetian lawmakers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei)
1875:
Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English
Channel, traveling from Dover, England to Calais, France in less than
22 hours.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Webb)
1920:
Polish forces under Józef Piłsudski successfully forced the Russians
to withdraw from Warsaw at the Battle of Warsaw, the decisive battle
of the Polish-Soviet War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_%281920%29)
1945:
About ten days after World War II ended with Japan announcing its
surrender, armed supporters of the Communist Party of China killed
Baptist missionary John Birch, regarded by a portion of the American
right as the first victim of the Cold War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_%28missionary%29)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
pandemonium: Chaos; tumultuous or lawless violence.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pandemonium)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
The humourless as a bunch don't just not know what's funny, they don't
know what's serious. They have no common sense, either, and shouldn't
be trusted with anything. -- Martin Amis
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Amis)
Jake Gyllenhaal is an Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA Award-winning
American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and
screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age eleven, and
his career has seen performances in diverse roles. Gyllenhaal's first
major film appearance was in 2001's cult hit Donnie Darko, in which he
played a teenager troubled by psychological problems. In the 2004
blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, he portrayed a student caught in a
cataclysmic global cooling event alongside Dennis Quaid. He then
played against type as a frustrated Marine in Jarhead (2005) and, that
same year, won critical acclaim as a "gay cowboy" in the controversial
but highly lauded film, Brokeback Mountain. Gyllenhaal has taken an
activist role in supporting various political and social causes. He
appeared in Rock the Vote advertising, campaigned for the Democratic
party in the 2004 election, and has promoted environmental causes and
the American Civil Liberties Union.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Gyllenhaal
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1305:
After a show trial, William Wallace, leader of the Scottish
resistance against England during the Wars of Scottish Independence,
was executed in Smithfield Market, London.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wallace)
1839:
As it prepared for war against China's Qing Dynasty, an ensuing
conflict that became known as the First Opium War, Britain captured
the southeast Asia port of Hong Kong.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War)
1927:
After a controversial trial, and despite worldwide protests,
Italian-born American anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed via
electrocution in Massachusetts for the charge of murder and theft.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacco_and_Vanzetti)
1939:
World War II: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a 10-year, mutual non-aggression treaty that
was eventually broken when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union two
years later.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov-Ribbentrop_Pact)
1989:
Baltic Way: Approximately two million people joined their hands to
form an over 600 km (373 mi) long human chain across the Estonian,
Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet republics during the Singing Revolution.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way)
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Wiktionary's Word of the day:
cheval de frise: (military) An obstacle made of wood with
spikes, for use against attacking cavalry.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cheval de frise)
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Wikiquote of the day:
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-- William Ernest Henley
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Ernest_Henley)
The effects of Hurricane Isabel in Maryland and Washington, D.C. were
among the worst from a tropical cyclone in the Baltimore-Washington
Metropolitan Area. Hurricane Isabel formed from a tropical wave on
September 6 2003 in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. It moved
northwestward, and within an environment of light wind shear and warm
waters it steadily strengthened to reach peak winds of 165 mph
(265 km/h) on September 11. After fluctuating in intensity for four
days, Isabel gradually weakened and made landfall on the Outer Banks
of North Carolina with winds of 105 mph (165 km/h) on September 18. It
quickly weakened over land and became extratropical over western
Pennsylvania the next day. On September 19, Tropical Storm Isabel
passed through extreme western Maryland, though its large circulation
produced tropical storm force winds throughout the state. About
1.24 million people lost power throughout the state. The worst of its
effects came from its storm surge, which inundated areas along the
coast and resulted in severe beach erosion. In Eastern Maryland,
hundreds of buildings were damaged or destroyed, primarily in Queen
Anne's County from tidal flooding. Thousands of houses were affected
in Central Maryland, with severe storm surge flooding reported in
Baltimore and Annapolis. Washington, D.C. sustained moderate damage,
primarily from the winds. Throughout Maryland and Washington, damage
totaled about $820 million, with only one direct fatality due to
flooding.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Isabel_in_Maryland_and_Wa….
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1572:
French Wars of Religion: Marguerite de Valois was married to
Huguenot King Henry of Navarre, in a supposed attempt to reconcile
Protestants and Catholics in France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_de_Valois)
1868:
Pierre Janssen discovered helium while analyzing the chromosphere
during a total eclipse of the sun. This was the first element detected
in space before being found on Earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/helium)
1941:
The T-4 Euthanasia Program in Nazi Germany was temporarily halted
due to public resistance.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4)
1966:
Vietnam War: A company of the Royal Australian Regiment fought a
much larger North Vietnamese unit in the Battle of Long Tan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Long_Tan)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
pretzel: A toasted bread or cracker usually in the shape of a loose
knot.
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pretzel)
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Wikiquote of the day:
What we say is the truth is what everybody accepts ... Psychiatry:
it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide
who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith. --
Madeleine Stowe as "Dr. Kathryn Railly" in Twelve Monkeys
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Madeleine_Stowe)