Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 November 13

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From today's featured article

Imleria badia, the bay bolete, is an edible, pored mushroom found in Europe and North America, growing in coniferous or mixed woods on the ground or on decaying tree stumps. Both the common and scientific names refer to the bay-coloured cap, which is almost spherical in young specimens before broadening and flattening out to 15 cm (6 in) or more in diameter. On the cap's underside are small yellowish pores that bruise dull blue-grey when injured. The smooth, cylindrical stalk, measuring 4–9 cm (1.6–3.5 in) long by 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in) thick, is coloured like the cap, but paler. Regarded as a choice edible mushroom by some food writers, such as Antonio Carluccio, it is sold in markets in Europe and central Mexico. The mushroom can bioaccumulate mercury, cobalt, nickel and other metals; radioactive caesium levels spiked in specimens collected in Europe following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Court house in Bedford, New York

... that a museum in the Bedford Village Historic District occupies the former court house (pictured), erected in 1787 and the oldest government building in Westchester County?
... that the Dutch playwright Lucretia Wilhelmina van Merken wrote very popular classicist tragedies, and sent an ode in French to George Washington, for which he thanked her?
... that under the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Christian tribe of Bahra' were tasked with guarding the Syrian holy city of Rusafa?
... that Puisand Lai represented the Canada women's national wheelchair basketball team in 2018, and was also rated the world's seventh overall in girls' wheelchair tennis in 2017?
... that David Benedictus dedicated his 1963 satirical novel You're a Big Boy Now to "the only girl I've ever loved—wherever they may be"?
... that the northern striped dogwinkle lays around 550 eggs in a capsule, most of which are eaten by the 10 to 20 juveniles that eventually hatch?
... that former First Lady of Slovenia Barbara Miklič Türk met her husband and former Slovenian president Danilo Türk while working as a librarian at the United Nations?
... that the first official baseball game in Germany took place under the Nazi regime at the 1936 Summer Olympics?

In the news

Stan Lee

American comic-book creator Stan Lee (pictured) dies at the age of 95.
An outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo kills more than 200 people.
Amidst a constitutional crisis, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena dissolves parliament and calls for early elections.
Four wildfires in California, including the Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire, burn more than 210,000 acres (85,000 hectares) and kill at least 44 people.
In the United States midterm elections, the Democratic Party wins a majority in the House of Representatives, while the Republican Party keeps its majority in the Senate.

On this day

November 13: Feast day of Saint John Chrysostom (Eastern Orthodox Church)

Nevado del Ruiz

1642 – First English Civil War: The Royalist army engaged the much larger Parliamentarian army at the Battle of Turnham Green near Turnham Green, Middlesex.
1841 – Scottish surgeon James Braid observed a demonstration of animal magnetism, which inspired him to study the subject he eventually called hypnotism.
1940 – Walt Disney's Fantasia, the first commercial film shown in stereophonic sound, premiered at the Broadway Theatre in New York City.
1985 – The volcano Nevado del Ruiz (pictured) erupted, causing a volcanic mudslide that buried the town of Armero, Colombia, and killed approximately 23,000 people.
2015 – Terrorist attacks in Paris perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant killed 130 people and injured 413 others.

Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland (d. 1440) · Dorothea Erxleben (b. 1715) · Margaret Murray (d. 1963)

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Today's featured picture

The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida is a Catholic basilica located in the Brazilian city of Aparecida. According to local tradition, a group of fishermen caught a statue of the Virgin Mary in their nets in 1717, a find which considerably improved their subsequent catches. One of the fishermen kept the statue at his home, which became a popular site for pilgrims. A small chapel was built to house it, but was replaced by successively larger churches as the statue's popularity grew. The present building was built from 1955, and can accommodate 45,000 people.

Photograph: Valter Campanato, Agência Brasil.

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