Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 May 3

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From today's featured article

The Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus) is a primate species native to western and central Java in Indonesia, most closely related to the Sunda and Bengal slow lorises. The species has two forms distinguishable by hair length and coloration, both with a prominent white diamond pattern on the forehead. It weighs between 565 and 687 g (1.246 and 1.515 lb) and has a head-body length of about 293 mm (11.5 in). Like all lorises it is arboreal, and moves slowly across vines and lianas instead of jumping from tree to tree. It is usually found in primary and secondary forests, and sometimes in bamboo and mangrove forests or chocolate plantations. Its diet typically consists of fruit, tree gum, lizards and eggs. It is usually seen alone or in pairs, and sleeps on exposed branches, sometimes in groups. Its population is in sharp decline through habitat loss and poaching, for the exotic pet trade and sometimes for traditional medicine. Listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as critically endangered, it is protected by Indonesian law, but the wildlife protection laws are rarely enforced at the local level. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Lise Tréhot (pictured) appeared in more than twenty paintings by Renoir and was the sole model for most of the female figures during his early Salon period?
... that in Great Britain, the term plum cake typically refers to what most Americans think of as a type of fruitcake?
... that the harvesting of Japanese beech trees on the slopes of Mount Izumi Katsuragi is forbidden for religious reasons?
... that Kangana Ranaut won both the National Film Award and Filmfare Award for Best Actress for the 2014 comedy-drama film Queen?
... that Wendy Sue Swanson, the Seattle Mama Doc, won the CDC's first Childhood Immunization Champion Award in 2012?
... that Mount Faloria, near Cortina d'Ampezzo, hosted the men's giant slalom event of the 1956 Winter Olympics?
... that Wendover Air Force Base has been used as a location for films including Con Air (1995), Mulholland Falls (1996), Independence Day (1996), The Hulk (2003) and The Core (2003)?
... that the trapdoor spider genus Eucteniza contains species named after Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica, and rocker Sammy Hagar's nightclub?

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In the news

Following a week of protests in Baltimore, Maryland, six police officers are charged in the death of Freddie Gray.
More than 500 women and children are freed during military operations against Boko Haram in the Sambisa Forest.
NASA's MESSENGER probe (artist's rendering pictured) purposely crashes into the surface of Mercury, completing an eleven-year mission.
Scientists announce the discovery of Yi qi, the first known dinosaur with membranous wings.
The Americas becomes the first World Health Organization region to be officially declared free of rubella.

Ongoing: Nepal earthquake – Yemeni Civil War
Recent deaths: Ruth Rendell – Maya Plisetskaya – Ben E. King

On this day...

May 3: World Press Freedom Day; Pesach Sheni (Judaism, 2015); Mother's Day in Hungary, Lithuania, Mozambique, Portugal, Romania and Spain (2015); Constitution Day in Poland (1791) and Japan (1947)

1491 – Nkuwu Nzinga of the Kingdom of Kongo was baptised as João I (pictured) by Portuguese missionaries.
1855 – American adventurer William Walker and a group of mercenaries sailed from San Francisco to conquer Nicaragua.
1915 – Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields", later considered one of the most notable poems written during the First World War.
1945 – Second World War: German ocean liner Cap Arcona, left to float defencelessly in the Bay of Lübeck with thousands of prisoners from various concentration camps on board, was attacked and sunk by RAF Typhoons.
1963 – Police in Birmingham, Alabama, used high-pressure water hoses and dogs on civil rights protesters, bringing intense scrutiny on racial segregation in the southern US.

More anniversaries: May 2 – May 3 – May 4

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It is now May 3, 2015 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

Dead Confederate troops behind the stone wall of Marye's Heights, killed during the Second Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, part of the eastern portion of the May 1863 Chancellorsville Campaign. At the wall, Confederate forces pushed back two waves of Union Army assaults before being overrun and forced to withdraw. Though the Union forces under Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick attempted to march on Chancellorsville, they were delayed by Confederate attacks and, the following morning, driven back.

Fought from April 30 to May 6, 1863, the Chancellorsville campaign saw Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia repel a force twice its size, Union Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac. However, in doing so they took numerous casualties and lost Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to friendly fire.

Photograph: Andrew J. Russell; restoration: Lise Broer

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