Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 May 15

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Lawrence Spivak

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a US fantasy and science fiction magazine initially published by Lawrence E. Spivak (pictured), with regular issues from 1949 to the present. Under editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, it became a leader in the science fiction and fantasy field, publishing literary material and including more diverse stories than its competitors. Well-known stories from its early years include Richard Matheson's "Born of Man and Woman" and Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee. After McComas left in 1954, Boucher continued as sole editor until 1958, winning the Hugo Award for Best Magazine that year, a feat his successor, Robert Mills, repeated in the next two years. Mills was responsible for publishing "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes, Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys, Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, and the first of Brian Aldiss's "Hothouse" stories. At the start of 1966, after short stints by Avram Davidson and Joseph Ferman, Edward Ferman began a 25-year career as editor. He published many well-received stories, including Fritz Leiber's "Ill Met in Lankhmar", Robert Silverberg's "Born with the Dead", and Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. (Full article...)

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Snap and rattle blossoms

... that the snap and rattle tree (blossom pictured) is native to Australia?
... that Democrats Thomas P. McHenry and Maurice S. Osser served together as Philadelphia City Commissioners for 20 years, until McHenry died and Osser went to jail?
... that finds made at the Pocklington Iron Age burial ground include a rare chariot burial complete with horses?
... that Japanese singer-songwriter Anly began playing songs by ear on her guitar when she was in third grade?
... that hundreds of tourists became stranded when Cyclone Ada ravaged Whitsunday Island resorts in January 1970?
... that Chanchal Kumar Majumdar developed the Kohn-Majumdar theorem with his mentor, Walter Kohn, and the Majumdar–Ghosh model with his student, Dipan Ghosh?
... that Arlington, Texas, was the largest city in the United States without public transportation until it launched the Metro Arlington Xpress in 2013?
... that classically trained pianist Jon Schmidt augments his live performances by playing the piano with his toes and performing while upside-down?

Salvador Sobral

May 15: Nakba Day in Palestinian communities

Portrait of Dr. Gachet

1793 – Inventor Diego Marín Aguilera, the "father of aviation" in Spain, flew one of the first gliders for about 300 yd (270 m).
1850 – Members of the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the United States Cavalry massacred at least 135 Pomo Indians in Lake County, California.
1904 – Russo-Japanese War: After striking several mines off Port Arthur, the Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima sank.
1970 – During a confrontation with a group of Jackson State College students, police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve.
1990 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet (pictured) was sold at auction in Christie's New York office for US$82.5 million, at the time the world's most expensive painting.

Klemens von Metternich (b. 1773) · Emily Dickinson (d. 1886) · Patrice Evra (b. 1981)

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There are forty Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in Bedfordshire, designated by Natural England. Bedfordshire is a county in the East of England. It has an area of 1,235 square kilometres (477 sq mi), and population estimated in 2015 at 630,000, with an increase of 10% over the previous ten years. Thirty-five of the county's SSSIs are listed for their biological interest, and five for their geological interest. Southern Bedfordshire is part of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. North and mid Bedfordshire are undulating claylands with broad river valleys of the River Great Ouse and its tributaries, and the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge. Jurassic and Cretaceous clays are overlaid by Quaternary glacial deposits of chalky boulder clay. Three of the sites are also National nature reserves, twelve are in the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and eleven are managed wholly or partly by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. (Full list...)

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The Dome of the Chain is a free-standing dome located east of the Dome of the Rock in the Old City of Jerusalem. One of the oldest structures on the Temple Mount, it is used as a prayer house. Built in the late 7th century by the Umayyads, it was a Christian chapel under the Crusaders before being restored as an Islamic prayer house by the Ayyubids. Over the years, it has been renovated by the Mamluks, Ottomans, and the Palestinian-based waqf.

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