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December 30

Mountain pigeons are four species of birds in the genus Gymnophaps in the pigeon family Columbidae. They are found on islands in eastern Indonesia and Melanesia, where they inhabit hill and montane forest. Medium-sized pigeons with long tails and wings, they are 33 to 38.5 cm (13.0 to 15.2 in) long and weigh 259 to 385 g (9.1 to 13.6 oz). They mostly have dull grey, white, or chestnut-brown plumage, their most distinctive feature being bright red skin around the eyes. Males and females mostly look alike, but the Papuan and pale mountain pigeons show slight sexual dimorphism. They are social and are usually seen in flocks of 10 to 40 birds, although some species can form flocks of more than 100. The genus was originally described by the Italian zoologist Tommaso Salvadori in 1874 and currently contains the Papuan, Seram, Buru, and pale mountain pigeons. Mountain pigeons inhabit trees and feed on a wide variety of fruit. All four species are listed as being of least concern on the IUCN Red List. (Full article...)

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April 30

The House of Representatives is defined by Section Two of the Article

Article One of the United States Constitution establishes the legislative branch of government, Congress, which includes the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Article establishes the manner of election and qualifications of members of each House. In addition, it outlines legislative procedure and indicates the powers of the legislative branch. Finally, it establishes limits on federal and state legislative power. Article One is the longest of the seven Articles forming the original United States Constitution. Amendments to Article One, unlike amendments to other articles, are restricted by the Constitution. Article 5 specifically prohibited ammending the Article 1, section 9, until 1808. Therefore, no amendment made prior to 1808 could affect the first and fourth clauses of Section Nine. The former clause prevented Congress from prohibiting the slave trade until 1808; the latter required direct taxes to be apportioned among the states according to their populations. Furthermore, the Constitution precludes Congress from depriving a state of equal representation in the Senate without its consent. (more...)

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March 30

George Fox was an English Dissenter and the founder of the Society of Friends. At Derby in 1650 Fox was imprisoned for blasphemy; a judge mocked Fox's exhortation to "tremble at the word of the Lord", calling him and his followers "Quakers" — now the common name of the Society of Friends. Living in a time of great social upheaval, he rebelled against the religious and political consensus by proposing an unusual and uncompromising approach to the Christian faith. His journal is a text popular even among non-Quakers for its vivid account of his personal journey. (more...)

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February 30

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 30, 2005

January 30

The Laal language is a still-unclassified language spoken by about 300 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River, called Gori, Damtar, and Mailao. It may be a language isolate, in which case it would represent an isolated survival of an earlier language group of central Africa. It is unwritten (except in transcription by linguists). According to SIL-Chad missionary David Faris, it is in danger of extinction, with most people under 25 shifting to the locally more widespread Baguirmi language. This language first came to the attention of academic linguists in 1977, through Pascal Boyeldieu's fieldwork in 1975 and 1978. His fieldwork was based for the most part on a single speaker, M. Djouam Kadi of Damtar. (more...)

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December 30

Max Weber was a German political economist and sociologist who is considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration. His major works deal with sociology of religion and government, but he also wrote much in the field of economics. His most recognized work is his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which began his work in the sociology of religion. Weber argued that religion was one of the primary reasons for the different development paths of the cultures of the Occident and the Orient. In his other famous work, Politics as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an entity which possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, a definition that became pivotal to the study of modern Western political science. (more...)

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November 30

The Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 was a high-performance version of the S-Class luxury sedan. Built on its own assembly line by Daimler-Benz AG (now DaimlerChrysler) in Stuttgart and based on the long-wheelbase version of the "W116" chassis introduced in 1973, the 6.9, as it was generally referred to in the company's own literature to separate it from the regular 450SEL, was first shown to the motoring press at the Geneva Auto Show in 1974 and produced between 1975 and 1981 in extremely limited numbers. It was billed as the flagship of the Mercedes-Benz car line and the successor to Mercedes-Benz's original high-performance sedan, the 300SEL 6.3. The 6.9 also has the distinction of being among the first vehicles ever with optional anti-lock brakes, first introduced by Mercedes-Benz and Bosch in 1978. (more...)

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October 30

Louis XIV reigned as King of France and King of Navarre from 14 May 1643 until his death. He was a minor when he inherited the Crown; he did not actually assume personal control of the government until the death of his chief minister, Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661. Louis, who is known as "The Sun King" and as "Louis the Great", ruled France for seventy-two years—a longer reign than any other French or other major European monarch. Louis attempted to increase the power of France in Europe, fighting four major wars—the War of Devolution, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the Grand Alliance and the War of the Spanish Succession. He worked successfully to create an absolutist and centralised state; he is often cited as an example of an enlightened despot. He is supposed to have once remarked L'état, c'est moi ! ("I am the state!"), but this quotation is most likely apocryphal. (more...)

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September 30

The Ridge Route was the popular name given to an early 20th-century road in the United States. The Ridge Route was California's first highway, linking the Los Angeles Basin with the San Joaquin Valley; it was particularly used to travel from the city of Los Angeles to Bakersfield. Its official name was the Castaic-Tejon Route. In 1895, the State Bureau of Highways was created by Governor James H. Budd who appointed three highway commissioners: R.C. Irvine of Sacramento, Marsden Manson of San Francisco and L. Maude of Riverside. Though a great deal of the route had been daylighted (widened) and paved in asphalt by the mid-1920s, much of the 1919 concrete pavement remains intact. In some areas, Model T tire tracks can still be seen, left decades ago in the still-soft concrete. (more...)

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September 6

The Warsaw Uprising was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1, 1944 as a part of a nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the German-led forces until October 2. An estimated 85% of the city was destroyed during the urban guerrilla war and after the end of hostilities. The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw. Although the Soviet army was within a few hundred metres of the city from September 16 onward, the link between the uprising and the advancing army was never made. This failure and the reasons behind it have been a matter of controversy ever since. (more...)

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August 30

A tank is a tracked and armoured combat vehicle designed primarily to destroy enemy ground forces by direct fire. A modern main battle tank, designed predominantly for combat, is the most powerful direct-fire land-based weapon. It is distinguished from other armoured fighting vehicles primarily by its heavy armour and armament. It can cross rough terrain and move relatively quickly in short bursts, but is power-, maintenance-, and ammunition-hungry and is not designed for sustained operations. Tanks were first used in World War I and have undergone many generations of design evolution since then. Tanks are now a fairly mature technology, but significant improvements continue to be made in tank subsystems. (more...)

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July 30

Stirling Castle

The written History of Scotland largely begins with the arrival of the Roman Empire in Britain. Frequent conflict with England was followed by eventual Union. The subsequent Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution saw Scotland become one of the commercial and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Decline following the Second World War was acute, but recent decades have brought a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector, the proceeds of North Sea oil, and latterly a devolved parliament. (more...)

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June 30

John Major is a British politician and was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997, attaining that office when he succeeded Margaret Thatcher as Conservative party leader. When Michael Heseltine's challenge to Margaret Thatcher's leadership of the Conservative Party forced the contest to a second round and Thatcher withdrew, John Major entered the contest alongside Douglas Hurd. Though he fell two votes short of the required winning margin of 187 votes in the second ballot, Major's result was sufficient to secure immediate concessions from his rivals and he became prime minister on November 27, 1990. Major was prime minister during the Gulf War. During the first years in office, the world economy slid into recession after the long boom during the 1980s. After losing the 1997 general election to Tony Blair he stood down as an MP at the 2001 general election and has so far declined the customary life peerage and seat in the House of Lords that is given to former Prime Ministers. (more...)

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May 30

Chinatown is a general name for an urban region containing a large population of Chinese people within a non-Chinese society. Chinatowns are most common in Southeast Asia and North America, but growing Chinatowns can be found in Europe and beyond. Chinatowns were formed in the 19th century in many areas of the United States and Canada as a result of discriminatory land laws which forbade the sale of land to Chinese outside of a restricted geographical area and which promoted the segregation of people of different ethnicities. However, the location of a Chinatown in a particular city may change over time. (more...)

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April 30

Conceptual drawing of the "anchor station"

A space elevator is a hypothetical elevator that connects the surface of a planet with space. It would permit sending objects and astronauts to space at costs only a fraction of those associated with current means. Constructing one would, however, be a vast project, and the elevator would have to be built of a material that could endure tremendous stress while also being light-weight, cheap, and easy to manufacture. Today's technology does not meet these requirements without an unreasonable cost associated with construction, but optimists hold that the space elevator might become a reality in the near future. (more...)

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March 30

A jet engine is a type of air-breathing turbine engine, often used on aircraft. The engine draws air in at the front and compresses it. The air then combines with fuel and the engine burns the resulting mixture. The combustion greatly increases the volume of the gases which are then exhausted out of the rear of the engine. The process is similar to a four-stroke cycle, but with the processes - induction, compression, ignition and exhaust - taking place continuously. (more...)

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