Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 December 16

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From today's featured article

Jameson's mamba (Dendroaspis jamesoni) is a species of highly venomous snake native to equatorial Africa. A member of the mamba genus Dendroaspis, it is slender with dull green upperparts and cream underparts and generally ranges from 1.5 to 2.2 m (4 ft 11 in to 7 ft 3 in) in length. Described by Scottish naturalist Thomas Traill in 1843, it has two recognised subspecies: the nominate subspecies from central and western sub-Saharan Africa and the eastern black-tailed subspecies from eastern sub-Saharan Africa. Predominantly arboreal, it preys mainly on birds and mammals. Its venom consists of both neurotoxins and cardiotoxins. Symptoms of envenomation in humans include pain and swelling of the bite site, followed by swelling, chills, sweating, abdominal pain and vomiting, with subsequent slurred speech, difficulty breathing and paralysis. Fatalities have been recorded within three to four hours of being bitten. The eastern subspecies is twice as venomous as the nominate subspecies. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Winter Garden Theatre

... that the runway at the Winter Garden Theatre (interior pictured) was nicknamed the "bridge of thighs" after lightly clothed showgirls paraded down it?
... that Belinda Archer won Australia's first World Artistic Gymnastics Championships team medal in 2003?
... that even though it was "the best thing to happen to the Atari", the XF551 floppy disk drive was only released after Nintendo sued them?
... that after Sydney Parkinson died on the return leg of the first voyage of James Cook, some of his drawings were engraved for publication in his Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas?
... that three schools in Virginia were named after Daniel Webster Davis?
... that 92 percent of complaint calls about the Scanner Price Accuracy Code are not legitimate complaints?
... that after getting drunk and verbally abusing Cap Anson at a baseball game during his off day, Charlie Bartson was released from the Chicago Pirates?
... that Birds Aren't Real?

In the news

Siaosi Sovaleni

Siaosi Sovaleni (pictured) is elected as prime minister by the Legislative Assembly of Tonga.
A fuel tanker truck explodes in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, killing at least 75 people.
In Canadian football, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defeat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to win the Grey Cup.
In motor racing, Max Verstappen wins the Formula One World Championship, while Mercedes win the constructors' title.

On this day

December 16: Day of Reconciliation in South Africa

First movement of Dvořák's
New World Symphony

1707 – The last recorded eruption of Japan's Mount Fuji released some 800 million m³ (28 billion cu ft) of volcanic ash.
1893 – Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony (audio featured) premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
1918 – Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas declared the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, a puppet state created by Soviet Russia to justify the Lithuanian–Soviet War.
1971 – The surrender of East Pakistani forces in Dacca concluded the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Indo-Pakistani War.
2014 – A hostage crisis in a Lindt chocolate café in Sydney, Australia, ended with police storming the building, killing the perpetrator and one of the hostages.

Haakon IV of Norway (d. 1263)
Maria Rundell (d. 1828)
Carol Browner (b. 1955)

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Today's featured picture

Zinnia elegans, known as the youth-and-age, common zinnia or elegant zinnia, is an annual flowering plant in the daisy family, Asteraceae. It is native to Mexico but grown as an ornamental in many places and naturalised in a number of countries, including scattered locations in South and Central America, the West Indies, the United States, Australia and Italy. This photograph of a Z. elegans bloom in a garden in Bamberg, Germany, was stacked from fifteen separate images.

Photograph credit: Reinhold Möller

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