Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 May 28

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From today's featured article

The common starling is a medium-sized perching bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about 20 cm (8 in) long and has glossy black plumage, which is speckled with white at some times of year. The legs are pink and the bill is black in winter and yellow in summer; young birds have browner plumage than the adults. It is a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts, with an unmusical but varied song. The starling has about a dozen subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe and western Asia, and it has been introduced elsewhere. This bird is resident in southern and western Europe and southwestern Asia, while northeastern populations migrate south and west in winter. The starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy, pale blue eggs are laid. These take two weeks to hatch and the young remain in the nest for another three weeks. The species is omnivorous, taking a wide range of invertebrates, as well as seeds and fruit. The starling's gift for mimicry has been noted in literature including the medieval Welsh Mabinogion and the works of Pliny the Elder and William Shakespeare. (Full article...)

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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Kirkton of Bourtie stone circle (pictured) has the longest recumbent stone of any recumbent stone circle?
... that María Luisa Elío and Jomí García Ascot visited Gabriel García Márquez every night for 18 months to critique One Hundred Years of Solitude as it developed?
... that Block Island Wind Farm is the first offshore wind farm to be built in the United States?
... that the appearance of the nudibranch Marionia levis closely resembles the surface of the soft coral Rhytisma fulvum on which it feeds?
... that Chants for Socialists is an album by Darren Hayman based on the 19th-century protest poetry of William Morris?
... that the source of Lake Run is in both Henry Lake and Eagle Lake?
... that Harvard-educated playwright Hong Shen wrote the first published Chinese film script, but it was never filmed?
... that Clarence Darrow claimed judges would say, when passing a death sentence, "May God have mercy upon your soul", because they felt they didn't have the authority to destroy souls?

In the news

Two separate criminal probes result in the arrest of seven FIFA officials and the raid of its headquarters by Swiss police.
Cable telecommunications company Charter Communications agrees to buy Time Warner Cable in a deal worth US$55.1 billion.
A heat wave in India kills at least 1,200 people.
In motorsport, Nico Rosberg wins the Monaco Grand Prix.
In cricket, Mumbai Indians win the Indian Premier League after defeating Chennai Super Kings in the final.
Måns Zelmerlöw (pictured), representing Sweden with the song "Heroes", wins the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria.
Mathematician and Nobel Laureate John Forbes Nash, Jr., the subject of the film A Beautiful Mind, dies in an automobile accident.

On this day...

May 28: Republic Day in Armenia and Azerbaijan (both 1918)

628 – Li Shimin defeated and captured Dou Jiande in the Battle of Hulao, leading to a Tang dynasty victory in the civil war that followed the collapse of the Sui dynasty.
1644 – English Civil War: Royalist troops allegedly slaughtered up to 1,600 people during their storm and capture of the Town of Bolton.
1936 – English mathematician Alan Turing introduced the Turing machine (model pictured), a basic abstract symbol-manipulating device that can simulate the logic of any computer algorithm.
1975 – Sixteen West African countries signed the Treaty of Lagos, establishing the Economic Community of West African States to promote economic integration.
2002 – An independent commission appointed by the English Football Association voted, two-to-one, to allow Wimbledon F.C. to relocate from London to Milton Keynes.

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Today's featured picture

The little wattlebird (Anthochaera chrysoptera) is a passerine bird in the honeyeater family. First described in 1802, this bird is found in coastal and sub-coastal south-eastern Australia. It uses its long, brush-tipped tongue to feed on nectar; this wattlebird may also eat insects, berries and some seeds.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

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