Category: 2017

The Wikipedia article of the day for August 30, 2017 is Pallas’s leaf warbler.
Pallas’s leaf warbler (Phylloscopus proregulus) is a migratory bird that breeds in mountain forests from southern Siberia east to northern Mongolia and northeastern China. It is named for German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas, who first described it. It winters mainly in and near southern China, although in recent decades increasing numbers have been found in Europe in autumn. One of the smallest Eurasian leaf warblers, it has a relatively large head and short tail. It has greenish upperparts and white underparts, a lemon-yellow rump, and yellow double wingbars and supercilia. The female builds a cup nest in a tree or bush, and incubates four to six eggs that hatch after 12 or 13 days. The chicks are fed mainly by the female and fledge when they are 12–14 days old. Pallas’s leaf warbler feeds on small insects and spiders. It forages in bushes and trees, picking items from leaves or catching prey in short flights or while hovering. The species has a large range, its numbers are believed to be stable, and it is not endangered.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2017/08/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-august-30.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for August 29, 2017 is Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) was a Russian composer, a member of a group of prominent composers known as The Five, who worked together in Saint Petersburg in the mid-19th century. Considered a master of orchestration, his best-known compositions, which include Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade, are considered staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. Scheherazade is an example of Rimsky-Korsakov’s frequent use of fairy tale and folk subjects; he also left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions. His preparation of works by The Five for performance brought them into the active classical repertoire, although his editing of the music of Modest Mussorgsky created controversy. As a shaper of a generation of younger composers and musicians during his decades as an educator, he is considered the main architect of what the classical music public considers the Russian style of composition.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2017/08/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-august-29.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for August 28, 2017 is Black Reconstruction in America.
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) was an American sociologist, historian and civil rights activist. The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. He rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks, and was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. He wrote one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology, and published three autobiographies. Black Reconstruction in America (1935) challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era. On August 28, 1963, a day after his death, his book The Souls of Black Folk was highlighted by Roy Wilkins at the March on Washington, and hundreds of thousands of marchers honored him with a moment of silence. A year later, the US Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which he had campaigned his entire life, was enacted.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2017/08/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-august-28.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for August 27, 2017 is Lead.
Lead is a chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. A heavy metal with a density exceeding that of most common materials, it is malleable and has a low melting point for a metal. Chemically, it is a relatively unreactive post-transition metal. Lead was known to prehistoric people. A principal ore of lead, galena, often bears silver; interest in silver sparked lead extraction and use in ancient Rome. Lead production declined after the fall of Rome and did not reach comparable levels until the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, global production of lead is about ten million tonnes annually. Its high density, low melting point, high malleability, relative inertness to oxidation, relative abundance, and low cost have resulted in its extensive use in construction, plumbing, batteries, bullets and shot, weights, solders, pewters, fusible alloys, and radiation shielding. In the late 19th century, lead was recognized as highly toxic, and since then it has been phased out for many uses. A neurotoxin that accumulates in soft tissues and bones, it can damage the nervous system and cause brain and blood disorders.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2017/08/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-august-27.html