From today's featured article
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The Flame Robin is a small passerine bird native to Australia. It is a moderately common resident of the coolest parts of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania. First described by the French naturalists Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard in 1830, it is often simply but inaccurately called the Robin Redbreast. Like many brightly coloured robins of the Petroicidae, it is sexually dimorphic. Measuring 12–14 cm (5–6 in) long, the Flame Robin has dark brown eyes and a small thin black bill. The male has a brilliant orange-red chest and throat, and a white patch on the forehead above the bill. Its upper parts are iron-grey with white bars, and its tail black with white tips. The female is a nondescript grey-brown. Its song has been described as the most musical of its genus, and it employs song and plumage displays to mark out and defend its territory. It mostly breeds in and around the Great Dividing Range, the Tasmanian highlands and islands in Bass Strait. With the coming of cooler autumn weather, most birds disperse to lower and warmer areas. Classified by BirdLife International as Near Threatened, the species has suffered a marked decline in the past 25 years. (Full article...)
Recently featured: Final Fantasy XI – Banksia aquilonia – "Gender Bender" (The X-Files)
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Did you know...
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Today's articles for improvement
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In the news
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On this day...
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May 17: Galician Literature Day in Galicia, Spain
1521 – English nobleman Edward Stafford, whose father had been beheaded for rebelling against King Richard III, was himself executed for treason against King Henry VIII.
1792 – Twenty-four stock brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement to establish the New York Stock Exchange.
1863 – Rosalía de Castro (pictured) published Cantares gallegos, a collection of her poetry, the first book in the Galician language.
1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing racial segregation in public schools because "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal".
1980 – On the eve of the Peruvian general election, the Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path attacked a polling location in the town of Chuschi, Ayacucho, starting the internal conflict in Peru.
2009 – Dalia Grybauskaitė was elected the first female President of Lithuania, receiving 68.18 percent of the vote.
More anniversaries: May 16 – May 17 – May 18
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