Wikipedia:Main Page history/2013 March 13

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Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric, is a poisonous and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita. Native throughout the temperate and boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere, Amanita muscaria has been unintentionally introduced to many countries in the southern hemisphere, generally as a symbiont with pine plantations, and is now a true cosmopolitan species. The quintessential toadstool, it is a large white-gilled, white-spotted, usually deep red mushroom, one of the most recognizable and widely encountered in popular culture. Although it is generally considered poisonous, deaths from its consumption are extremely rare, and it is eaten as a food in parts of Europe, Asia, and North America after parboiling. Amanita muscaria is noted for its hallucinogenic properties, with its main psychoactive constituent being the compound muscimol. It was used as an intoxicant and entheogen by the peoples of Siberia and has a religious significance in these cultures. There has been much speculation on traditional use of this mushroom as an intoxicant in places other than Siberia; however, such traditions are far less well documented. (Full article...)

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In the news

Syrian rebels capture ar-Raqqah, making it the first major city to come under rebel control during the Syrian civil war.

A newly discovered Y-chromosome haplogroup is thought to push back the time of Y-chromosomal Adam to 338,000 years ago.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (pictured) dies at the age of 58.

A standoff in Lahad Datu between the Malaysian Armed Forces and a group claiming to represent the Sultanate of Sulu escalates into a military conflict in eastern Sabah.

Al-Qaeda confirms that one of its commanders, Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, was killed in the Northern Mali conflict.

In Bangladesh, widespread protests result in more than 50 deaths after Islamist politician Delwar Hossain Sayeedi is convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death.

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On this day...

March 13

1781 – German-born astronomer and composer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus while in the garden of his house in Bath, Somerset, thinking it was a comet.

1884 – Mahdist War: Forces loyal to self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad began a 319-day siege of a combined Anglo-Egyptian force defending Khartoum, Sudan.

1920 – The Kapp Putsch briefly ousted the Weimar Republic government from Berlin.

1943 – The Holocaust: Nazi German troops began liquidating the Jewish Ghetto in Kraków, Poland, sending about 8,000 Jews deemed able to work to the Plaszow labor camp (deportation pictured), with the rest either killed or sent to Auschwitz.

1962 – Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer delivered a proposal to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara called Operation Northwoods to create public support for a war against Fidel Castro and Cuba, which was eventually rejected by President John F. Kennedy.

More anniversaries: March 12 – March 13 – March 14

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Today's featured picture

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the fourth most massive in the Solar System. In this photograph from 1986 the planet appears almost featureless, but recent terrestrial observations have found seasonal changes to be occurring.

Photo: NASA/JPL/Voyager 2 mission

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