Wikipedia:Main Page history/2012 May 19

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Today's featured article
The indigenous people of the Everglades region arrived in the Florida peninsula approximately 15,000 years ago, probably following large game. The Paleo-Indians found an arid landscape that supported plants and animals adapted to desert conditions. Climate changes 6,500 years ago brought a wetter landscape, and the Paleo-Indians slowly adapted to the new conditions. Archaeologists call the cultures that resulted from the adaptations Archaic peoples, from whom two major tribes emerged in the area: the Calusa and the Tequesta. The earliest written descriptions of these people come from Spanish explorers who sought to convert and conquer them. After more than 200 years of relations with the Spanish, both indigenous societies lost cohesiveness. Official records indicate that survivors of war and disease were transported to Havana in the late 18th century. Isolated groups may have been assimilated into the Seminole nation, which formed in northern Florida when a band of Creeks consolidated surviving members of pre-Columbian societies in Florida into their own to become a distinct tribe. Seminoles were forced into the Everglades by the U.S. military during the Seminole Wars from 1835 to 1842. The U.S. military pursued the Seminoles into the region, which resulted in some of the first recorded explorations of much of the area. Seminoles continue to live in the Everglades region, and support themselves with casino gaming on six reservations located throughout the state. (more...) Recently featured: Blakeney Chapel – The Well of Loneliness – Cockatoo Archive – By email – More featured articles...
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From Wikipedia's newest content: ... that although women could not be members of an antiquarian society in Bristol, Mary Ellen Bagnall-Oakeley presented numerous papers to historians, including one about the tower on Monnow Bridge (pictured)? ... that the song "Jesus, Friend Of Sinners" by Casting Crowns "admonishes" the Christian church to show compassion? ... that new Monmouth Alms Houses are to be provided by the charity established nearly four hundred years ago to build the original dwellings? ... that Israel's Chamber of the Holocaust museum includes urns with the ashes of victims from 36 Nazi death camps? ... that New York Times religion editor Rachel Kollock McDowell got locked inside a princess's tomb in pursuit of a news story? ... that the discovery of Mesolithic microliths during gas main excavation in 2010 revealed that Monmouth was inhabited during the Middle Stone Age? ... that the ribald Korean dance-drama Hahoe byeolsingut talnori features a lecherous apostate priest and a urinating dancing girl? Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

In the news
Facebook, Inc. raises US$16 billion with its initial public offering, the third largest in U.S. history. Using terahertz radiation, researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Suzukakedai campus pictured) set a new record for wireless data transmission speed. A new legislative election is scheduled in Greece, after the party leaders failed to form a coalition government following the May election. Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, who influenced the Latin American Boom, dies at the age of 83. Eighteen hundred Palestinian prisoners end a hunger strike after Israel agrees to improve their conditions. Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...
On this day...
May 19: Greek Genocide Remembrance Day in Greece; Sanja Matsuri begins in Tokyo (2012); Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day in Turkey; Ho Chi Minh's birthday in Vietnam; Armed Forces Day in the United States (2012) 1499 – Thirteen-year-old Catherine of Aragon, the future first wife of Henry VIII of England, was married by proxy to his brother, 15-year-old Arthur, Prince of Wales (pictured). 1780 – A combination of thick smoke, fog, and heavy cloud cover caused darkness to fall on parts of Canada and the New England area of the United States by noon. 1817 – The Articles of Association of the Bank of Montreal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada's oldest chartered bank, were adopted. 1962 – During a televised birthday celebration for U.S. President John F. Kennedy at New York City's Madison Square Garden, actress and model Marilyn Monroe performed her infamous rendition of "Happy Birthday to You". 1991 – Despite a boycott by the local Serb population, voters in Croatia passed a referendum supporting independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. More anniversaries: May 18 – May 19 – May 20 Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries It is now May 19, 2012 (UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture

USS Oregon (BB-3) was a pre-Dreadnought Indiana-class battleship of the United States Navy. Her voyage from California around South America to the East Coast in March 1898 in preparation for war with Spain popularized the ship with the American public and demonstrated the need for a shorter route, which led to construction of the Panama Canal.

Photo: Edward H. Hart

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