Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 December 3

The tammar wallaby is a small macropod native to South and Western Australia. Though its geographical range has been severely reduced since European colonisation, the tammar is common within its reduced range and is listed as of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It has been introduced to New Zealand and reintroduced to some areas of Australia where it had been previously eradicated. Skull differences distinguish tammars from Western Australia, Kangaroo Island and mainland South Australia, making them distinct populations groups or possibly different subspecies. Around the size of a rabbit, the tammar is among the smallest of the wallabies. Its coat is largely grey. It has colour vision, can drink seawater, and can hop efficiently using tendons that act like springs. A nocturnal species, it spends nighttime in grassland habitat and daytime in shrub. It is very gregarious and has a seasonal, promiscuous mating pattern. A female tammar can nurse a joey in her pouch while keeping an embryo in her uterus. The tammar is a model species for research on marsupials, and on mammals in general. It is one of many organisms whose genome has been sequenced. (Full article...)

Recently featured: John Barbirolli – Carsten Borchgrevink – Natchez revolt

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

• ... that the baptistry of Baclayon Church (interior pictured) has an unusual retablo housing the Santo Entierro in a glass coffin and the Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in the central niche?
• ... that none of the artist Kate Lechmere's paintings have survived?
• ... that during the recording sessions of From Elvis in Memphis, producer Chips Moman refreshed Elvis Presley's sound by incorporating Memphis soul?
• ... that the sting of Synoeca surinama wasps is used in defense and contains the neurotransmitter serotonin to induce vasoconstriction and pain?
• ... that Núria Albó, author and mayor of La Garriga, is a Creu de Sant Jordi laureate?
• ... that Ben Jones called Stone Quackers a "more pure, raw, uncut expression of the same artistic impulse" that manifested the character of Alfe in his other series, The Problem Solverz?
• ... that the Hindu saint Sena Nhavi says that barbers show the "mirror of discrimination" and cut the "hair of egotism" and the "nails of passion"?

• In Canadian football, the Calgary Stampeders defeat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to win the Grey Cup.
• Australian Test cricketer Phillip Hughes (pictured) dies after being struck in the neck by a ball bowled to him.
• A previously unknown William Shakespeare First Folio, dated to 1623, is discovered at a library in Saint-Omer, near Calais, France.
• Rioting breaks out in Ferguson, Missouri, and protests occur across the United States, after a grand jury returns no indictment in the case of an unarmed suspect's fatal shooting by a police officer.
• Magnus Carlsen defeats Viswanathan Anand to retain the World Chess Championship title.

Ongoing:

Ebola outbreak –

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Recent deaths:

Chespirito – P. D. James

December 3: International Day of People with Disability

• 1800 – War of the Second Coalition: French forces under General Jean Moreau (pictured) defeated the Austrians and Bavarians under Archduke John in Hohenlinden, near Munich, forcing the Austrians to sign an armistice.
• 1834 – The German Customs Union instituted the first regular census in Germany.
• 1904 – Himalia, the largest irregular satellite of Jupiter, was discovered by astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory in San Jose, California.
• 1984 – Methyl isocyanate and other toxic chemicals were accidentally released from the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, causing the world's worst industrial disaster.
• 1992 – During extreme weather conditions, the oil tanker Aegean Sea ran aground off the coast of Galicia, Spain, spilling 67,000 tonnes of light crude oil.

More anniversaries: December 2 – December 3 – December 4

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A self-portrait of Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) completed c. 1778, when the artist was in his early 20s. Born in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, Stuart began studying painting at a young age. He studied art in Scotland under Cosmo Alexander, and in England during the American Revolution under Benjamin West. By the time he completed this self-portrait, Stuart's works had already been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Stuart returned to the United States in 1791, and went on to paint several presidential portraits – including one of George Washington which has been used on the one-dollar bill for over a century.

Painting: Gilbert Stuart