Wikipedia:Picture of the day/June 2007

A daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe taken in 1848, less than a year before his death. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. A copyright statement is inscribed on this image because it is a photograph of the original daguerreotype.

Daguerreotype credit: W.S. Hartshorn
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The maze of livestock pens and walkways of the Union Stock Yards of Chicago, Illinois, circa 1947. From the American Civil War until the 1920s, more meat was processed in Chicago than in any other place in the world. The stockyard opened in 1865 and closed in 1971 after several decades of decline during the decentralization of the meat packing industry.

Photo credit: John Vachon, FSA
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The Cairns Birdwing (Ornithoptera euphorion) is a birdwing butterfly of the Papilionidae family. It is Australia's largest butterfly, and is native to the tropical north of Queensland.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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The Oscar (Astronotus ocellatus) is a species of fish from the cichlid family. In South America, where the species occurs, they are often found for sale as a food fish in the local markets. The species is also a popular aquarium fish. They have been reported to grow to a length of 45 cm (ca. 18 in) and a mass of 1.6 kg (3.5 lb).

Photo credit: Jón Helgi Jónsson
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Two views of a Renard bassoon, a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that plays in the tenor range and below. The instrument is made of black maple, with silver-plated nickel silver keys.

The bassoon evolved from the dulcian. Although the process of evolution from its predecessor is unknown, the bassoon much as it appears in its current form appeared in a late 17th century painting, and a three-keyed bassoon has been dated to 1699. The modern bassoon exists in two distinct primary forms, the Buffet system and the Heckel system. The Buffet system is played primarily in France but also in Belgium and parts of Latin America, while the Heckel system is played in the majority of the world.

Photo credit: Gregory Maxwell
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A visible light image of the Helix Nebula, one of the closest planetary nebulae (about 650 light-years away) to Earth, located in the constellation Aquarius. It was discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding before 1824 and was created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The outer gases of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic that it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce.

Photo credit: Hubble Space Telescope and Mosaic II Camera, CTIO
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A Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) about to land on a milk thistle flower. This species of honey bee consists of several subspecies, originating from throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. The honey bee is an important pollinator, but Colony Collapse Disorder threatens the existence of commercial beekeeping operations worldwide.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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Over 100,000 people attended the funeral of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink. Dink, noted for his opinions on Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, had been prosecuted three times for denigrating Turkishness, receiving multiple death threats which culminated in his assassination on January 19, 2007. During the march, funeral attendees carried placards reading "We are all Hrant Dink" and "We are all Armenians" in Turkish, Armenian and Kurdish. The building on the right with the black banner is the office of Agos, where Dink was killed.

Photo credit: Kerem Özcan/Diliff
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The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) is a medium large raptor which is a specialist fish-eater with a worldwide distribution. It is often known by other colloquial names such as Fish Hawk, Sea Hawk or Fish Eagle.

The Osprey is particularly well adapted to its diet, with reversible outer toes, closable nostrils to keep out water during dives, and backwards facing scales on the talons which act as barbs to help catch fish.

Photo credit: NASA
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The Torre Agbar is a landmark skyscraper and the third tallest building in Barcelona, Spain. It was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, who stated that the shape of the Torre Agbar was inspired by the mountains of Montserrat that surround Barcelona, and by the shape of a geyser of water rising into the air. Its design combines a number of different architectural concepts, resulting in a striking structure built with reinforced concrete, covered with a facade of glass, and over 4,500 window openings cut out of the structural concrete.

Photo credit: Diliff
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A natural satellite is an object that orbits a planet or other body larger than itself and which is not man-made. Such objects are often called moons. Shown here are 28 of the 240 moons of the Solar System, including those of the dwarf planets Pluto and Eris as well as that of asteroid 243 Ida. The Earth is included for scale.

Image credit: NASA, Deuar, TotoBaggins, KFP
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The Palace of Westminster at dusk, showing the Victoria Tower (left) and the Clock Tower colloquially known as 'Big Ben'. The palace lies on the bank of the River Thames in the heart of London. The oldest part, Westminster Hall, dates to 1097, but most of the present structure dates from the 19th century, when it was rebuilt after it was almost entirely destroyed by a fire in 1834. Together with Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church, the palace is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Photo credit: Diliff
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A mole cricket, an insect belonging to the Gryllotalpidae family. Mole crickets are common insects, found on every continent except Antarctica, but because they are nocturnal and spend nearly all their lives underground in extensive tunnel systems, they are rarely seen. This specimen is likely to be Gryllotalpa brachyptera and is about 3.5 cm (1.4 in.) in size.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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A demonstration of the lilac chaser optical illusion, also known as the Pac-Man illusion. When one stares at the cross in the center of the image for 10–20 seconds, two effects will appear in order: One, the moving empty space between dots will appear as a green dot. Two, the moving green dot will appear to wipe out the purple dots, until only the green dot is visible. A separate effect appears if the eyes move away from the center, showing a ring of green dots.

Image credit: Jeremy.Hinton
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A portrait of Antanas Smetona, the first President of Lithuania, a signatory to the Act of Independence of Lithuania, as well as the last President before the country's occupation by the Soviet Union in World War II. During his second term, he expanded the powers of the office and became an authoritarian head of state. Prior to the Soviet invasion, Smetona proposed armed resistance, but was overruled by his army. He fled the country, eventually emigrating to the United States. Smetona died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1944. His remains are currently buried in Chardon, Ohio.

Photo from: National Museum of Lithuania
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Lichtenstein Castle is a fairy-tale castle located near Honau in the Swabian Alb, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. Although there have been previous castles on the site, the current castle was constructed by Duke Wilhelm of Urach in 1840 after being inspired by Wilhelm Hauff's novel Lichtenstein. The romantic Neo-Gothic design of the castle was created by the architect Carl Alexander Heideloff.

Photo credit: Andreas Tille
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The Great Hall inside the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. This building is the oldest of the Library's three buildings and is known for its elaborately decorated facade and interior, for which more than forty American painters and sculptors produced commissioned works of art. Originally called simply the "Library of Congress Building" its name was changed to honor former President Thomas Jefferson, who had been a key figure in the establishment of the Library in 1800.

Photo credit: Diliff
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Two TRS connectors (also known as jack plugs or phone plugs), a common audio connector. They are cylindrical in shape, with two or more contacts. Originally invented for use in telephone switchboards, jack plugs are still widely used, both in the original ¼-inch (6.3 mm) size and in miniaturized versions. The top plug in this image is for stereo connections, while the bottom is for mono.

Image credit: Søren Peo Pedersen
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A Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit in flight. The B-2 is a stealth bomber able to drop conventional and nuclear weapons. There have been 21 of these flying wings built, down from an initial projection of 135, the collapse of the Soviet Union having rendered void the Spirit's primary mission.

Photo credit: Staff Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III, USAF
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The Smithsonian Institution Building, popularly known as The Castle, is the administrative office and information center of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It was the first Smithsonian building, completed in 1855 by architect James Renwick, Jr. and is constructed of red sandstone in the Norman style.

Photo credit: Noclip
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A female Great Eggfly (Hypolimnas bolina), a species of butterfly found in Madagascar, South and Southeast Asia, South Pacific islands, Australia, Japan and New Zealand. The female of the species mimics the inedible Euploea core.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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The Scenic Railway, the world's oldest continually-operating roller coaster, found at Luna Park in Melbourne, Australia. Built in 1912, this is a side-friction wooden roller coaster, meaning it lacks an extra set of wheels under the track to prevent cars from becoming airborne. Instead, a brakeman stands between the two cars (visible here wearing a purple vest and a backwards cap) and slows the ride down when necessary. It is one of only nine remaining side-friction coasters in the world.

Photo credit: Stevage
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A smoky day at the Sugar Bowl, a photograph of a Hupa fisherman by Edward S. Curtis. The Hupa are an Athabaskan tribe of over 2,600 individuals that inhabits northwestern California. They are the southernmost representatives of the Northwest Coast culture, although some of their customs are not characteristic of that culture area.

Curtis was a practitioner of salvage ethnography, which is the practice of documenting what is left of a culture before it disappears. This assumed a particular significance during the 18th century and early 19th century as the American Indians were becoming separated from their traditional culture.

Photo credit: Edward S. Curtis
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NGC 602 is the designation for a particular young, bright open cluster of stars located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way. Radiation and shock waves from the star cluster have pushed away much of the lighter surrounding gas and dust that compose the nebula known as N90, and this in turn has triggered new star formation in the ridges (or "elephant trunks") of the nebula. These even younger stars are still enshrouded in dust but are visible to the Spitzer Space Telescope at infrared wavelengths. A number of other, more distant galaxies also appear in the background of the image.

Photo credit: Hubble Space Telescope
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A stitched panorama of Zabriskie Point, a section of Death Valley National Park (in the United States) noted for its strikingly beautiful erosional landscape. The terrain is referred to as badlands due to its very difficult-to-traverse topography. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago — long before Death Valley came into existence.

Photo credit: Jonathan Kramer
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This photo of an archetypal aviator from 1942 shows U.S. Army test pilot Lt. F.W. "Mike" Hunter wearing a flight suit and aviator sunglasses. An aviator (also pilot or airman) is a person who flies aircraft, whether for pleasure or as a profession. The word "aviatrix" was used to refer to female aviators, reflecting the word's Latin root, but is now seldom used, even as a gender-specific term. In civilian usage, the word airman is analogous with the nautical term seaman.

Photo credit: Alfred T. Palmer, USOWI
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A whole and cross-sectioned tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). The tomato is native to Central, South, and southern North America from Mexico to Peru. The Spanish, after their colonization of the Americas, spread the tomato throughout their colonies and back to Europe, whereupon it became commonly used in various cuisines.

Photo credit: Fir0002
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The Starry Night is the title given to one of the best known and most reproduced paintings by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. A year after his painting Starry Night Over the Rhone, he announced "a new study of a starry sky." He finished The Starry Night in September 1889, but was unsatisfied with the final work, feeling it lacked "individual intention and feeling in the lines."

Artist: Vincent van Gogh
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Egeskov Castle is a Danish castle located on the island of Funen. The castle is constructed on oaken piles and located in a small lake of maximum depth five meters. Originally, the only access was by means of a drawbridge. According to legend, it took an entire forest of oak trees to build the foundation, hence the name Egeskov (literally: Oak forest).

Photo credit: Malene Thyssen
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The Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena) is a member of the grebe family of water birds. In summertime, adults are unmistakable, due to their red neck and white throat. In winter, the Red-necked Grebe is duskier than most grebes, with no white above the eye, and a thick, yellowish bill. It is a somewhat large grebe, about the same size as an average duck.

Photo credit: Mdf
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