Wikipedia:Picture of the day/June 2008

After being forced to leave the Philippines after the Japanese victory in 1942, General Douglas MacArthur vowed, "I shall return." 31 months later, he waded ashore at Palo Beach at the outset of the Battle of Leyte, fulfilling his pledge as the United States retook the island.

Photo credit: United States Army
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Antennata Lionfish (Pterois antennata) in Schönbrunn Zoo, Vienna, Austria. Pterois is a genus of marine fish found mostly in the Indo-Pacific. Scorpionfish is another common name of Pterois, as its spines are venomous.

Photo credit: Christian Mehlführer
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An American Medium Tank M3, commonly called the "General Lee" (after Robert E. Lee) in Britain, on training exercises at Fort Knox, Kentucky in June, 1942. At the outset of World War II, the M3 was developed as an interim solution to replace the outdated M2, before the M4 Sherman could be mass-produced. A slightly different model was known as the "General Grant" (after Ulysses S. Grant).

Photo credit: Alfred T. Palmer, FSA-OWI
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The Eastern Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata) is a lizard found in wooded parts of Australia. It is a large species of grey-black colour distinguished from its relative, the Central Bearded Dragon, by its less robust body and the row of spines along the lateral edge of the body, which continues over the forearm. It has an adult snout-tail length of about 60 cm (24 in).

Photo credit: John O'Neill
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An 1851 daguerreotype of Portsmouth Square, San Francisco, California. Now a one-block square in Chinatown, it is located on the site of the first public square established in Yerba Buena, the Mexican community that became San Francisco. It is named after the USS Portsmouth, which raised the American flag here at the onset of the Mexican–American War.

Daguerreotype credit: Unknown
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A wild boar (Sus scrofa), shown here in an animal sanctuary, the wild ancestor of the domestic pig. Boars are native across much of Central Europe, the Mediterranean Region and much of Asia. Wild boars almost always have thick, short bristly coats ranging in colour from brown through grey to black.

Photo credit: Richard Bartz
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A male Leopard Lacewing (Cethosia cyane), a species of heliconiine butterfly found in South Asia.

Photo credit: Airbete
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An adult Dunlin (Calidris alpina) in breeding plumage. This bird is one of the most common and best-known waders throughout its breeding and wintering ranges, and it is the species with which other waders tend to be compared.

Photo credit: Mdf
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This true-color image, taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, shows the Victoria Crater from Cape Verde, Mars. Cape St. Vincent is the promontory visible on the left of the photo. On the right is Duck Bay, and beyond that, on the inner crater wall, is the north face of the 15 meter (50 foot)-tall stack of layered rocks called Cabo Frio.

Photo credit: Opportunity rover
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Infantrymen of the 255th Infantry Regiment move down a street in Waldenburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, searching for a fugitive after a recent raid by 63rd Infantry Division in 1945.

Photo credit: 2d Lt. Jacob Harris, U.S. Army
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A daguerreotype of the United States Capitol in 1846, with the original green copper dome as designed by Charles Bulfinch. Over time, extensions to both the north and south wings, made to accommodate the addition of new states to the Union, made the dome aesthetically displeasing, and as a result, it was replaced by a white cast iron dome which was completed in 1866.

Daguerreotype credit: John Plumbe
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A collage of six different mustard images: Seeds of the mustard plant (top left) may be ground (top right) to make different kinds of mustard. The four mustards pictured are a simple table mustard with turmeric coloring (center left), a Bavarian sweet mustard (center right), a Dijon mustard (lower left), and a rough French mustard made mainly from black mustard seeds (lower right).

Image credit: Rainer Zenz
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A map of troop movements during the Waterloo Campaign, leading up to the Battle of Waterloo where Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated. Napoleon's Army of the North came up against a coalition army composed of forces from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Prussia, Hanover, Nassau, and Brunswick. Beginning 15 June 1815, the combatants fought successively in the Battle of Quatre Bras, the Battle of Ligny, the Battle of Waterloo, and lastly the Battle of Wavre.

Map credit: Gsl/I. Pankonin
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Charles Minard's Carte figurative (1869), which details the losses of men, the position of the army, and the freezing temperatures on Napoleon's disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia. Created in an effort to show the horrors of war, the graph "defies the pen of the historian in its brutal eloquence" and has been called the best statistical graphic ever drawn.

Image credit: Charles Joseph Minard
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