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Today's featured article
The island appearing as a small island in the center of a map from 1906 Powder House Island (also known as Dynamite Island) is an artificial island on the lower Detroit River in southeast Michigan, directly adjacent to the Canada–United States border. It was constructed in the late 1880s by the Dunbar & Sullivan Company to manufacture and store explosives during their dredging of the Livingstone Channel, in a successful attempt to circumvent an 1880 court order forbidding the company from storing explosives on nearby Fox Island. In 1906, twenty short tons (18,000 kg) of the island's dynamite exploded after two men "had been shooting with a revolver" near it. The explosion was clearly audible from 85 mi (137 km) away. By the 1980s, it was completely unused; by 2015, the island was owned by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, managed by its Wildlife Division as part of the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, and accessible to the public for hunting and camping. (Full article...) Recently featured: Martin Rundkvist 2009 Women's Cricket World Cup Final Northern rosella Archive By email More featured articles
Did you know...
The New Yorker, 3 October 1925 ... that Barbara Shermund illustrated two early New Yorker covers (second shown) and, 25 years later, was one of the first women to join the National Cartoonists Society? ... that Agron House was one of the first Israeli cinemas to show films on the Sabbath? ... that Lucy Feagin founded the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York City, where talent scouts for radio, screen, and stage were always present to watch her senior students' plays? ... that many international law experts and states doubt that extended occupations, such as the Israeli occupation of Palestine, can ever be legal? ... that astronaut Judith Resnik flew in space with "Tarzan" and "Cheetah"? ... that views on the refusal to fight certain wars range from it being prohibited to morally obligatory? ... that William Rees Jeffreys was a cyclist who became the first secretary of the Road Board, the forerunner of the UK's Department for Transport? ... that the House of Brag organized a "Monstrous Pride" event to clash with London's pride parade? Archive Start a new article Nominate an article

In the news
Aliyah Boston In NCAA Division I basketball, the South Carolina Gamecocks win the women's championship (Most Outstanding Player Aliyah Boston pictured) and the Kansas Jayhawks win the men's championship. Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians are found dead after Russian forces withdraw from Bucha. In the Serbian general election, Aleksandar Vučić is re-elected as President of Serbia and his Serbian Progressive Party wins the most seats. Fidesz, led by Viktor Orbán, wins a fourth consecutive term in the Hungarian parliamentary election. Ongoing: COVID-19 pandemic Russian invasion of Ukraine Recent deaths: June Brown Pamela Rooke Maks Levin Delfina Entrecanales Lygia Fagundes Telles Joyce Fairbairn Nominate an article
On this day...
April 5: Feast day of Saint Vincent Ferrer (Catholicism); Hansik in South Korea (2022) The collapsed stand at Ibrox Park 919 – The Fatimid Caliphate began a second unsuccessful invasion of Egypt, then under Abbasid rule. 1614 – Pocahontas, a Native American woman, married English colonist John Rolfe in the Colony of Virginia. 1902 – A spectator stand collapsed (pictured) during a Scotland–England football match at Ibrox Park, Govan, killing 25 supporters and injuring more than 500 others. 1944 – Siegfried Lederer, a Czech Jew, escaped from Auschwitz with the aid of an SS officer who opposed the Holocaust. 1986 – The Libyan secret service bombed a discotheque in West Berlin, resulting in three deaths and 229 others injured. Jules Cambon (b. 1845) María Blanchard (d. 1932) Jim Marshall (d. 2012) More anniversaries: April 4 April 5 April 6 Archive By email List of days of the year

Today's featured picture

Hygrocybe miniata, commonly known as the vermilion waxcap, is a small, bright red or red-orange species of mushroom in the genus Hygrocybe, the waxcaps. It is a cosmopolitan species, distributed worldwide. In Europe, it is found in fields, on sandy heaths, or grassy commons in the autumn. These two H. miniata mushrooms were photographed in Ferndale Park in Sydney, Australia.

Photograph credit: John Harrison

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