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User:Vaoverland/DYK

< User:Vaoverland


This page overs the contributions by Wikipedian Vaoverland to the Did You Know? (DYK) section, which presents short blurbs and links to new articles on the Main Page of the English language version fo Wikipedia.

As of August, 2008, I have been directly involved in 88 articles to date (82 of which I started) which have been featured on the Wikipedia Main Page.

The 50 DYK Medal
I, Smee, hereby award you with The 50 DYK Medal, for your over 50 contributions to the Wikipedia:Did you know? section as featured on the Main Page. Your work is appreciated. Thank you. Yours, Smee 04:33, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
This DYK medal goes to Mark for not only his work on DYK but also in initiating the concept of this medal. --Gurubrahma 10:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

What is Did You Know? (DYK)

Wikipedia:Did you know (DYK) section on the Main Page gives publicity to newly created or expanded Wikipedia articles, as a way of thanking the editors who create new content and to encourage other editors to contribute to and improve that article and the encyclopedia.

DYK is run by volunteers who work together to process DYK suggestions so that they appear on the Main Page, as guided by rules and regulations which are decided by the DYK participants through consensus. Most tasks relating to DYK can be undertaken by any interested editor, but some require an administrator.

The article, article's creator(s), and the DYK nominator may be recognized as contributing to DYK through the credit templates posted by DYK on user talk pages.

Awards may be given to recognize a user's contributionsm including levels of 25, 50, 100 and 200 contributions. A listing of some of the Wikipedians who are most active in this work may be found at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of DYKs.

Also, successful submission of a Did you know? piece is one part of Wikipedia's triple crown, an award for outstanding editing contributions.

DYK credits, medals, etc may be recognized on a userpage.

Further information: Wikipedia:Did you know

Why I work on DYK articles

Working for this feature of WP is a good area to practice getting the most impact out of the fewest words, a skill which has always challenged (and often eluded) me. I especially enjoy working on the DYK section because the publicity during the time the blurb is presented draws readers and editors to the articles, which stimulates collaboration with other Wikipedian and first-time WP contributors, resulting in additional content, factual corrections, and sometimes a bit of controversy!

Listing of my DYK articles

Here is the list of my DYK articles in the order they appeared on Wikipedia's Main page:

  1. School bus yellow has many links to other related articles I had started and/or added to earlier, such as school bus and Dr. Frank W. Cyr. The article benefited from some good tweaking by User:Niteowlneils.
  2. Pioneer Zephyr later became a featured article. It was created by User:Slambo with whom I collaborate on railroad articles. I contributed some content, images, and started articles for some of the red links.
  3. Sears Catalog Homes is an article about 100,000 mail-order houses sold in the United States between 1908 and 1940. Clusters are located in my early childhood home of Downers Grove, Illinois and are a favorite major tourist attraction at Hopewell, Virginia near where I currently reside. User: Brian0918 contributed to the article and the image used.
  4. Carl G. Fisher which later became a featured article is about a man, who despite a sight-impairment disability, became a notable American entrepreneur, who helped develop sealed beam headlights, the Lincoln Highway (the first U.S. transcontinental paved roadway), the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the resort city of Miami Beach, Florida. I was surprised to learn Wikipedia didn't already have an article on this remarkable man, who is regarded as one of the most influential in Florida history. Once again, the article benefited from some good tweaking by User:Niteowlneils.
  5. Anthony T. Rossi is about an Italian-American businessman who operated a grocery store, began making gift boxes of Florida oranges, invented a process to pack pure chilled orange juice, and in 1947, founded Tropicana Products.
  6. John S. Collins is about a Quaker farmer from New Jersey who came to southern Florida to grow vegetables and coconuts on a barrier island, and built 2.5 mile long wooden Collins Bridge across Biscayne Bay in 1913 which led to the development of Miami Beach.
  7. coping skills is an article about a behavioral tool used to overcome adversity, disadvantage, or disability without correcting or eliminating the underlying condition.
  8. Adult attention-deficit disorder (AADD) affects an estimated 30% of children who had Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including me. This DYK blurb led many readers to the article and the ADHD article, and there has been healthy new dialog on the Talk pages and new edits with more information from other contributors for both the articles as well.
  9. Varina-Enon Bridge is a large cable-stayed bridge which carries Interstate 295 across the James River in Virginia which hosts an award-winning VDOT project to provide nesting locations for peregrine falcons which are tracked on a website. This is one of a number I have done on Virginia's bridges, tunnels, and bridge-tunnels.
  10. Dr. Hunter McGuire was a physician who amputated General Stonewall Jackson's arm during the American Civil War and later helped found several hospitals and a prominent medical school in Richmond, Virginia.
  11. Mountain Lake, one of only two natural lakes in Virginia, was the filming location for the fictional Kellerman's Resort in New York's Catskill Mountains for the 1987 feature film Dirty Dancing.
  12. Galápagos tortoise is the largest living tortoise in the world, only native to the Galápagos Islands, where about 15,000 of them live.
  13. Edgar Buchanan was a dentist before becoming an American actor with a long career in both movies and television, and is probably best remembered as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction and Green Acres television sitcoms of the 1960s.
  14. Dismal Swamp Canal which runs along the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States.
  15. James A. Bland (1854-1911) an African American musician and song writer wrote over 700 songs, including "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" in 1878, which was later the official State Song of Virginia from 1940 to 1997.
  16. Fisher Automobile Company in Indianapolis, Indiana is believed to have been the first automobile dealership in the United States.
  17. Terri Irwin co-owner of the Australia Zoo and co-star of the The Crocodile Hunter series on television, began caring for injured wildlife as a child and ran her own rehab facility for 5 years before she met Steve Irwin.
  18. the callsign of KFRC in San Francisco, California in the U.S. stood for "Known For Radio Clearness". In fact, when the AM radio station signed on with 50 watts in 1924, it was heard as far away as New Zealand, far exceeding anyone's expectations.
  19. The Jeff Corwin Experience is an American television show about animals airing on the Animal Planet cable channel. Hosted by actor and conservationist Jeff Corwin, it reflects a "human coexistence with wildlife approach" which is in sharp conflict with poachers and past practices in many parts of the world.
  20. Pal, owned by animal trainers Frank and Rudd Weatherwax, was the name of the first dog to portray Lassie.
  21. the child actor Tommy Rettig, who starred as Jeff Miller in the first four seasons of the Lassie television series became a noted database software author as an adult.
  22. George E. Studdy was a British artist best remembered for his creation of Bonzo the dog, a fictional character, in the early 1920s. A paper mâché Bonzo with a Crosley Pup AM radio is on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.
  23. Madonna of the Trail is a series of monuments dedicated to the spirit of the pioneer woman in the United States. Created by German immigrant August Leimbach, 12 were placed from Maryland to California in 1928 and 1929.
  24. one-room schools were commonplace throughout rural portions of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. All of the students met in a single room, and one teacher taught reading, writing and arithmetic to seven or eight grade levels of boys and girls.
  25. A kid hack was a horse-drawn vehicle used for transporting children to school in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. This early form of school bus powered by both horses and mules, was usually loaded at the rear to avoid frightening the animals.
  26. Perley A. Thomas was a Canadian millsmith who attended night courses, learned drafting and design skills, and became a renowned streetcar and bus manufacturer in High Point, North Carolina.
  27. Lover's Leap is a name often given to a number of locations of great height where legends take place involving couples leaping to their mutual death.
  28. Fred Gipson was an American author best remembered for creating a fictional dog featured in a book and the classic 1957 movie Old Yeller.
  29. Showmen's Rest in Forest Park, Illinois is a 750 plot section of Woodlawn Cemetery where members of a circus troupe were interred following the Hammond circus train wreck in 1918.
  30. Sarah Brady became an advocate of gun control and led actions to reduce gun violence after her husband White House Press Secretary James Brady sustained a disabling head wound during the Reagan assassination attempt in 1981.
  31. Project Exile was a federal program started in Richmond, Virginia in 1997. By prosecuting illegal gun offenses in federal court, Project Exile helped to reduce gun violence in Richmond by 40 percent.
  32. In 1945, entrepreneur Leonard Shoen founded U-Haul, first American cargo trailer-rental company.
  33. change of venue is the legal term for moving a jury trial away from a location where a fair and impartial jury may not be possible due to widespread publicity about a crime and/or the defendant(s).
  34. Fort Story at Cape Henry in Virginia Beach, Virginia was the site of the first landing of the Jamestown settlers in 1607, and the Cape Henry Lighthouse, first in the U.S., in 1792.
  35. The Emancipation Oak located on the campus of Hampton University is where the Virginia Peninsula's black community gathered in 1863 to hear the first Southern reading of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
  36. Buckingham Branch Railroad in Central Virginia was formed in 1989 and has expanded from a 16-mile railroad to operate over 200 miles of track.
  37. In 1855 the Howard Association of Norfolk, Virginia received contributions during the Yellow Fever Epidemic from the U.S. Gulf Coast areas and that 150 years later, they sent $50,000 of leftover funds to Louisiana to help with Hurricane Katrina relief.
  38. The original Norfolk Southern Railway was a small regional railroad in Virginia and North Carolina for 98 years before it became the namesake of the current Norfolk Southern Railway in 1982.
  39. Charles Butler McVay III, commander of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), was blamed when it was lost at sea in 1945 and only finally exonerated by the United States Congress posthumously in 2000.
  40. Green Spring Plantation in James City County was home of Sir William Berkeley, who served 3 non-consecutive terms as governor of the Virginia Colony, and for whom Berkeley Plantation is named.
  41. The 18th century Governor's Palace, originally completed in 1722 and last occupied by Thomas Jefferson in 1780, was carefully reconstructed, opening in 1934 as one of the two larger buildings at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.
  42. Lott Cary was an African American slave who became educated, bought his freedom, became a minister and physician, and helped found the Colony of Liberia in Africa in 1822.
  43. Reverend Dr. James Blair of Scotland was a clergyman and missionary to the Virginia Colony, and is best known as the founder in 1693 of the College of William and Mary, where he served as President for 50 years.
  44. Wash Woods was a lost town at Virginia's False Cape built by survivors of a shipwreck using cypress wood that washed ashore.
  45. The contradictory term foot cavalry was first used to describe the rapid movement of infantry troops of General Stonewall Jackson during the American Civil War.
  46. Norge, an unincorporated town in James City County, Virginia was established by Norwegian-American immigrants.
  47. Varina Farms, the plantation of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, was site of the first successful cultivation of export tobacco in the Virginia Colony in 1612.
  48. Identical Norwegian Lady Statues commemorating a shipwreck are located in the sister cities of Moss, Norway and Virginia Beach, Virginia facing each other across the Atlantic Ocean.
  49. The Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 was one of the most destructive Nor'easters to ever impact the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States, killing 40 people, injuring over 1,000, and causing hundred of millions in property damage in 6 states.
  50. American artist Samuel W. Rowse's lithograph of escaped slave Henry Box Brown emerging from a shipping box in 1849 was used to raise funds by anti-slavery activists for the Underground Railroad.
  51. A voluntary caregiver is an unpaid spouse, relative, friend or neighbor of a disabled person or child who assists with activities of daily living.
  52. The Busette, in 1973, was the first successful small school bus to be built on a cutaway van chassis with a low center of gravity and dual rear wheels.
  53. (This was a double header as both Busette and cutaway van chassis were new articles).
  54. Rapidan Camp, the rustic mountain fishing retreat of U.S. President Herbert Hoover located near Big Meadows in Virginia was the forerunner of Camp David in Maryland.
  55. (This was another double header, as both Rapidan Camp and Big Meadows were new articles).
  56. The Capitol in Williamsburg, Virginia was the first capitol building in America in 1705.
  57. Seatack, Virginia, named for an "attack by sea" during the War of 1812, has an Internet "Tower Cam" in the Old Coast Guard Station Museum on the boardwalk at Virginia Beach.
  58. Flood walls are man-made vertical barriers that are designed to temporarily contain the waters of a river or other waterway during seasonal or extreme weather events.
  59. Oliver W. Hill, a civil rights attorney, worked against racial discrimination and helped end the doctrine of separate but equal during a period of massive resistance to integration in Virginia's public schools.
  60. The Overseas Railroad completed in 1912 for 128 miles beyond the end of the Florida peninsula to Key West, was heavily damaged in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and not rebuilt.
  61. Fort Dallas, a military post during the Seminole Wars, became the site of the new city of Miami, Florida in 1895.
  62. Samuel Spencer, first president of the Southern Railway was killed in a train wreck in Virginia in 1906.
  63. Bacon's Castle—a stronghold in Surry County during Bacon's Rebellion in the Virginia Colony in 1676—was never occupied by leader Nathaniel Bacon.
  64. Polydactyl cats, with extra toes as a genetic trait, were long considered good luck by many sailors, as the cats' extraordinary climbing and hunting skills were helpful in controlling shipboard rodents.
  65. Samuel Andrews (1836-1904) was a English-born chemist and inventor whose request for investment capitol to build an oil refinery in 1862 led to a partnership with John D. Rockefeller and formation of the Standard Oil companies.
  66. Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay, New York was the historic 400 acre estate of Gilded Age millionaire William R. Coe.
  67. Lamb Chop is a fictional sheep that was created by comedienne and ventriloquist Shari Lewis and first appeared on the children's morning television show Captain Kangaroo in 1957.
  68. Grand Illumination is an outdoor ceremony involving the simultaneous activation of electric Christmas lights and is derived from an English tradition of placing lighted candles in the windows of homes and public buildings to celebrate a special event.
  69. Caribbean Club in Key Largo, Florida was built by former millionaire promoter Carl Graham Fisher as "a poor man's retreat" and became famous as a filming site for the 1947 film Key Largo starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
  70. Fort Pocahontas in Virginia was constructed by African-American soldiers of the United States Colored Troops in 1864 and was used for on-location filming of the 2005 motion picture The New World.
  71. Leif J. Sverdrup was a immigrant from Norway to the United States who became a civil engineer and led the project to build the 17 mile-long Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, named one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World after completion in 1964.
  72. Lewis Adams, a former African American slave in Macon County, Alabama is known for helping found the normal school which later became Tuskegee University.
  73. Jackson Ward is a historically African-American neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia where free African-Americans joined freed slaves and their descendents and created a thriving business community known as the "Black Wall Street of America."
  74. Over 5,000 Rosenwald Schools in the United States were built primarily for the education of African Americans with funds donated by Julius Rosenwald, who was part-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company.
  75. Historic Jamestowne is a National Historic Site on Jamestown Island on the James River at Jamestown, Virginia operated by the Colonial National Historical Park of the U.S. National Park Service.
  76. Werowocomoco was the chief village of the Powhatan Confederacy in Virginia where Captain John Smith of Jamestown was rescued from execution by Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan.
  77. American sculptor Luis Jiménez, known for his large Southwestern and Hispanic polychromed fiberglass sculptures, was killed when a large piece of his work fell on him.
  78. Artrain USA is a 5-car art gallery that tours the U.S. 11 months of the year, visiting small towns whose residents may not otherwise have a chance to see art up close.
  79. Tsenacommacah was the name of the territory in eastern Virginia which was controlled by the Powhatan Confederacy at the time of the arrival of English colonists at Jamestown in 1607.
  80. Church Hill Tunnel in Richmond, Virginia contains a steam locomotive and ten flat cars trapped in a collapse in October, 1925 which were never recovered.
  81. A school bus crossing arm is a safety device intended to protect children from being struck while crossing in front of a school bus.
  82. John Casor was the first known slave in the Thirteen Colonies.
  83. The Ajacan Mission, a failed attempt by Spanish Jesuit priests to bring Christianity to the Native Americans of the Virginia Peninsula, predated the establishment of Jamestown by about 36 years.
  84. Fewer than 100 of 500 colonists in the Virginia Colony survived the Starving Time during the winter of 1609-1610.
  85. Jamestown Rediscovery is an ongoing archaeological project of the APVA which discovered the long-lost remains of the first fort built by the settlers at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony.
  86. Kanawha (pictured) was a steam-powered luxury yacht aboard which industrialist Henry H. Rogers met Booker T. Washington to secretly fund the education of African Americans.
  87. Bellboy Johnny Roventini was paid $1 to page a hotel lobby for a "Call for Phillip Morris", unknowingly performing a screen test for a 40-year career as living trademark.
  88. The Virginia Capital Trail connects three historic capitals of Virginia (Williamsburg, Jamestown and Richmond) with a 54-mile (87 km) long paved bicycle and pedestrian trail.
 
Wikipedia administrator Mark Fisher, taken September 5, 2008, Williamsburg, Virginia
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