Wikipedia:Picture of the day/November 2009

Two whole Cripps Pink apples and a cross-section of a third. More commonly known by the trademarked name "Pink Lady", this apple cultivar was originally bred by John Cripps by crossing the Australian apple Lady Williams with a Golden Delicious. The apple shape is ellipsoid, it has a distinctive pink hue mixed with a green "background," and taste is tart.

Photo credit: Fir0002

Gran calavera eléctrica ("Grand electric skull", 1900–13) by José Guadalupe Posada, which depicts a large skeleton hypnotizing a group of calaveras, with an electric street car, with skeletons as passengers, in the background. Skulls are a common symbol of the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday where people remember friends and family members who have died.

Restoration: Lise Broer

The Dusky Moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa) is an omnivorous bird in the Rallidae family found in the wetland habitats of Australia, New Guinea and Indonesia, with a preference for freshwater marshes.

Photo credit: Benjamint444

The 38th painting in the seventh volume of the Hamzanama, an illustrated story of the fantastic exploits of Hamza, the uncle of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad. Commissioned by the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great in the late 16th century, it depicts a scene from the Battle of Mazandaran, in which the protagonists Khwajah 'Umar and Hamza and their armies engage in fierce battle. The faces seen here were repainted some time after having been erased at one point by iconoclasts. The entire work consists of 1,400 folios, with the painting on the recto side and text written in Nastaʿlīq script narrating the story on the verso.

Artist: Unknown

An 1885 bird's-eye map (not drawn to scale) of Pulaski, New York, a village in upstate New York named after Kazimierz Pułaski, who was known as "the father of American cavalry". It is located wholly within the town of Richland and had a population of 2,398 at the 2000 census.

Image: Lucien R. Burleigh; Restoration: Lise Broer

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck is the fifth and current Bhutan Dragon King and head of the Wangchuck dynasty. He became king on 14 December 2006, and was officially crowned on 6 November 2008. The young king began his unusual reign overseeing the democratization of Bhutan, stating that the responsibility for this generation of Bhutanese was to ensure the success of democracy.

Photo credit: Royal family of Bhutan

The Old World Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) is a butterfly found throughout the Palearctic region in Europe and Asia, as well as in North America, and thus is not restricted to the Old World, despite the common name. It is yellow with black wing and vein markings and a wingspan of 8 to 10 centimetres (3.1 to 3.9 in). The hind wings have a pair of protruding tails, similar to a swallow.

Photo credit: Thomas Bresson

A female Parma Wallaby (Macropus parma) and her joey. This wallaby species is the smallest member of the genus Macropus, at between 3.2 and 5.8 kilograms (7.1 and 12.8 lb) and about 50 centimetres (1.6 ft) in length. It was believed to be extinct before the end of the 19th century, but a population was found on Kawau Island in 1965, and two years later another population was found in the forests near Gosford, New South Wales. They are now classified as Near Threatened.

Photo credit: Benjamint444

A panoramic view of South Beach, a neighborhood and beach in the city of Miami Beach, Florida. This area was the first section of the city to be developed, starting in the 1910s. The area has gone through numerous man-made and natural changes over the years, including a booming regional economy, increased tourism, and the 1926 hurricane, which destroyed much of the area.

Photo credit: UpstateNYer

Utamaro's Ase o fuku onna ("Woman wiping sweat"), an example of bijinga (literally, "pictures of beautiful people"), a central theme of the ukiyo-e genre of Japanese art. Nearly all ukiyo-e artists produced bijinga, but a few, including Utamaro, Suzuki Harunobu, Toyohara Chikanobu, and Torii Kiyonaga, are widely regarded as the greatest innovators and masters of the form.

Restoration: Lise Broer

Turkish trenches that were dug along the Dead Sea in the course of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I. The campaign was a series of battles which took place in the Sinai Peninsula, Palestine, and Syria between 28 January 1915 and 28 October 1918.

Photo credit: American Colony, Jerusalem
Restoration: Lise Broer

A panorama of Sydney, the most populous city in Australia with a population of 4.4 million, at dusk, with the Sydney Opera House on the left and Sydney central business district on the right. The site of the first British colony in Australia, Sydney was established in 1788 at Sydney Cove by Arthur Phillip, commodore of the First Fleet. The city is built on hills surrounding Sydney Harbour—an inlet of the Tasman Sea on Australia's southeastern coast.

Photo credit: David Iliff

The Great White Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) is a large pelican species found from southeastern Europe through Asia and in Africa. At a mass of 10 kg (22 lb), 160 cm (63 in) long and with a 280 cm (110 in) wingspan, it is second in size only to the Dalmatian Pelican.

Photo credit: Dakoman

An African American man climbs the stairs to a theater's "colored" entrance in Belzoni, Mississippi, in 1939. The door on the ground floor is labeled "white men only". De jure (legally enforced) racial segregation in the United States was eliminated by a series of Supreme Court decisions starting with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Photo: Marion Post Wolcott; Restoration: Lise Broer

An ancient stone cross near Crazywell Pool in Dartmoor, an area of moorland in the centre of Devon, England. One of a series of Dartmoor crosses, many of them are old navigational aids, and others were erected as memorials, for prayer, as town or market crosses, in churchyards, and as boundary markers. They range in age from nearly 1,000 years ago to as recent as 20 years ago.

Photo credit: Herbythyme

A female Oriental latrine fly (Chrysomya megacephala) feeding on feces. This blow-fly species is coprophagous and necrophagous and is found throughout the world. They are considered one of the most important species of fly to forensic entomology because they are one of the earliest to arrive on a corpse.

Photo credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

A c. 1889 etching of Zaandam, a town in the Dutch province of North Holland, by American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler. A leading city in the first Industrial Revolution, Zaandam was home to thousands of windmills (as seen here) that provided power for processing Scandinavian wood for the shipbuilding and paper industries.

Restoration: Lise Broer

The white coral fungus (Clavulina cristata) is a white edible coral mushroom present in temperate areas of the Americas and Europe. It is found growing solitary or in clusters on the ground (sometimes on rotten wood) in both coniferous and hardwood forests. The white- or cream-colored fruiting bodies can be up to 8 cm (3.1 in) tall and 2–4 cm (0.8–1.6 in) broad.

Photo credit: Sasata

A 1981 ribbon diagram, a 3D schematic representation of protein structure that is one of the most common methods of protein depiction used today, of a triosephosphate isomerase monomer. Hand-drawn by Jane S. Richardson who originally devised the concept, the barrel of eight beta strands is shown by green arrows and the eight alpha helices as brown spirals.

Image credit: Jane S. Richardson

United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaking at a civil rights demonstration organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) on the steps of the Department of Justice building in June 1963. Kennedy's tenure (1961–64) was easily the period of greatest power for the office; no previous officeholder had enjoyed such clear influence on all areas of policy during an administration. As Attorney General, Kennedy pursued a relentless crusade against organized crime and consistently championed civil rights for African Americans, the latter so much so that he commented, in 1962, that it seemed to envelop almost every area of his public and private life.

Photo: Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report
Restoration: Lise Broer

A cantaloupe (Cucumis melo, also known as rockmelon or muskmelon) and its cross-section. Pictured here is the North American cantaloupe, identifiable by its reticulated (net-like) skin, which is quite different in its outer appearance from the European cantaloupe, although both generally have orange flesh inside.

Photo credit: Fir0002

The White-faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) is a common heron found throughout most of Australasia. It can be found almost anywhere near shallow water, fresh or salt. Adults are relatively small, averaging about 550 g (19 oz) in weight and 60–70 cm (24–28 in) in height. They are pale blue-grey in colour, with white on the forehead, crown, chin and upper throat. The crown pattern is variable, with the white occasionally spreading down the neck; the variability makes identification of individuals possible. The beak is black and often pale grey at the base.

Photo credit: Fir0002

Titans and giants imprisoned in Hell, in this engraving by Gustave Doré that accompanied Canto XXXI of an 1890 publication of Dante Alighieri's Inferno. The titan on the left is Ephialtes, a son of Poseidon. In Dante's Divine Comedy, he is one of four giants placed in the great pit that separates Dis from Cocytus, the Ninth Circle of Hell.

Restoration: Adam Cuerden

"The Neck", an isthmus connecting the two halves of Bruny Island, an island off the southeastern coast of Tasmania, from which it is separated by the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. Both the island and the channel are named after Frenchman Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, who explored the area in 1792. It was known as Bruni Island until 1918, when the spelling was changed to Bruny. The island is popular as a holiday location with surfing beaches, historical sites and South Bruny National Park. It is accessible only via the Bruny Island Ferry service.

Photo credit: Noodle snacks

Two polar bears engaged in play fighting in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. Play fights serve an important role in social behavior of male polar bears. During these fights the bears come into body contact, but never injure one another. Play fights may be observed in the autumn before the ice is formed.

Video: Mila Zinkova

A 1757 engraving of the Colosseum, an elliptical amphitheatre in the center of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering. Construction started between 70 and 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under Titus.

Engraver: Giovanni Battista Piranesi

A Muslim man raising his hands, about to begin the act of Salah, the formal prayer of Islam, by saying the takbir, or "Allāhu Akbar" ("God is the greatest"). Salah is one of the obligatory rites of worship of the religion, to be performed five times a day: at dawn (fajr), at noon (dhuhr), in the afternoon (asr), at sunset (maghrib) and at nightfall (isha'a).

Photo credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

The leopard shark (Triakis semifasciata) is a species of hound shark found along the Pacific coast of North America from the U.S. state of Oregon to Mazatlán in Mexico. Typically measuring 1.2–1.5 m (3.9–4.9 ft) long, this slender-bodied shark is characterized by black saddle-like markings and large spots over its back.

Photo credit: Matthew Field

A ca. 1890–1900 photochrom print of Amsterdam Centraal railway station, one of the main railway hubs of the Netherlands, soon after its opening in 1889. The station is situated on three artificial islands at the head of the city, along the IJ. Its location was highly controversial, as it effectively cut the city off from its own waterfront, making it, for all purposes, an inland city.

Image: Detroit Publishing Co.; Restoration: Lise Broer

Act 2, Scene 3, from L'Illustration's coverage of the première of the opera Le Cid, written by Jules Massenet and based on the play by Pierre Corneille. It was first performed at the Opéra Comique in Paris on November 30, 1885, and retains a marginal place on the world's operatic stages due mostly to the ballet suite and a 1976 recording with Plácido Domingo and Grace Bumbry.

Artist: Auguste Tilly; Restoration: Adam Cuerden