Wikipedia:Today's featured list/May 2012


May 7

The record for the most wins of the Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is held by Manchester United with eleven victories, followed by Arsenal with ten and Tottenham Hotspur (1921 win pictured) with eight. The winners of the first tournament were Wanderers, a team of former public schoolboys based in London, who went on to win the competition five times in its first seven seasons. The early winners of the competition were all teams of wealthy amateurs from the south of England, but in the 1883 final, Blackburn Olympic became the first team from the north to win the cup, defeating Old Etonians. The cup has been won by the same team in two or more consecutive years on eight occasions, and three teams have won consecutive finals more than once: Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers and Tottenham Hotspur. The cup is held by Chelsea, who defeated Liverpool in the 2012 final. (Full list...)


May 14

Garth Nix has been a finalist on four occasions, winning in 1995 and 2003.
Garth Nix has been a finalist on four occasions, winning in 1995 and 2003.

The Aurealis Award for best young-adult novel is presented annually by the Australia-based Chimaera Publications and SpecFaction NSW to published works. Since their creation in 1995, Aurealis Awards have been given in various categories of speculative fiction. The continued sponsorship by publishers such as HarperCollins and Orbit has added weight to the honour of the award. The results are decided by a panel of judges from a list of submitted nominees; the long-list of nominees is reduced to a short-list of finalists. Ties can occur if the panel decides that both entries show equal merit, however they are encouraged to choose a single winner. Of the 20 winners in the best young-adult novel category, three people have won the award twice: Isobelle Carmody, Garth Nix (pictured) and Scott Westerfeld. Westerfeld holds the record for most nominations with seven, and Rory Barnes has the most nominations without winning, having been a losing finalist five times. (Full list...)


May 21

Skyscrapers of Shinjuku's Nishi-Shinjuku district in Tokyo
Skyscrapers of Shinjuku's Nishi-Shinjuku district in Tokyo

There are 47 buildings and structures in Tokyo that stand taller than 180 metres (591 ft). Tokyo is the most populated of Japan's 47 prefectures. The tallest structure in the prefecture is Tokyo Sky Tree, a lattice tower that rises 634 metres (2,080 ft), which will open to the public on 22 May 2012. It also stands as the tallest structure in Japan, the tallest tower in the world and the second-tallest freestanding structure in the world. The tallest building and third-tallest overall structure in Tokyo is the 248-metre-tall (814 ft) Midtown Tower, which was completed in 2007. The prefecture's second tallest building is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, which rises 48 stories and 243 metres (797 ft) in height. Overall, of the 25 tallest buildings and structures in Japan, 17 are in Tokyo. Skyscrapers are a relatively recent phenomenon in Japan. Due to aesthetic and engineering concerns, Japan's Building Standard Law set an absolute height limit of 31 metres until 1963, when the limit was abolished in favor of a Floor Area Ratio limit. (Full list...)


May 28

Johnny Logan is the only person to have won the Eurovision Song Contest more than once as performer.
Johnny Logan is the only person to have won the Eurovision Song Contest more than once as performer.

Sixty songs have won the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual competition organised by member countries of the European Broadcasting Union. There have been 56 contests, with one winner each year except the tied 1969 contest, which had four. The only person to have won more than once as performer is Ireland's Johnny Logan (pictured), who performed "What's Another Year" in 1980 and "Hold Me Now" in 1987. Only five songwriters have written more than one winning entry: Logan, Willy van Hemert, Yves Dessca, Rolf Løvland and Brendan Graham. The most notable winning Eurovision artists whose career was directly launched into the spotlight following their win were the members of ABBA, who won the 1974 contest for Sweden with their song "Waterloo." The 2012 winning song is "Euphoria" by Sweden's Loreen. (Full list...)