Wikipedia:Picture of the day/June 2015

The ChS8 is an electric mainline passenger locomotive used in Russia and Ukraine. Built between 1983 and 1989, it was developed for pulling long passenger trains (28–32 carriages) at speeds of 100 kilometres per hour (60 mph) or faster. Since 2010 Russia has switched to more energy-efficient designs, such as the EP10 and EP20.

Photograph: George Chernilevsky

Wentworth Falls is a seasonal three-tiered waterfall fed by the Jamison Creek, near the town of Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, Australia. The falls are accessible via the National Pass Walking Trail and the Overcliff/Undercliff Walk. The total height of the waterfall is 187 metres (614 ft); this includes the upper falls (shown here), which have two drops, and the lower falls.

Photograph: David Iliff

The Geneva drive is a gear mechanism that translates a continuous rotation into an intermittent rotary motion. The rotating drive wheel has a pin that reaches into a slot of the driven wheel advancing it by one step. The drive wheel also has a raised circular blocking disc that locks the driven wheel in position between steps. Such a mechanism is used in film projectors, watches, and indexing tables, among others.

Animation: Mike1024

The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel is an oil painting on canvas completed by Louis Daguerre in c. 1824. It depicts Holyrood Abbey, once the official residence of the Monarch of the United Kingdom in Edinburgh, Scotland, lit by moonlight. The painting is now held by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

Painting: Louis Daguerre

A female African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. These herbivorous mammals are the largest land animals on Earth; males average 3.3 metres (11 ft) tall at the shoulders and 5.5 tonnes (12,000 lb) in weight, whereas females average 2.8 metres (9.2 ft) in height and 3.7 tonnes (8,200 lb) in weight. Owing to their great size, adult African bush elephants have no natural predators except for humans. Calves, however, are preyed on by lions and crocodiles.

Photograph: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

Into the Jaws of Death is a historic photograph taken on June 6, 1944, by Robert F. Sargent, a chief photographer's mate in the United States Coast Guard. It depicts U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division soldiers disembarking from an LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) from the U.S. Coast Guard-manned USS Samuel Chase at Omaha Beach during the Normandy Landings in World War II. The photograph became one of the most commonly reproduced images of the landing.

Photograph: Robert F. Sargent

Before (left) and after pictures of a French soldier who was fitted with a craniofacial prosthesis by the Red Cross. Such prostheses help rehabilitate those with facial defects caused by disease, trauma, or birth defects. They are designed to be as similar as possible to the natural anatomy of each individual, covering, protecting, and disguising facial disfigurements or underdevelopments.

Photograph: Unknown; restoration: Lise Broer

Deke Slayton (center) shows the adapter improvised by Ed Smylie so that carbon dioxide accumulating in Apollo 13's Lunar Module (LM) cabin could be removed using the Command Module's (CM) differently shaped lithium hydroxide canisters. After the spacecraft's oxygen tank exploded on April 13, 1970, the crew – Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise – faced severely limited power, a loss of cabin heat, a shortage of potable water, and a critical excess of carbon dioxide. They spent four days in the "two-person" LM, then returned to the CM and splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

From left to right, members of Slayton's audience are Milton Windler, Bill Tindall, Sigurd Sjoberg, Christopher Kraft, and Robert Gilruth.

Photograph: NASA

A panoramic view of the skyline of Chicago from Grant Park, showing the celebration following the Chicago Blackhawks' victory in the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals. This was the Blackhawks' first championship since 1961, and the following day the city's mayor Richard M. Daley declared June 11 "Chicago Blackhawks Day".

This image shows the CNA Center, featuring the Blackhawks' logo; the Smurfit-Stone Building, displaying "Go Hawks"; and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower, displaying "Hawks win".

Photograph: Daniel Schwen

A typical landscape of the rural Alentejo region of Portugal, with an undulating wheat field and a solitary cork oak.

Photograph: Joaquim Alves Gaspar

Two poplar hawk-moths in the process of mating, the pairing of opposite-sex or hermaphroditic organisms, generally for the purposes of sexual reproduction. Mating may involve copulation if the species' fertilization is internal, but not if it is external. Different species use different strategies to select a mate, including random mating, disassortative mating, assortative mating, and a mating pool.

Photograph: Kateshortforbob

A video showing the generation of a maze through the application of Prim's algorithm to a randomly weighted grid graph. This greedy algorithm, named for Robert C. Prim, finds a minimum spanning tree for a connected, weighted, undirected graph.

Animation: Dllu

A Burchell's zebra (Equus quagga burchellii) in Etosha National Park, Namibia. This zebra is a southern subspecies of the plains zebra. It is said to have once had an impressive population, but went extinct in the wild by 1910.

Photograph: Yathin S Krishnappa

The chat flycatcher (Bradornis infuscatus) is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae found in the savannas of southern Africa; this specimen was photographed in Etosha National Park, Namibia. This species hunts insects, but may also eat small reptiles.

Photograph: Yathin S Krishnappa

Cotton MS Augustus II.106, one of four surviving exemplifications of Magna Carta. This document, sealed by King John of England on 15 June 1215 (O.S.), was drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons. The charter promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown. The document was reissued and renewed several times over the centuries, though its political impact decreased as later laws were passed. The charter was significant because the king had agreed to limit his power, so that although it dealt predominantly with the king and the barons, since the late 16th century it has been considered a symbol of liberty and the freedom of the individual.

Document: John, King of England, his barons and Stephen Langton

Mycena leaiana var. australis photographed in Mount Field National Park, Tasmania, Australia. The color of the Australian and New Zealand variety of M. leaiana differs from the American one, which has bright orange caps and stalks and reddish-orange gill edges.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

Two views of the launch of STS-132, a NASA Space Shuttle mission which lasted from 14 May to 26 May 2010. During the course of the mission, Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station to deliver the Rassvet mini-research module and an Integrated Cargo Carrier-Vertical Light Deployable. Though this was meant to be the final flight of Atlantis, the shuttle flew again in the program's final mission a year later.

Photograph: NASA

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna. At age 17, she was executed with her family in an extrajudicial killing by members of the Cheka – the Bolshevik secret police – on July 17, 1918. Rumors have abounded that she survived, and multiple women have claimed to be her. However, this possibility has been conclusively disproven.

Photograph: Boissonnas and Eggler; restoration: Chris Woodrich

The Bottomley projection is an equal area map projection introduced by Henry Bottomley and intended as an alternative to the Bonne projection. Shapes are distorted outside the central meridian. The shape of the projection can vary depending on the eccentricity of the arcs (representing lines of latitude).

Map: Strebe, using Geocart

The Great Hall in Parliament House, Canberra, which is accessible through the public entrance to Parliament. This hall is used for state functions, though it is also rented out to the public for such events as weddings and graduations. The tapestry at the rear of the room is an enlarged version of an Arthur Boyd painting, the original of which is found elsewhere in the building. At 20 by 9 metres (66 ft × 30 ft), the tapestry is one of the largest in the world.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

A view of Loughrigg Tarn, a small natural lake in the Lake District of Cumbria, England, as seen from the nearby Loughrigg Fell. The poet William Wordsworth likened it to "Diana’s Looking-glass".

Photograph: David Iliff

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries is an oil painting on canvas completed by Jacques-Louis David in 1812. It depicts French Emperor Napoleon, wearing the uniform of a colonel of the Imperial Guard Foot Grenadiers, standing in his study at the Tuileries Palace. Unlike David's earlier painting Napoleon Crossing the Alps, here the emperor is depicted as a civil hero rather than a military one, though his martial prowess is alluded to through the sword on his chair. The painting has been in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., since 1954.

Painting: Jacques-Louis David

Eumerus is a genus of small hoverflies. They have a distinctive smooth round abdomen, powerful back legs, and yellow hairs around the scutellum, as well as a flat hairy face and a reentrant upper crossvein on the wings. The genus contains 281 known species, making it one of the largest genera of flies. Some species are considered pests of ornamental flowers.

Photograph: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

Moshe Ya'alon (b. 1950) is an Israeli politician and current Defense Minister. Ya'alon was called up as a reserve during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. After the war, he rejoined the army as an officer and rose through the ranks, leading the Sayeret Matkal commando unit, the Paratroopers Brigade, and Military Intelligence. In 2002 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, resigning in 2005. Since 2013 he has served as the country's Defense Minister.

Photograph: Reuven Kapuscinski

A black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) feeding on a fish in the shallows of the Chêne River in Montreal, Quebec. These widespread ambush predators average 64 cm (25 in) in length.

Photograph: Alain Carpentier

Darwan Singh Negi (1881–1950) being carried into the Royal Pavilion for treatment after being injured in the Defence of Festubert, France. He was then a naik in the 39th Garhwal Rifles, which on the night of 23–24 November 1914 retook the town's trenches from the attacking German forces. Though wounded in the head and arm, Negi continued to lead a charge as bombs exploded around him. In December Negi became one of the first Indians to receive a Victoria Cross.

Photograph: L.N.C.; restoration: Adam Cuerden

The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal for ferries, incorporating a food hall and offices, located on The Embarcadero in San Francisco, California. Designed by architect A. Page Brown and completed in 1898, the building saw decreased use after bridges across the San Francisco Bay were built. It underwent a major restoration in 2002, which included the refurbishing of the Great Nave and the addition of a marketplace. The building is a designated San Francisco landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Photograph: JaGa

The Church at Auvers is an oil painting on canvas created by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh in June 1890. Depicting the Place de l'Église, Auvers-sur-Oise, France, the painting, which now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, is considered nostalgic of van Gogh's youth.

Painting: Vincent van Gogh

The great knot (Calidris tenuirostris) is a small, strongly migratory wader which breeds in the tundra of north eastern Siberia and winters on coasts from southern Asia through Australia. The species feeds on molluscs and insects.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

Theatrical poster for a 1901 production of Ben-Hur, a theatrical adaptation of Lew Wallace's novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880). Written by William W. Young and produced by Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger, the Broadway show, which first premiered in 1899, made elaborate use of spectacle over its six acts. As with the novel before it, it told the story of Judah Ben-Hur, a fictional Jewish prince from Jerusalem who is enslaved by the Romans at the beginning of the 1st century and becomes a charioteer and a Christian.

Lithograph: Strobridge Lith. Co; restoration: Adam Cuerden