Paraceratherium was a hornless rhinoceros, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals that has ever existed. The genus lived during most of the Oligocene epoch (34–23 million years ago); its remains have been found across Eurasia between China and the Balkans. Its weight is estimated to have been 15 to 20 tonnes (33,000 to 44,000 lb); the shoulder height was about 4.8 metres (15.7 feet), and the length about 7.4 metres (24.3 feet). The legs were long and pillar-like. The long neck supported a skull that was about 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) long. It had large, tusk-like incisors and a nasal incision that suggests it had a prehensile upper lip or trunk. The lifestyle of Paraceratherium may have been similar to that of large mammals such as elephants and modern rhinoceroses. It was a browser, eating mainly leaves, soft plants, and shrubs. It lived in habitats ranging from arid deserts with scattered trees to subtropical forests. (Full article...)

Sagu served in a ramekin

• ... that sagu (pictured) is a southern Brazilian dessert made with tapioca balls that are extracted from cassava, not from sago palms?
• ... that in 1979, fifteen-year-old Laura Michalek became the youngest athlete ever to win the Chicago Marathon?
• ... that woollen fabrics have been produced at the Knockando Woolmill since the 18th century?
• ... that the score of the song "Sweet Little Woman o' Mine", composed by Floy Little Bartlett, was played in the 1925 silent film The Big Parade?
• ... that the crimson seedcracker has two morphs, large-billed and small-billed, but this trait is not related to sex, age, body size, or location?
• ... that John Soothill gave "boy in the bubble syndrome" its formal name, severe combined immunodeficiency?
• ... that New York City's Eastern Parkway, built in the 1870s, is considered the world's first parkway designed for personal and recreational traffic while prohibiting commercial traffic?
• ... that John Talbot White's last nature column before his death described a mouse escaping a weasel by jumping over its back?

Typhoon Lekima

• All 233 people on board Ural Airlines Flight 178 survive a crash following bird strikes in both engines of an Airbus A321.
• Typhoon Lekima (satellite image shown) impacts the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and East China, killing at least 80 people.
• At least 75 people are killed and more than 50 others injured in a fuel tanker truck explosion in Morogoro, Tanzania.

August 17: Independence Day in Indonesia (1945)

Miles Davis

• 986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: The Bulgarians defeated Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan near present-day Ihtiman, with Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
• 1959 – Kind of Blue by Miles Davis (pictured), one of the best selling and most critically acclaimed jazz recordings of all time, was released.
• 1969 – Hurricane Camille struck the Mississippi coast of the United States, killing 259 people and causing $1.42 billion in damages.
• 1999 – A 7.6 M_w earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 people and leaving more than 250,000 homeless.
• 2009 – A turbine at Russia's Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia broke apart violently, flooding the power station, causing widespread power failures and killing 75 people.

Li Shouzhen (d. 949) · Matthew Boulton (d. 1809) · Dawn Mabalon (b. 1972)