Tag: Wikipedia

Wikipedia article of the day for September 20, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is William IV. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: William IV (1765–1837) was King of Britain and of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death on 20 June 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded his elder brother George IV, becoming the last king and penultimate monarch of Britain’s House of Hanover. William served in the Royal Navy in his youth, and was later nicknamed the “Sailor King”. As his two older brothers died without leaving legitimate issue, he inherited the throne when he was 64 years old. His reign saw several reforms: the poor law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all of the British Empire, and the British electoral system refashioned by the Reform Act 1832. Although William did not engage in politics during his reign as much as earlier kings, he was the last British monarch to appoint a prime minister against the will of Parliament. He granted his German kingdom a short-lived liberal constitution. William was succeeded by his niece Victoria in Britain and his brother Ernest Augustus in Hanover.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 19, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is M-1 (Michigan highway). Check it out: Article-Link Summary: M-1 is a north–south state trunkline highway in the Metro Detroit area of the US state of Michigan. The highway runs from Detroit north-northwesterly to Pontiac. The Federal Highway Administration has listed it as the Automotive Heritage Trail, an All-American Road in the National Scenic Byways Program. Created after Detroit’s Great Fire of 1805, the road follows the route of the Saginaw Trail, a Native American trail that linked Detroit with Pontiac, Flint, and Saginaw. M-1 passes through several historic districts in Detroit, and runs next to the Highland Park Ford Plant, home of the original moving assembly line used to produce Model Ts. Commonly known as Woodward Avenue, the street has become synonymous with Detroit’s cruising culture and automotive industry. Downtown entertainment venues along Woodward include the Fox Theatre and the Majestic Theatre. M-1 exits Detroit at 8 Mile Road and runs through the city’s northern suburbs in Oakland County.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 18, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Acamptonectes. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Acamptonectes is a genus of ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur, a type of dolphin-like marine reptile that lived during the Early Cretaceous around 130 million years ago. The first specimen—a partial adult skeleton—was discovered in Speeton, England, in 1958, but it was not formally described until 2012. Acamptonectes had unusual adaptations that made its trunk rigid, including tightly-fitting bones in the occiput (back and lower part of the skull) and interlocking vertebral centra, likely allowing it to swim at high speeds with a tuna-like form of locomotion. Other distinguishing characteristics include an extremely slender snout and unique ridges on the basioccipital bone of the braincase. As an ichthyosaur, Acamptonectes had large eye sockets and a tail fluke. Its teeth, which were slender and textured with longitudinal ridges, were probably adapted for impaling prey such as squid and fleshy fish.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 17, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Hurricane Humberto (2019). Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Hurricane Humberto was a large and powerful tropical cyclone that caused extensive wind damage in the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda during September 2019. It was the eighth named storm and third hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season. Humberto formed on September 13, then paralleled the eastern coastline of Florida until September 16, when it turned sharply northeastward and became a hurricane. It reached peak intensity as a Category 3 hurricane on September 18. After its center passed within 65 miles (100 km) of Bermuda on September 19, the storm transitioned the next day to a potent extratropical cyclone. Rip currents killed one person in Florida and another in North Carolina. In Bermuda, peak surface winds of around 110 mph (180 km/h), with higher gusts, caused widespread damage to trees, roofs, crops, and power lines. About 600 buildings had roof damage, and L.F. Wade International Airport and the Bermuda Weather Service campus suffered property damage.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 16, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Roman withdrawal from Africa (255 BC). Check it out: Article-Link Summary: The Roman withdrawal from Africa in 255 BC was the attempt by the Roman Republic to rescue the survivors of their defeated expeditionary force to Carthaginian Africa (in what is now north-eastern Tunisia) during the First Punic War. A force of 390 warships fought and defeated 200 Carthaginian vessels off Cape Hermaeum (the modern Cape Bon or Ras ed-Dar), north of the town of Aspis. The Carthaginians had 114 of their ships captured, together with their crews, and 16 sunk. Most modern historians assume there were no Roman losses. The Romans landed in Aspis – where the Roman survivors of the previous year’s invasion were besieged – sortied, dispersed the besiegers and raided the surrounding country for food. All then re-embarked and left for Italy. While returning the Roman fleet encountered a storm off the south-east corner of Sicily; 384 ships were sunk and more than 100,000 men were lost.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 15, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Raymond Pace Alexander. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Raymond Pace Alexander (1897–1974) was a civil rights leader, lawyer, and politician who was the first African-American judge appointed to the Pennsylvania courts of common pleas. In 1920, he became the first black graduate of the Wharton School of Business. He married in 1923; in 1927 his wife, Sadie, became the first black woman to earn a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1923, Alexander became one of the leading civil rights attorneys in Philadelphia. He represented black defendants in high-profile cases, including the Trenton Six, a group of black men arrested for murder in Trenton, New Jersey. Alexander also entered politics, unsuccessfully running for judge multiple times. He finally ran for, and won, a seat on the Philadelphia City Council in 1951. After serving two terms, Alexander was appointed as the first black judge to sit on the courts of common pleas, where he served until his death in 1974.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 14, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Keechaka Vadham. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Keechaka Vadham (The Extermination of Keechaka) is an Indian silent film produced, directed, filmed and edited by R. Nataraja Mudaliar (pictured), and released in the late 1910s. No print of it is known to survive. The first Tamil film and the first film to be made in South India, it was shot in about five weeks at Mudaliar’s production house, India Film Company. The screenplay by C. Rangavadivelu is based on an episode from the Virata Parva segment of the Hindu epic Mahabharata, focusing on Keechaka’s attempts to woo Draupadi. The film stars Raju Mudaliar and Jeevarathnam as the central characters. Keechaka Vadham was commercially successful and received positive critical feedback. The film’s success prompted the director to make a series of similar historical films that laid the foundation for the South Indian cinema industry. His works were an inspiration to other filmmakers, including Raghupathi Surya Prakasa and J. C. Daniel.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 13, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Sonic X-treme. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Sonic X-treme was a platform game developed by Sega Technical Institute from 1994 until its cancellation in 1996. It was intended to be the first fully 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game and the first original Sonic game for the Sega Saturn (pictured). The game was conceived as a side-scrolling platform game for the Sega Genesis to succeed 1994’s Sonic & Knuckles. Development shifted to the 32X and then the Saturn and Microsoft Windows, and the game was redesigned as a 3D platform game for the 1996 holiday season. The plan was disrupted by illness, company politics, and an unfavorable visit by Sega executives. In place of X-treme, Sega released a port of the Genesis game Sonic 3D Blast, but did not release an original 3D Sonic platform game until Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast in 1998. The cancellation is considered an important factor in the Saturn’s commercial failure, as it left the system with no original platform game featuring Sega’s mascot.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 12, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Mr. Dooley. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Mr. Dooley is a fictional bartender created by American journalist Finley Peter Dunne, appearing in print between 1893 and 1915, and again in 1924 and 1926. The bartender’s humorous but pointed commentary on American politics and international affairs first became nationally popular during the 1898 Spanish–American War. Dunne’s essays are in the form of conversations in an Irish dialect of English between Mr. Dooley, the owner of a fictional tavern in the Bridgeport area of Chicago, and one of the bar’s patrons. From 1898 onwards, the essays, and the books collecting them, gained national acclaim. Dunne became a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt, although the friendship did not curtail his satire. Beginning around 1905, Dunne had increasing trouble finding time and inspiration for new pieces, and, except for a brief resurrection in the mid-1920s, his columns ended in 1915. The columns originated lasting sayings such as “the Supreme Court follows the election returns”.

Wikipedia article of the day for September 11, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is United Airlines Flight 93. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: United Airlines Flight 93 was a passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists in 2001 as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijackers stormed the westbound aircraft’s cockpit 46 minutes after its takeoff from Newark, New Jersey, and diverted it in the direction of Washington, D.C., the U.S. capital. Several passengers and flight attendants learned of the other 9/11 suicide attacks from phone calls, sparking an attempt to retake the plane. During the struggle, the hijackers deliberately crashed the plane into a field near a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania; all 44 people on board (including the hijackers) were killed. A temporary memorial was built near the crash site soon after the attacks. The permanent Flight 93 National Memorial was dedicated on September 10, 2011; it has a concrete and glass visitor center overlooking the crash site.