Wikipedia:Today's featured article

Today's featured article The Main Page includes a section where an adapted lead section from one of Wikipedia's featured articles is displayed. The current month's queue can be found here. The articles appearing on the main page are scheduled by Raul654, who was ratified in 2004 as featured article director, or his delegates (Dabomb87, Gimmetoo and Bencherlite). You can make new requests or comment on current requests at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. To appear on the main page, an article must already be a featured article (see Featured article candidates), and must have a lead section suitable for the main page. The format of the Main page blurbs is a single paragraph that is roughly 1200 characters or less in total length, with no reference tags, alternate names, or extraneous bolding. Only the link to the specified featured article is bolded. For biographical articles, birth/death dates are trimmed down to year only. The blurb should be preceded by a lead image when available; fair use images are not allowed. Raul654 maintains a very small, unofficial list of featured articles that he does not intend to have appear on the main page. If you notice a problem with an upcoming main-page featured article, please leave a message on User talk:Dabomb87 or User talk:Raul654. The editnotice template for Today's Featured Article is {{TFA-editnotice}}. It is automatically applied by {{Editnotices/Namespace/Main}} when the article's title matches the contents of {{TFA title}}.

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Today's featured article The Zong massacre was the killing of approximately 142 enslaved Africans by the crew of the slave ship Zong in the days following 29 November 1781. The Zong was owned by a Liverpool slave-trading syndicate that had taken out insurance on the lives of the slaves. When the ship ran low on water following navigational mistakes, the crew drowned some of the slaves in the sea. The owners of the Zong made a claim to their insurers for the loss of the slaves. When the insurers refused to pay, the resulting court cases held that in some circumstances the deliberate killing of slaves was legal, and that insurers could be required to pay for the slaves' deaths. The hearings brought the massacre to the attention of the anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp, who tried unsuccessfully to have the ship's crew prosecuted for murder. Reports of the massacre stimulated the nascent abolitionist movement and became a powerful symbol of the horrors of the Middle Passage of slaves to the New World. The massacre has also inspired several works of art and literature, including The Slave Ship by J. M. W. Turner (pictured). (Full article...) Recently featured: Richard Wagner – Tripura – Prince George of Denmark

Tomorrow's featured article Thescelosaurus is a genus of small ornithopod dinosaur known from Upper Cretaceous rocks of western North America. It belonged to the last dinosaurian fauna of North America before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at approximately 66 million years ago, living alongside dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. This common genus was described from a specimen discovered in 1891, but not unpacked and studied until the 1910s. These circumstances suggested the names of the genus and type species T. neglectus, which roughly translate to "godlike, wondrous, or marvelous neglected lizard". Thescelosaurus is best known from several partial skeletons representing three species: T. neglectus, T, assiniboiensis, and T. garbanii. One specimen unearthed in 1993 was initially thought to include a preserved heart, but later study found the object is probably a concretion. Thescelosaurus was a bipedal animal with a relatively long pointed skull and robust limbs. Typical individuals measured on the order of 2.5 to 4.0 metres (8.2 to 13 ft) long. It was probably primarily herbivorous and may have preferred to live near streams. (Full article...) Recently featured: Zong massacre – Richard Wagner – Tripura