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April 23

The Significance of the Baltimore Mutiny for the Siege of Washington

Hello again, everyone! The question is about the first phase of the American Civil War. Is there any secondary authoritative source that the Baltimore Mutiny, by destroying railroad bridges and tracks along with cutting telegraph lines, cut off Washington from the northern states and General Butler's suppression of the Baltimore Mutiny was primarily intended to lift the blockade of Washington? Thank you in advance. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 16:10, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We don't seem to have an article called Baltimore mutiny. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:20, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I find no information about a "Balitmore Mutiny". Are you referring to the Baltimore riot of 1861? -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. --Vyacheslav84 (talk) 08:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am not familiar with the literature, but it looks like these might be books to look out for:

William J. Evitts (1974): A Matter of Allegiances: Maryland from 1850 to 1861 (The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science)

Jean H. Baker (1973): The Politics of Continuity: Maryland Political Parties from 1858 to 1870 (The Goucher College Series)

Barbara Jean Fields (1984): Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century (Yale Historical Publications Series)

Charles W. Mitchell (2007): Maryland Voices of the Civil War

-- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 22:47, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much! --Vyacheslav84 (talk) 07:46, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 24

Military campaigns

What is the highest loss exchange ratio ever achieved (or known to be achieved, at any rate) during a particular military campaign (including all combatants dead, wounded and/or captured, but excluding civilian losses)? How about during a particular war, or in a particular theater of war? (Note that I am not asking about the highest loss-exchange ratio during a particular engagement, or even battle -- it is possible for a single battle to result in an infinite loss-exchange ratio, and in fact I know at least one real-world example of that.) Also, I don't remember if I had asked this previously, but I had heard from a former US military officer that in the Great War on Terrorism, during the years 2017-2019 (so, during President Trump's term), our loss-exchange ratio against the terrorists (across all theaters of war) had reached as high as 60 to 1 -- does anyone know whether or not this is true? 2601:646:9882:46E0:C8A3:B9D9:B22B:97D8 (talk) 01:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

History of Liechtenstein § Nineteenth century: The army of Liechtenstein returned from the Austro–Prussian War with one soldier more than it entered the conflict with. -- 47.155.41.201 (talk) 05:46, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So that would be a negative ratio? Thincat (talk) 10:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

??? -- I was asking about countries which actually took part in the fighting (Liechtenstein didn't), so technically this wouldn't count -- and having looked up the Austro-Prussian war, I have actually calculated the loss-exchange ratio in that war as 3.3 to 1 in favor of Prussia (which is a decently high ratio, but not remarkable). 73.162.86.152 (talk) 00:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to look at the Battle of Omdurman, which is sometimes described as "a massacre rather than a battle". [1] The subsequent Battle of Umm Diwaykarat resulted in about a thousand Sudanese casualties for the loss of three British soldiers. No overall casualty figures are quoted in our Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan article, but they must have been staggeringly one-sided. Alansplodge (talk) 13:34, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, 70 to 1 for Omdurman and as high as 154 to 1 for the other battle! So, even if it's true that we are getting a 60 to 1 ratio in the Great War on Terrorism, there is still a possibility for improvement! (Although the terrorists are smarter than the Sudanese in terms of tactics -- they use small units to blend in with civvies and launch surprise attacks using guerrilla tactics, and that makes it harder for us to fight them, so 154 to 1 would probably not be possible!) 2601:646:9882:46E0:E8A6:3F37:55CD:521C (talk) 04:57, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, not so fast -- I've just added up all the significant battles of the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan together, and (counting the 900 Egyptians who died from disease during the campaign) got a ratio of "only" 19.5 to 1 in favor of the Anglo-Egyptian forces (which is still incredibly high, but nowhere near the 70 to 1 ratio for the battle of Omdurman or even the 60 to 1 (unofficially claimed) ratio for the US campaign against Isis under President Trump, let alone the 154 to 1 ratio for Umm Diwaykarat). So, maybe it's not so easy to sustain such high ratios long-term! 73.162.86.152 (talk) 10:55, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 25

Appearance of peoples

Is there any site which tells something about appearances (skin colour, hair colour etc.) of different peoples of the world? --40bus (talk) 13:49, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has articles on human skin color and human hair color. Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:16, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

These articles don't present information of different peoples' skin and hair colors. I want to know hair colors of different peoples. --40bus (talk) 14:51, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read those articles? The one on hair color clearly states "Some hair colors are associated with some ethnic groups due to observed higher frequency of particular hair color within their geographical region", (my emphasis) and red hair "It is most prominently found in the British Isles and in Udmurtia. Scotland has the highest proportion of redheads; 13 percent of the population has red hair and approximately 40 percent carry the recessive redhead gene. Red hair can also occur in Southern Europe, West Asia, North Africa and Central Asia." And so on. In other words, hair color varies too much to be assigned to one particlular "people". Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:25, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly from Human skin color#Geographic variation, "similar skin colors can result from convergent adaptation rather than from genetic relatedness; populations with similar pigmentation may be genetically no more similar than other widely separated groups. Furthermore, in some parts of the world where people from different regions have mixed extensively, the connection between skin color and ancestry has substantially weakened.[101] In Brazil, for example, skin color is not closely associated with the percentage of recent African ancestors a person has, as estimated from an analysis of genetic variants differing in frequency among continent groups... Migrations over the last 4000 years, and especially the last 400 years, have been the fastest in human history and have led to many people settling in places far away from their ancestral homelands. This means that skin colors today are not as confined to geographical location as they were previously." So, just as with hair color, while there may be trends among certain parts of the world, there is no clear connection between skin color and people groups. Historically, darker skin colors were associated with peoples from closer to the equator, but given mobility, this has become much less significant. --Jayron 32 15:58, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Although that sort of information was commonly seen in school textbooks in the mid-20th century, our article, race (human categorization), explains why this is not now regarded as obsolete. Alansplodge (talk) 13:19, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Though many of the pseudoscientific bullshit surrounding race have been debunked, the continued use of race as a classification is still valid on cultural and social grounds. For example, in the U.S. African American culture still exists, and in U.S. society, there is still real, actual discrimination that against black people. Insofar as the society needs to understand the roots of this discrimination and needs to find ways to ameliorate that, the classification still has real use. --Jayron 32 14:29, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arguably the "race" classification you're referring to corresponds at best very loosely to peoples due to its over-reliance on non-scientific criteria like skin colour.

As a side note, as a German it amazes me that the word "race" is still used so widely. If you say "Rasse" in German you'd better be talking about dogs or cats. Using the word to refer to humans is an almost unambiguous sign of racism here. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 01:47, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some English speaking countries give their citizens racial labels at birth, the USA being the most notable among these countries. These labels are routinely requested of people when filling in forms, and they are used frequently in daily discourse. Where I live, Australia, there is no official racial labelling of people at all. Not even ethnicity. The only related "classification" is that on the five yearly national census, residents are asked to self declare their ancestry. Over 30% declare their ancestry to be Australian. (That doesn't mean Australian Aboriginal. There's only about 3% of them.) I agree with you that the American approach of giving everyone an official racial label inevitably makes it more likely that racism will happen. HiLo48 (talk) 03:00, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I've ever seen a form asking for race or ethnicity, only nationality. I don't know if the constant labelling actually increases racism. We have plenty of racism without it -- we haven't learned that much from our history. And people still do plenty of labelling based on ancestry. It is typically more nation, or geography, or religion based. But that's probably just because the majority of immigrants are from Turkey and South and East Europe. So skin color is not as big a factor as in the US. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 03:50, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dark skin#Sub-Saharan Africa says:

Due to frequently differing ancestry among dark-skinned populations, the presence of dark skin in general is not a reliable genetic marker, including among groups in Africa. For example, Wilson et al. (2001) found that most of their Ethiopian samples showed closer genetic affinities with lighter-skinned Armenians than with darker-skinned Bantu populations.^[1] Mohamoud (2006) likewise observed that their Somali samples were genetically more similar to Arab populations than to other African populations.^[2]

I found that enlightening. Also, no reference, but I read somewhere that Haile Selassie did not understand why he was classified as black by Westerners.

--Error (talk) 18:54, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See also this article: "Larger Genetic Differences Within Africans Than Between Africans and Eurasians".^[3] --Lambiam 20:01, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Wilson, James F.; Weale, Michael E.; Smith, Alice C.; Gratrix, Fiona; Fletcher, Benjamin; Thomas, Mark G.; Bradman, Neil; Goldstein, David B. (2001). "Population genetic structure of variable drug response". Nature Genetics. 29 (3): 265–9. doi:10.1038/ng761. PMID 11685208. S2CID 25627134. 62% of the Ethiopians fall in the first cluster, which encompasses the majority of the Jews, Norwegians and Armenians, indicating that placement of these individuals in a 'Black' cluster would be an inaccurate reflection of the genetic structure. Only 24% of the Ethiopians are placed in the cluster with the Bantu
^ Mohamoud, A. M. (October 2006). "P52 Characteristics of HLA Class I and Class II Antigens of the Somali Population". Transfusion Medicine. 16 (Supplement s1): 47. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3148.2006.00694_52.x. S2CID 70655900.
^ Ning Yu; et al. (1 May 2002). "Larger Genetic Differences Within Africans than Between Africans and Eurasians". Genetics. 161 (1): 269–274. doi:10.1093/genetics/161.1.269.

I might as well add a question here that is kind of related to this topic. I'm British, and when I go to tourist areas in other European cities it's quite easy for me to spot other Brits just by looking at them (without hearing them speak). British people seem to have a particular "look" about them which makes them distinguishable from, say, French or German people. Is there any basis for this observation? --Viennese Waltz 08:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well ... [2]^[Humor] -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 08:52, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently there is research into using machine learning to recognise nationality from pictures.[3] I don't know to what extent this actually works. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 09:01, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that This Brit and This Brit and This Brit and This Brit and This Brit may confuse such algorithms and/or magic Brit detecting humans (if they weren't already known to be British). --Jayron 32 11:54, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A person might go by style, behaviour, bearing. But how a computer is supposed to do it, especially when using just a picture of a face, is -- let's say -- not exactly obvious. There are a number of "ethnicity dectors" available online (I have no idea how accurate they are), but nationality is a whole other level. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 12:56, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I presume the USians on the other hand are easily identified because they're loudly demanding everyone speak ~~English~~ American? (US citizen so I claim the privilege of criticizing my fellow countrypersons

) --47.155.41.201 (talk) 20:50, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like you're from SoCal. Maybe the smog has warped your perspective. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:56, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 27

Wikipedia as a VLOP

According to an article in El Reg,[4] "Wikipedia" has been classed as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) ie reaching 45 million monthly active users, under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA). The EU announcement is here.

Will this affect every individual Wikipedia language project, and to what extent? And what about Commons and the Wikimedia Foundation? What might it entail for ordinary editors? MinorProphet (talk) 22:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

6% of annual turnover in Europe is $0 in fines.
Sleigh (talk) 01:11, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To understand the ramifications, the legal team of the WMF will study the text of the act itself. The announcement is not something you can base specific conclusions on. --Lambiam 17:12, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oops-a-daisy. UK readers may lose access to Wikipedia amid online safety bill requirements "Wikimedia Foundation may not be able to comply with mandatory age checks, UK chief executive says." Looks like a good reason to get a VPN. MinorProphet (talk) 18:34, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@MinorProphet Based on the final paragraph in the article that you linked, I predict that WP will not be blocked. But our speculation here doesn't mean much, or serve much purpose. I'll wait and see, without getting too worked up about something that may not come to pass. David10244 (talk) 04:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 28

Help with a dead link

In the article on Kenji Nagai, there's the following dead link:

"Deputy foreign minister leaves for Myanmar following journalist killing". National News. Mainichi Daily News. September 30, 2007. Retrieved October 1, 2007.[permanent dead link]

What's so interesting about this is the following:

The news article was originally published on September 30, 2007.
Approximately one day later, on October 1, Mainichi ended their partnership with MSN Japan (this is covered in Mainichi Shimbun#Partnership with MSN) and moved to a new website(s), possibly two new sites, one for the Japanese and one for the English version of the site.
The Wayback Machine archived the original link for the first time two weeks later on October 14. By then, the link was already broken due to the site move on October 1, so it was never archived.
It is unclear where the English article titled "Deputy foreign minister leaves for Myanmar following journalist killing" was moved to, if at all. It is also unclear if a Japanese version was archived, but there's a reasonable suspicion that it was, which would enable us to link to it and translate it.

Can anyone determine if either a Japanese or English language version of this article is still online? I suspect that due to the unfortunate timing of the move, the original content is sitting somewhere online in Japanese, but it's possible the English version was deleted for some reason. Any help tracking this down would be appreciated. Viriditas (talk) 05:27, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Google Search gives no hits for the year 2007 on the mainichi.jp domain for pages that contain the English or Japanese name of the journalist. --Lambiam 17:36, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking. Viriditas (talk) 20:57, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it could be found in their digital archive. Unfortunately, I do not have access. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 21:25, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the tip. Viriditas (talk) 07:40, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What is smallest city with an international airport?

What is it? 122.59.24.241 (talk) 05:28, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to suggest Douglas, Isle of Man - 2021 population 26,677. Ronaldsway Airport is a mere 7 miles away and all scheduled flights are international flights. Mjroots (talk) 06:42, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kona International Airport would be a candidate. it's in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, which has a population of 19,713. It has flights to Japan and Canada (as well as several other US locations). HiLo48 (talk) 07:03, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kulusuk Airport in Greenland has regular flights to Keflavík International Airport in Iceland. It serves the town of Tasiilaq, population 1,985. --Antiquary (talk) 10:27, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's also Norfolk Island Airport, which has scheduled flights to New Zealand. Burnt Pine is the largest town – that's the word our article uses – on Norfolk Island, with a population of 180. --Antiquary (talk) 11:34, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) It depends on your definition of a city. Many cities in the US are smaller than some UK towns or even villages. I suggest Knock International Airport, built to serve pilgrims to Knock basilica 12 miles away in the village of Knock, County Mayo, pop. 972. The closest place to the airport is the village of Charlestown, County Mayo, pop. 1,033, 3 miles away. MinorProphet (talk) 11:46, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, many countries don't define different classes of settlements, so the difference between city, town, village, hamlet etc. is entirely subjective. I interprete the word "city" in the question as whatever place the airport serves. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:07, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As a fun/interesting one, the least-populous national capital with an airport looks like it's Alofi, pop. 597, capital of Niue and home to Niue International Airport. --47.155.41.201 (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's going to be loads of tiny places. When you think about areas like the Caribbean and South Pacific which got sliced up by colonial powers, you're going to have tons of little islands where the island next door is technically another country and there's a bush plane service between them. Blythwood (talk) 10:11, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned when this question was first asked on our sister site Wikivoyage, the Danish island Anholt has a permanent population of 150 (two villages), scheduled flights to the Danish mainland and charter flights to Sweden. No support for non-Schengen destinations, I think, so maybe it doesn't count as truly international. It's visited by about 60000 tourists per year. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:07, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@MinorProphet has a good point. The OP asks about the smallest city "with" an airport. Many airports are not in the city they are named after; IAH (formerly Houston (Texas) Intercontinental Airport, now named after George W Bush) is, I believe, in (or very near) Spring, Texas, and the airport is quite a distance from most of Houston. You could say it's the airport for Spring, Texas. The DFW airport (Dallas/Fort Worth) is in neither Dallas nor Fort Worth -- it encompasses parts of Irving, Euless, Grapevine, and Coppell (all in Texas).

Similarly, one answer, saying that Kulusuk airport "serves" the town of Tasiilaq, is confusing (due to the premise of the question). Can others use the airport? Does the airport "serve" all of Iceland? So many questions... David10244 (talk) 05:11, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not confusing at all. As the article linked by Antiquary in their answer says, Kulusuk Airport is on a small and not-very accessible island (of the same name) in Greenland, and planes fly internationally to (and presumably back from) Keflavik (and presumably nowhere else) in Iceland (as well as to another airport in Greenland which does not host international flights). Residents of the larger town of Tasiilaq on a different island can fly by helicopter to Kulusuk to catch flights to Keflavik, and presumably others in South East Greenland may also find it convenient to travel via Tasiilaq to do so. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.18.208 (talk) 10:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 29

Empire Poll

Hello. Last December, the British magazine Empire, asked its readers via a poll, to vote for the 50 greatest actors and actresses of all time. Then of course the votes were counted; but how did this poll actually take place? Thank you very much. 93.41.96.86 (talk) 16:23, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

April 30

[1] Wilson, James F.; Weale, Michael E.; Smith, Alice C.; Gratrix, Fiona; Fletcher, Benjamin; Thomas, Mark G.; Bradman, Neil; Goldstein, David B. (2001). "Population genetic structure of variable drug response". Nature Genetics. 29 (3): 265–9. doi:10.1038/ng761. PMID 11685208. S2CID 25627134. 62% of the Ethiopians fall in the first cluster, which encompasses the majority of the Jews, Norwegians and Armenians, indicating that placement of these individuals in a 'Black' cluster would be an inaccurate reflection of the genetic structure. Only 24% of the Ethiopians are placed in the cluster with the Bantu

[Mohamoud-2] Mohamoud, A. M. (October 2006). "P52 Characteristics of HLA Class I and Class II Antigens of the Somali Population". Transfusion Medicine. 16 (Supplement s1): 47. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3148.2006.00694_52.x. S2CID 70655900.

[3] Ning Yu; et al. (1 May 2002). "Larger Genetic Differences Within Africans than Between Africans and Eurasians". Genetics. 161 (1): 269–274. doi:10.1093/genetics/161.1.269.

[1]

[2]

[3]