Wikipedia:2008 main page redesign proposal/88wolfmaster

13:03, Saturday, November 2, 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia

Featured article – Did you know – On this day – News – Featured picture

Today's featured article

Daniel Boone (November 2, 1734 – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman. In 1775, he blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, despite resistance from Native Americans; by the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people had entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone. He was adopted into the Shawnee tribe in 1778 but resigned after his son was killed by members. In April 1781, Boone was elected to the Virginia General Assembly. An account of his adventures was published in 1784, making him famous in America and Europe. After the Revolutionary War, he worked as a surveyor and merchant but went into debt as a Kentucky land speculator. In 1799, Boone resettled in Missouri, where he spent most of his remaining life. After his death, he was the subject of works of fiction; his adventures helped create the archetypal frontier hero of American folklore. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know...

Edmonds Band Rotunda

... that the basement of the Edmonds Band Rotunda (pictured) was once used as a kitchen?
... that a member of the second Adrian Hasler cabinet was expelled in 2019 following an embezzlement scandal?
... that after Liam and Noel Gallagher's band Oasis announced "the most controversial band reunion since the Sex Pistols' 1996 Filthy Lucre Tour", Noel's daughter Anaïs Gallagher criticised some fans for ageism and sexism?
... that oral repositories are individuals trusted with memorising a society's oral traditions, and have been termed "walking libraries"?
... that David de Pomis published a trilingual Hebrew–Aramaic, Latin and Italian dictionary in 1587?
... that Come In was recorded on a hands-free microphone attached to a pair of headphones?
... that a poultry farmer was the first woman to compete for the Sovereign's Prize, the highest honour in British rifle shooting?
... that Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures excludes mentions of Nazism that are present in the Indiana Jones films?
... that Mitch Torres is a "self-proclaimed damper destroyer"?

On this day...

November 2

An emu killed by Australian soldiers

619 – Emperor Gaozu of Tang allowed the assassination of a khagan of the Western Turkic Khaganate by Eastern Turkic rivals, one of the earliest events in the Tang campaigns against the Western Turks.
1932 – The Australian military began a "war against emus" (man with dead emu pictured), flightless native birds blamed for widespread damage to crops in Western Australia.
1943 – World War II: A U.S. Navy task force turned away an Imperial Japanese Navy formation at the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, thus protecting the landings at Cape Torokina.
1960 – In the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, publisher Penguin Books was acquitted of obscenity for the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence.
2007 – In Tbilisi, Georgia, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the allegedly corrupt government of president Mikheil Saakashvili.

Bettisia Gozzadini (d. 1261)
Edward Mitchell Bannister (b. 1828)
Hélène de Pourtalès (d. 1945)
Charmaine Dragun (d. 2007)

More anniversaries:

In the news...

Freddie Freeman

In baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees to win the World Series (MVP Freddie Freeman pictured).
Flooding in Spain kills more than 200 people.
The Social Democrats, led by Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, win the Lithuanian parliamentary election after the second voting round.
In the Japanese general election, the LDP-led ruling coalition loses its majority in the House of Representatives.

Today's featured picture

The Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) is a bird of prey from the family Falconidae endemic to the forests of Mauritius, where it is restricted to the southwestern plateau's forests, cliffs, and ravines. It colonized the island and evolved into a distinct species from other Indian Ocean kestrels, probably during the Gelasian or Early Pleistocene periods. The Mauritius kestrel can reach a size between 26 and 30.5 cm (10.2 and 12.0 in), with a mass of up to 250 g (8.8 oz) and rounded wings with a span of approximately 45 cm (18 in). Males are slightly smaller than the females. It is a carnivorous bird, eating geckos, dragonflies, cicadas, cockroaches, crickets, and small birds. It hunts by means of short, swift flights through the forests. This Mauritius kestrel was photographed in the Ebony Forest reserve near Chamarel, Mauritius.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp · Archive · More featured pictures