Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 September 23

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From today's featured article

The red-billed tropicbird is a seabird, one of three species in the family Phaethontidae. Resembling a tern, it has mostly white plumage with some black markings on the wings and back, a black mask and a red bill. Most adults have tail streamers that are about two times their body length, and generally longer in males than in females. Described by Carl Linnaeus in his 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758), this species ranges across the Indian Ocean, the tropical Atlantic, and the eastern Pacific. Nesting takes place in loose colonies. A single egg is laid, and incubated by both sexes for about six weeks. After a chick fledges, the parents will usually stop visiting the nest and the chick will leave. Red-billed tropicbirds of all ages feed on fish and squid, catching them by diving from the air into the water. The birds sometimes follow surface-feeding predators that drive prey to the surface, where they can be seized. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Bazoline Usher in 1982

... that in 1944, educator Bazoline Estelle Usher (pictured) became the first African American to have an office at Atlanta City Hall?
... that The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, a 1991 Newbery Honor book, was written in the style of a 19th-century travelogue?
... that Walter Freudenthal distinguished between the skin conditions keratoma senile and verruca senilis, before leaving Nazi-occupied Europe?
... that deserters from the Sudan People's Liberation Army embarked on a long march to another country to escape their former comrades?
... that singer Elise Barensfeld is a possible dedicatee of Ludwig van Beethoven's Für Elise?
... that the cover of Houses of the Holy was designed by Hipgnosis and based on photographs taken at the Giant's Causeway?
... that in 1901, Herbert R. Spencer described how to turn a baby should it be in the breech position before birth?
... that National Hot Rod Association altereds were notorious for running sideways?

In the news

Eliud Kipchoge

A Tanzanian ferry capsizes on Lake Victoria, killing at least 207 people.
A landslide, triggered by several days of heavy rainfall, kills at least 29 people in Naga, Philippines.
Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge (pictured) runs the Berlin Marathon in world record time.
NASA's ICESat-2 satellite is launched, the last mission to use the Delta II rocket.
Typhoon Mangkhut impacts the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, resulting in more than 90 fatalities.

On this day

September 23: Banned Books Week begins (2018); Celebrate Bisexuality Day; National Day in Saudi Arabia (1932)

Ramón Emeterio Betances

1568 – Anglo-Spanish War: At San Juan de Ulúa (in what is now Veracruz, Mexico), Spanish naval forces forced English privateers to halt their illegal trade.
1803 – Maratha troops were defeated by British forces at the Battle of Assaye, one of the decisive battles of the Second Anglo-Maratha War.
1868 – Ramón Emeterio Betances (pictured) led the Grito de Lares, a revolt against Spanish rule in Puerto Rico.
1952 – In one of the first political uses of television to appeal directly to the populace, Republican vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon delivered the "Checkers speech", refuting accusations of improprieties with contributions to his campaign.
2008 – A gunman shot and killed ten students at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences in Kauhajoki, Western Finland, before committing suicide.

Eleonora Gonzaga (b. 1598) · Émilie Gamelin (d. 1851) · Sean Spicer (b. 1971)

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Today's featured picture

Lady Seated at a Virginal is a painting by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer painted in approximately 1670–72. It shows a woman playing a virginal, with a viola da gamba depicted in the foreground, its bow between its strings. There is a painting depicted on the wall, which is either the original or a copy of Dirck van Baburen's The Procuress. The painting is one of several works by Vermeer featuring keyboard instruments including The Music Lesson, The Concert, and Lady Standing at a Virginal. Scholars believe these may all be based on the same instrument, built by Johannes Ruckers. Lady Seated at a Virginal now hangs in the National Gallery, London.

Painting: Johannes Vermeer

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