Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 September 1

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From today's featured article

Messier 87 is a supergiant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo. It has about 12,000 globular clusters—compared to the 150 to 200 orbiting the Milky Way—and a jet of energetic plasma that originates at the core and extends at least 4,900 light-years. One of the brightest radio sources in the sky, it is a popular target for both amateur and professional astronomers. The French astronomer Charles Messier discovered the galaxy in 1781, and catalogued it as a nebulous feature while searching for objects that would otherwise confuse comet hunters. About 53.5 million light-years from Earth, M87 is the second brightest galaxy within the northern Virgo Cluster. Unlike disk-shaped spiral galaxies, M87 has no distinctive dust lanes. Instead, it has an almost featureless ellipsoidal shape typical of most giant elliptical galaxies, diminishing in luminosity away from the center. It has a supermassive black hole at its core, powering an active galactic nucleus. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Wieluń town center after German Luftwaffe bombing on 1 September 1939

... that Wieluń, Poland, became the first city to sustain major damage and casualties from German bombing (pictured) in World War II?
...that Keanolani was the illegitimate daughter of King Kamehameha V, who died in 1872 without naming an heir to the throne?
... that biblical criticism was dominated by white male Protestant Christians until the late twentieth century?
... that SpaceX's Rocket Development and Test Facility is on the site of Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant, a former World War II bomb-making facility?
... that Texas-born Mario Alberto Peña became a suspected regional leader of the Gulf Cartel and a gangster folk hero on both sides of the Mexico–United States border?
... that Charles Wood's Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in D has been regarded as an "epitome of Church of England worship"?
... that Ian Aird performed chest surgery on a wounded German officer after the British surgeon had been captured by a German Panzer column during the North African Campaign?
... that Wikipedia has a rule allowing its editors to "ignore all rules"?

In the news

Scott Morrison

The government of Puerto Rico revises the death toll in the territory from Hurricane Maria in 2017 from 64 to 2,975, after nearly a year of controversy and criticism.
A hotel fire in Harbin, China, kills 20 people and injures 23 others.
Scott Morrison (pictured) replaces Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister of Australia, after a change of Liberal party leadership.
N. K. Jemisin wins the Hugo Award for Best Novel, for a third consecutive time, for The Stone Sky.
Former UN Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan dies at the age of 80.

On this day

September 1

The "Man in the Moon" from A Trip to the Moon

1529 – Sancti Spiritu, the first European settlement in Argentina, was destroyed by Amerindians.
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forces attacked retreating Union Army troops at the Battle of Chantilly during a rainstorm in Chantilly, Virginia, but the fighting ended up being tactically inconclusive.
1902 – The first science fiction film, titled A Trip to the Moon (scene pictured) and based on From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, was released in France.
1914 – The passenger pigeon, which once numbered in the billions, became extinct when the last individual died in captivity.
1972 – American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer became the 11th World Chess Champion when he defeated Russian Boris Spassky in a match that was widely publicized as a Cold War confrontation.

Harriet Shaw Weaver (b. 1876) · Charles Atangana (d. 1943) · Luis Walter Alvarez (d. 1988)

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Today's featured picture

Natalya Naryshkina (1651–1694) was the Tsaritsa of Russia from 1671–1676 as the second spouse of Tsar Alexis I of Russia. She was the mother of Tsar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great), who was born in 1672.

Painting: Anonymous

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