Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 2019
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February 1
Tropical Storm Marco was the only tropical cyclone to make landfall in the United States during the 1990 Atlantic hurricane season. The 13th named storm of the season, Marco formed from a cold-core low-pressure area along the northern coast of Cuba on October 9, and tracked northwestward through the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Its circulation produced 65 mph (100 km/h) winds over the western portion of Florida before weakening to a tropical depression and moving ashore near Cedar Key. The cyclone combined with a cold front and the remnants of Hurricane Klaus to produce heavy rainfall in Georgia and the Carolinas. After interacting with the nearby Hurricane Lili, Marco continued northward until being absorbed by a cold front. In Florida, the cyclone triggered flooding of some roadways. Rainfall across its path peaked at 19.89 inches (505 mm) in Louisville, Georgia. The flooding caused 12 deaths, mostly due to drowning, as well as $57 million in damage. (Full article...)
February 2
Coenwulf was King of Mercia, in Anglo-Saxon England, from December 796 until his death in 821. He ascended the throne five months after the death of Offa, one of the most powerful kings of early medieval England, when Offa's son, Ecgfrith, died after a brief reign. In the early years of Coenwulf's reign he had to deal with a revolt in Kent, which had been under Offa's control. After Eadberht Præn returned from exile in Francia to claim the Kentish throne, Coenwulf invaded and retook the kingdom. He probably lost control of the kingdom of East Anglia during the early part of his reign, as evidenced by an independent coinage appearing under King Eadwald, but Coenwulf's coinage reappeared in 805. Coenwulf was the last king of Mercia to exercise substantial dominance over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms; within a decade of his death, the rise of Wessex had begun under King Ecgberht, and Mercia never recovered its former position of power. (Full article...)
February 3
Felix Mendelssohn (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847) was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period, who wrote symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music, and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, his mature Violin Concerto, his String Octet, and his Songs Without Words for solo piano. He was born into a prominent Jewish family in Berlin, baptised as a Reformed Christian at age seven, and recognised early as a musical prodigy. Mendelssohn revived interest in Bach's music, notably with a performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1829. He enjoyed success in Germany and in his travels throughout Europe as a composer, conductor and soloist. Many of his major works premiered during his ten visits to Britain. He founded the Leipzig Conservatory, which became a bastion of his rather conservative tastes. After a long period of relative denigration, he is among the most popular romantic composers. (Full article...)
February 4
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Gwen Stefani (born 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress, and the lead vocalist of the band No Doubt. Their album Tragic Kingdom (1995) was a critical and commercial success, spawning the singles "Just a Girl" and "Don't Speak"; they were followed by "Hey Baby" and "It's My Life". Stefani's three solo albums have also been successful: Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004) includes "What You Waiting For?", "Rich Girl", and "Hollaback Girl"; The Sweet Escape (2006) produced the singles "Wind It Up" and "The Sweet Escape"; and her third solo album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like (2016), reached number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Billboard magazine ranked her as the 54th most successful artist and 37th most successful Hot 100 artist of the 2000–09 decade, and VH1 ranked her 13th on their "100 Greatest Women in Music" list in 2012. Stefani has won three Grammy Awards and has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, including her work with No Doubt. (Full article...)
February 5
William Bostock (5 February 1892 – 28 April 1968) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). During World War II he led RAAF Command, the Air Force's main operational formation, earning the Distinguished Service Order and the American Medal of Freedom. A veteran of World War I, Bostock first saw combat at Gallipoli, then as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps on the Western Front, where he earned the Belgian Croix de guerre. In the 1930s he served as Director of Training, commanding officer of No. 3 Squadron, and Director of Operations, becoming Deputy Chief of the Air Staff in 1939. Appointed Air Officer Commanding RAAF Command in 1942, he feuded with Chief of the Air Staff George Jones over control of the Air Force in the South West Pacific Area. Following his retirement from the RAAF in 1946, he became a journalist and later a Federal Member of Parliament. (Full article...)
Part of the Command in the South West Pacific Area featured topic.
February 6
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New York State Route 373 is a short state highway in Essex County, New York, within Adirondack Park. It begins at U.S. Route 9 at the Ausable Chasm, a deep, wooded canyon in the town of Chesterfield. The road proceeds eastward, ending at a ferry landing on Lake Champlain. It is the only connector between U.S. Route 9 and the hamlet of Port Kent and the ferry that serves it. Port Kent and the connecting road were originally built in 1823, intended to provide labor for iron manufacturing and other industries of Essex County. The hamlet grew, and was eventually connected to Burlington, Vermont, via an hour-long ferry ride across Lake Champlain. The road that accessed Port Kent originally began in Keeseville, but became part of the longer Port Kent and Hopkinton Turnpike in the 1830s. The highway that is now Route 373 was designated as part of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway in 1919. (Full article...)
February 7
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Billy Joe Tolliver (born February 7, 1966) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) and Canadian Football League. Over the course of his NFL career, he played in 79 games, completed 891 of 1,707 passes for 10,760 yards, threw 59 touchdowns and 64 interceptions, and retired with a passer rating of 67.7. A graduate of Texas Tech University, Tolliver was selected 51st in the 1989 NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers. He started 19 games in two seasons at San Diego before being traded to the Atlanta Falcons, where he saw playing time as a backup for three seasons. In 1994, he became one of three starting quarterbacks for the Houston Oilers. He played quarterback for the Canadian league's Shreveport Pirates during their final season of activity in 1995, and played for the Falcons and Kansas City Chiefs in 1997. He then started in 11 games for the New Orleans Saints in two seasons. (Full article...)
February 8
Khalid al-Mihdhar (1975–2001) was one of five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon as part of the September 11 attacks. He was born in Saudi Arabia and fought in the Bosnian War during the 1990s. In early 1999, he traveled to Afghanistan where, as an experienced al-Qaeda member, he was selected by Osama bin Laden to participate in the attacks. Mihdhar attended the Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit in Malaysia and then went to California with fellow hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi in January 2000. Arriving in San Diego, they were to train as pilots, but spoke English poorly and did not do well with flight lessons. In June 2000, Mihdhar left the United States for Yemen; after spending time in Afghanistan, he returned to the U.S. in early July 2001. On the morning of September 11, he boarded Flight 77. The attack killed all 64 people aboard, along with 125 on the ground. (Full article...)
February 9
Radcliffe is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, Greater Manchester, England. It lies in the Irwell Valley 2.5 miles (4 km) south-west of Bury and 6.5 miles (10 km) north-northwest of Manchester. The disused Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal bisects the town. Historically a part of Lancashire, the town and its surroundings show evidence of Mesolithic, Roman and Norman activity. A Roman road passes along the border between Radcliffe and Bury. In the High Middle Ages, the town was recorded in an entry of the Domesday Book as "Radeclive"; it formed a small parish and township centred on the Church of St Mary (current church pictured) and the manorial Radcliffe Tower, both of which are Grade I listed buildings. Coal was mined nearby during the Industrial Revolution, providing fuel for the cotton-spinning and papermaking industries. By the mid-19th century, Radcliffe was an important mill town with cotton mills and bleachworks. (Full article...)
February 10
Damageplan was an American heavy metal supergroup from Dallas, Texas, formed in 2003. Following the demise of their previous group Pantera, brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul started a new band with bassist Bob Kakaha and vocalist Patrick Lachman, a guitarist formerly with Diesel Machine and Halford. They released their only studio album, New Found Power, in the United States on February 10, 2004; it debuted at number 38 on the Billboard 200. Later that year Damageplan was promoting the album at a concert at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, when a man climbed on stage, killed Darrell and three others, and wounded another seven before being fatally shot by a police officer. Some witnesses said that the assailant blamed the brothers for Pantera's breakup and believed that they had stolen his lyrics. Paul and Kakaha later joined the band Hellyeah (pictured). Damageplan has been inactive since the incident. (Full article...)
February 11
The characters of Final Fantasy VIII include an elite group of mercenaries called SeeD, as well as soldiers, rebels, and political leaders of various nations and cities. Thirteen weeks after the 1999 North American release of Final Fantasy VIII, a role-playing video game by Square, it had earned more than $50 million in sales, making it the fastest selling Final Fantasy title at the time. The game's characters, created by Tetsuya Nomura under the direction of Yoshinori Kitase (pictured), are the first in the series to be realistically proportioned in all aspects of the game. This graphical shift, as well as the cast itself, have received generally positive reviews from gaming magazines and websites. The six main playable characters are the loner Squall Leonhart, the passionate Rinoa Heartilly, the instructor Quistis Trepe, the martial artist Zell Dincht, the cheerful pilot Selphie Tilmitt, and the marksman Irvine Kinneas. (Full article...)
Part of the Final Fantasy VIII featured topic.
February 12
The goldcrest (Regulus regulus) is a very small bird in the kinglet family. Named for its colourful golden crest feathers, it is called the "king of the birds" in European folklore. Several subspecies are recognised across a very large distribution range that includes much of Eurasia and the islands of Macaronesia. This kinglet has greenish upper-parts and whitish under-parts, with two white wingbars. It has a bright head crest, orange and yellow in the male and yellow in the female, which is displayed during breeding. The song is a repetition of high thin notes. It breeds in coniferous woodland and gardens, building its compact, three-layered nest on a tree branch. Ten to twelve eggs are incubated by the female alone, and the chicks are fed by both parents; second broods are common. The bird is constantly on the move as it searches for insects to eat. Because of its large range and population, it presents no significant conservation concerns. (Full article...)
February 13
The Hawaii Sesquicentennial half dollar was struck in 1928 by the United States Mint in honor of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Europeans. It depicts Captain James Cook on the obverse and a Hawaiian chieftain on the reverse. Only 10,000 coins were struck for the public, making them rare and valuable. In 1927, the legislature of the Territory of Hawaii passed a resolution calling on the U.S. government to produce a commemorative coin for the anniversary. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon thought the occasion important enough that, unusually for him, he was not opposed to the new coin. Sculptor Chester Beach made the plaster models for the coins from sketches by Juliette May Fraser. Approval for his designs was delayed by concerns raised by the Mint and by Victor S. K. Houston, Hawaii Territory's delegate to Congress. Although the issue price, at $2, was the highest for a commemorative half dollar to that point, the coins sold out quickly and have risen in value to over $1000. (Full article...)
February 14
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Chains of Love is an American dating game show that aired for six episodes in April and May 2001 on the United Paramount Network (UPN). Adapted from a Dutch television series, it presents a man or woman who is chained to four members of the opposite sex over four days and nights. This person, identified as the Picker, is given $10,000 and can remove three contestants one at a time. The Picker can give a portion of the money to each eliminated participant. When left with a single partner, the Picker can choose to either split the money or keep it. Madison Michele (pictured) hosted each episode. Originally ordered by NBC, it was produced by UPN as part of a campaign to run more unscripted programming to boost the network's ratings. Media outlets have identified Chains of Love as part of a renaissance in reality television. The show's premise divided television critics, who compared it in structure and tone to Blind Date and The Dating Game. (Full article...)
February 15
No Way Out (2004) was an American professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), held on February 15 at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California. Sponsored by THQ, it was the sixth event produced under the No Way Out name and starred wrestlers from the SmackDown! brand. In the main event, Eddie Guerrero (pictured) defeated WWE Champion Brock Lesnar to win the title, his sole world championship before his death in 2005. In the undercard, Kurt Angle defeated Big Show and John Cena in a Triple Threat match to earn a title match for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XX. In a separate storyline, Chavo Guerrero Jr. defeated Rey Mysterio. No Way Out grossed more than $450,000 in ticket sales from an attendance of approximately 11,000 and received 350,000 pay-per-view buys, contributing to WWE's increased pay-per-view revenue for the year. The event and its DVD received favorable reviews. (Full article...)
February 16
Pseudoryzomys is a rodent from south-central South America in the family Cricetidae. Found in lowland palm savanna and thorn scrub habitats, it is a medium-sized rat, weighing about 50 grams (1.8 oz). It has gray-brown fur, long and narrow hindfeet with small membranes between the toes, and a tail that is about as long as the head and body. Its conservation status has been assessed as least concern, although almost nothing is known of its diet or reproduction. Its closest living relatives are the large semiaquatic rats Holochilus and Lundomys. These three genera form an assemblage within the oryzomyine tribe, a diverse group including over one hundred species, mainly in South America. This tribe is part of the subfamily Sigmodontinae and family Cricetidae, which include many more species, mainly from Eurasia and the Americas. The species Pseudoryzomys simplex was first described in 1888 on the basis of subfossil cave specimens from Brazil (as Hesperomys simplex). (Full article...)
February 17
Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name (from Greek for "without feet") was chosen because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus Plancius in 1598, it was charted on a star atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria (pictured). The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave them Bayer designations in 1756. The five brightest stars are all reddish in hue. Shading the others at apparent magnitude 3.8 is Alpha Apodis, an orange giant that has around 48 times the diameter and 928 times the luminosity of the Sun. Marginally fainter is Gamma Apodis, another ageing giant star. Delta Apodis is a double star, the two components of which are 103 arcseconds apart and visible with the naked eye. Two star systems have been found to have planets. (Full article...)
February 18
Lock Haven is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Located near the confluence of the West Branch Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Creek, it is the principal city of the Lock Haven Micropolitan Statistical Area, in a combined statistical area that includes Williamsport. Its population in 2010 was 9,772. Built on a site long favored by pre-Columbian peoples, Lock Haven began in 1833 as a timber town and a haven for loggers, boatmen, and other travelers on the river or the West Branch Canal. Resource extraction and efficient transportation financed much of the city's growth through the end of the 19th century. In the 20th century, a light-aircraft factory, a college, and a paper mill contributed to the economy. The city has three sites on the National Register of Historic Places: Memorial Park Site, a significant pre-Columbian archaeological find; Heisey House, a Victorian-era museum; and Water Street District (courthouse pictured), with a mix of 19th- and 20th-century architecture. (Full article...)
February 19
The Wales national rugby union team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. The governing body, the Welsh Rugby Union, was established in 1881, the same year that Wales played their first international against England, on 19 February. They have won the Six Nations and its predecessors 26 times outright, most recently in 2013. They had many dominant teams from 1900 to 1911 and from 1969 to 1980. Wales played in the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987 where they achieved their best ever result of third. After the sport started allowing professionalism in 1995, Wales hosted the 1999 World Cup. They won Six Nations Grand Slams in 2005, 2008 and 2012. Their home ground is the Millennium Stadium (pictured). Eight former Welsh players have been inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame; ten were inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame prior to its 2014 merger into the World Rugby Hall. (Full article...)
February 20
Hurricane Juan was a large and erratic tropical cyclone that looped twice near the Louisiana coast, causing widespread flooding. It was the tenth named storm of the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season, forming in the central Gulf of Mexico in late October. Juan made landfall near Morgan City. Weakening to tropical storm status over land, it turned back to the southeast over open waters, crossing the Mississippi River Delta. Turning to the northeast, it made its final landfall just west of Pensacola, Florida. Juan was the last of three hurricanes to move over Louisiana during the season, after Danny in August and Elena in early September. Twelve people died in the storm, including nine in maritime accidents off Louisiana. Rainfall and a high storm surge flooded 50,000 houses and many communities in southern Louisiana, causing extensive agriculture losses. Juan directly inflicted about $1.5 billion in damage, making it among the costliest United States hurricanes. (Full article...)
February 21
SMS Kronprinz (Crown Prince) was the last battleship of the four-ship König class of the Imperial German Navy, laid down in 1911 and launched on 21 February 1914. The ship was armed with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns in five twin turrets and could steam at a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). Along with her three sister ships, König, Grosser Kurfürst and Markgraf, Kronprinz took part in most of the World War I fleet actions, including the 1916 Battle of Jutland. She was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS J1 in November 1916 during an operation off the Danish coast. Following repairs, she participated in Operation Albion, an amphibious assault in the Baltic, in October 1917. After Germany's defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, Kronprinz and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow, and later scuttled by their German crews. (Full article...)
Part of the Battleships of Germany featured topic.
February 22
M-28 is an east–west state trunkline highway that almost completely traverses the Upper Peninsula in the U.S. state of Michigan, from Wakefield to near Sault Ste. Marie. M-28 is the longest state trunkline with the "M-" prefix at 290 miles (467 km). Three sections of the highway are part of the Lake Superior Circle Tour, and two sections carry memorial highway designations. M-28 passes through forested woodlands, bog swamps, and urbanized areas. Sections of roadway cross the Ottawa National Forest and both sections of the Hiawatha National Forest. Other landmarks accessible from the highway include the Seney National Wildlife Refuge and several historic bridges. M-28 dates to the 1919 formation of the state's trunkline system, though the original highway was much shorter. It was expanded eastward to the Sault Ste. Marie area in the late 1920s. (Full article...)
Part of the M-28 featured topic.
February 23
Istanbul, Turkey, known before 330 as Byzantium and between 330 and 1930 as Constantinople, is a transcontinental city of Europe and Asia, straddling the Bosporus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side; about a third of its residents live on the Asian side. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s to around 15 million, making Istanbul one of the world's most populous cities and the fourth-largest city proper. Founded on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city grew in size and influence. It was an imperial capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine (330–1204), Latin (1204–1261), Palaiologos Byzantine (1261–1453) and Ottoman (1453–1922) empires. Although Ankara was chosen as the new capital after the Turkish War of Independence, Istanbul remains Turkey's economic and cultural center. (Full article...)
February 24
Plesiorycteropus was a mammal from Madagascar that became extinct sometime after 200 BCE, as evidenced by radiocarbon dating. Upon its description in 1895 by French naturalist Henri Filhol, Plesiorycteropus was classified with the aardvark, but more recent studies have found little evidence for that linkage. Molecular evidence instead suggests that it is related to the tenrecs, in the order Afrosoricida. Two species are recognized, the larger P. madagascariensis and the smaller P. germainepetterae; subfossil remains of both species have been found in the same site. Only limb and partial pelvis and skull bones have been recovered to date. Plesiorycteropus was probably a digging animal that fed on insects such as termites and ants. It also shows adaptations for climbing and sitting. Estimates of its mass range from 6 to 18 kilograms (13 to 40 lb). Forest destruction by humans may have contributed to its extinction. (Full article...)
February 25
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The Flood is a fictional parasitic alien life form. Flood-infected creatures, also called Flood, in turn infect other sentient hosts. They were introduced as a second enemy faction in the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in Bungie's Halo multimedia franchise. Their design and fiction was spearheaded by Bungie artist Robert McLees, with sound design led by Martin O'Donnell. The ringworld setting of the first Halo game was stripped of many of its large creatures to make the Flood's surprise appearance more startling. For Halo 3, Bungie environment artist Vic DeLeon spent six months of pre-production time refining their fleshy aesthetic and designing the organic interiors of Flood-infested space ships. Reaction to the Flood has varied; while some reviewers found the creatures too derivative and a cliché element of science fiction, others ranked them among the greatest video game villains of all time. (Full article...)
February 26
Waisale Serevi (born 1968) is a former Fijian rugby union footballer and coach. A member of the World Rugby Hall of Fame, he is widely considered to be the greatest rugby sevens player in the history of the game. In the 15-man game, he played for Fiji 39 times between 1989 and 2003, scoring 376 points and representing his country in the 1991, 1999, and 2003 Rugby World Cups. He also played professionally for the Mitsubishi, Leicester, Stade Montois, Stade Bordelais and Staines rugby teams. His representative sevens career started in 1989 when he played for Fiji at the Hong Kong tournament. Serevi also played in the 1993, 1997, 2001, and 2005 Rugby World Cup Sevens, winning the World Cup with Fiji in 1997 and 2005. He won silver at the Commonwealth Games in 1998 and 2002, and captured bronze in 2006. After winning the 2005 Rugby World Cup Sevens, Serevi was appointed player-coach of the Fiji Sevens national team, and led them to a 2005–06 World Sevens Series victory. (Full article...)
February 27
The Battle of San Patricio was fought on February 27, 1836, between Mexican troops and Texians, rebellious settlers in the Mexican province of Texas. The battle marked the start of the Goliad Campaign, the Mexican offensive to retake the Texas Gulf Coast. By the end of 1835, all Mexican troops had been driven from Texas. Frank W. Johnson, the commander of the volunteer army in Texas, gathered volunteers for a planned invasion of the Mexican port town of Matamoros. After spending several weeks gathering horses, in late February Johnson and about 40 men led the herd to San Patricio. He assigned some of his troops to a ranch outside town to guard the horses. Unbeknownst to the Texians, on February 18 Mexican General José de Urrea (pictured) had led a large contingent of troops from Matamoros into Texas. Urrea's men easily followed the trail left by the horses, and surprised the sleeping Texians in San Patricio. After a fifteen-minute battle, all but six Texians had been killed or imprisoned. (Full article...)
February 28
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Dark Angel is an American cyberpunk television series that premiered in October 2000. Created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee, it starred Jessica Alba (pictured) in her breakthrough role. Set in 2019, the series chronicles the life of Max Guevara (Alba), a genetically enhanced super-soldier who escapes from a covert military facility as a child. In a post-apocalyptic Seattle, she tries to lead a normal life, while eluding capture by government agents and searching for her siblings scattered in the aftermath of their escape. The first season received mainly positive reviews and won several awards, including the People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama. The second (final) season received some criticism for new plot elements. A series of novels continued the storyline, and a video game adaptation was released. Dark Angel has gothic and female empowerment themes, and Max has been compared to other strong female characters in Cameron's work, including Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley. (Full article...)