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Wikipedia article of the day for April 6, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for April 6, 2018 is 2003 Atlantic hurricane season . The 2003 Atlantic hurricane season was unusually active, with tropical cyclone activity both before June and after November for the first time in 50 years. There were three major hurricanes, and the sixteen named storms tied for the sixth highest total on record. The strongest hurricane of the season was Isabel, which reached Category 5 on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale northeast of the Lesser Antilles, and later struck North Carolina at Category 2, causing damage worth $3.6 billion and 51 deaths across the Mid-Atlantic United States. In early September, Hurricane Fabian struck Bermuda as a Category 3 hurricane, the strongest since 1926; it caused four deaths and $300 million in damage (example pictured) on the island. Hurricane Juan wreaked considerable destruction on Nova Scotia, particularly Halifax, as a Category 2 hurricane, the first of significant strength there since 1893. The minimal hu

Wikipedia article of the day for April 5, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for April 5, 2018 is On the Mindless Menace of Violence . "On the Mindless Menace of Violence" was a speech given by United States Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. He delivered it at the Sheraton-Cleveland Hotel on April 5, 1968, in the wake of riots and chaos following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American civil rights leader. Speechwriters worked early into the morning on a full response to the assassination. After revising the draft, Kennedy spoke for only 10 minutes in front of 2,200 people at the City Club of Cleveland, outlining his views on violence in American society. He faulted both the rioters and the white establishment who, from his perspective, were responsible for the deterioration of social conditions in the United States. He proposed no specific solutions, but admonished the audience to seek common ground and cooperation. Journalist Jack Newfield framed the address as a suitable

Wikipedia article of the day for April 4, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for April 4, 2018 is 2014 Japanese Grand Prix . The 2014 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 5 October 2014 at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Mie. It was the 15th race of the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship, and the 30th Japanese Grand Prix of the Formula One era. The 44-lap race was won by Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, increasing his lead in the World Drivers' Championship to ten points over his teammate, Nico Rosberg, who finished second. Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel came in third. Heavy rain from Typhoon Phanfone soaked the track surface and reduced visibility. Jules Bianchi lost control of his Marussia on the 43rd lap and collided with a tractor crane that was tending to Adrian Sutil's car, which had spun off on the previous lap. Bianchi sustained severe head injuries and died nine months later, the first death caused by a Formula One race since Ayrton Senna's in 1994. Formula One's governing

Wikipedia article of the day for April 3, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for April 3, 2018 is Banksia sphaerocarpa . Banksia sphaerocarpa, the fox banksia, is a shrub (occasionally a tree) in the family Proteaceae. Generally 1–2 m (3.3–6.6 ft) high, this banksia has narrow green leaves and, from January to July, brownish, orange or yellow round flower spikes. The species is widely distributed across the southwest of Western Australia, growing exclusively in sandy soils. A dominant plant in scrubland or low woodland, it is pollinated by, and is a food source for, birds, mammals, and insects. First described in 1810 by botanist Robert Brown, the species has a complicated taxonomic history, and several taxa once classified as part of a broadly defined B. sphaerocarpa have since been named as species in their own right. Most authorities recognise five varieties; the largest, B. sphaerocarpa var. dolichostyla (ironcap banksia), is sometimes given species rank as B. dolichostyla. According to the Wildlife Conservation Act of West

Wikipedia article of the day for April 2, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for April 2, 2018 is The Boat Races 2017 . The Boat Races 2017 took place on 2 April. Held annually, the Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing race between crews from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge along a 4.2-mile (6.8 km) tidal stretch of the River Thames in south-west London. For the second time in the history of the event, the men's, the women's and both reserves' races were all held on the Tideway on the same day. In the men's reserve race, Cambridge's Goldie were beaten by Oxford's Isis, and in the women's reserve race, Cambridge's Blondie defeated Oxford's Osiris. In the women's race, Cambridge won by a large margin following a disastrous start by the Oxford boat. This win, their second in ten years, took Cambridge's advantage in the overall standings to 42–30. The Oxford men's boat won their race after leading from the start, their fourth victory in five years, taking the overall record in

Wikipedia article of the day for April 1, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for April 1, 2018 is RAF Uxbridge . RAF Uxbridge (1 April 1918 – 31 March 2010) was a Royal Air Force station in the London Borough of Hillingdon. In the Second World War, it was the headquarters of No. 11 Group RAF, responsible for the aerial defence of London and south-east England during the Battle of Britain. Hillingdon House served as the group's headquarters. What is now called the Battle of Britain Bunker was built nearby to house the 11 Group Operations Room, which was also responsible for air support during the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 and the D-Day landings in 1944. It was here that Winston Churchill first said, "Never in the history of mankind has so much been owed by so many to so few", repeating the sentiment to Parliament in a speech four days later. When the Uxbridge station closed in 2010, many of its units moved to nearby RAF Northolt. Much of the land around the River Pinn has been designated as greenbelt. All liste

Wikipedia article of the day for March 31, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 31, 2018 is Awake (TV series) . "Nightswimming" is the eighth episode of the American television police procedural fantasy drama Awake, which originally aired on NBC in 2012. Written by Leonard Chang and co-executive producer Davey Holmes, and directed by executive producer Jeffrey Reiner, the episode received mixed reviews. Awake stars Jason Isaacs (pictured) as Michael Britten, a detective living in two separate realities after a car crash. In one reality, his wife Hannah (Laura Allen) survived the crash; in the other, his son Rex (Dylan Minnette) survived. In this episode, Michael helps accountant Marcus Ananyev (Elijah Alexander) and his wife Alina (Ayelet Zurer) start a new life in the Witness Protection Program after a gang member attempts to kill Marcus in Rex's reality. In the other reality, Michael and Hannah prepare for a new life in Oregon, and go swimming at a college pool to celebrate their love. During filming, a w

Wikipedia article of the day for March 30, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 30, 2018 is DJ AM . DJ AM (A. M. Goldstein; March 30, 1973 – August 28, 2009) was an American disc jockey (DJ). Obsessed with deejaying as a child, Goldstein developed a drug addiction as a teenager and was sent to the controversial rehabilitation center Straight, Incorporated. His drug problems worsened until a failed suicide attempt in 1997. He became sober, and later sponsored other addicts through Alcoholics Anonymous. He began deejaying and joined the band Crazy Town in 1999 before focusing on a career as a solo DJ. In 2006, he accepted a million-dollar contract to perform weekly at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. In 2008, Goldstein and Travis Barker formed the duo TRV$DJAM. They were the only two survivors of a Learjet 60 crash later that year. Goldstein hosted the 2009 drug intervention television series Gone Too Far, and appeared to be struggling with his addiction during filming. In August 2009, he was found dead from a drug overdose. The

Wikipedia article of the day for March 29, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 29, 2018 is Casey Stengel . Casey Stengel (1890–1975) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) right fielder, and a manager for the New York Yankees championship teams of the 1950s and for the New York Mets in the early 1960s. He was an outfielder for the 1912 Brooklyn Dodgers, and played on their 1916 National League championship team. After serving in the navy during World War I, he played for the Philadelphia Phillies, the New York Giants and the Boston Braves. In 1925 he began a career as a manager, with mostly poor finishes for the next twenty years, especially with the Dodgers (1934–1936) and Braves (1938–1943). In 1948 he was hired as Yankee manager. In his twelve seasons, his teams garnered ten pennants, winning seven World Series, including a record-setting streak of five in a row (1949–1953). He was known for his humorous and sometimes disjointed banter. His showmanship helped the Mets, an expansion team, when they hired him in l

Wikipedia article of the day for March 28, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 28, 2018 is Lady Gaga . Lady Gaga (born March 28, 1986) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She rose to prominence in 2008 with her debut album The Fame and its singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". Her EP The Fame Monster followed the next year, and featured the successful singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone", and "Alejandro". The title track from her second album Born This Way (2011) became the fastest selling song on iTunes at the time of its release. With this as well as Artpop (2013), Cheek to Cheek (2014), and Joanne (2016), Gaga became the first woman to have four albums reach number one on the US Billboard 200 during the 2010s. In television, she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her work in American Horror Story: Hotel (2015–2016). Gaga is known for her unconventionality, provocative work, and experimentation with her appearance and image. She supports a variety

Wikipedia article of the day for March 27, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 27, 2018 is Coalhouse Fort . Coalhouse Fort is an English artillery fort built in the 1860s to guard the lower Thames from seaborne attack. It stands at Coalhouse Point in Essex on the north bank of the river, at a location near East Tilbury that was vulnerable to raiders and invaders. It was the last in a series of fortifications dating back to the 15th century and was the direct successor to a smaller mid-19th century fort on the same site. It was initially a front-line fortification, supported by Shornemead Fort and Cliffe Fort on the Kent shore. Over time, as batteries and forts further downriver became the front line of the Thames defences, its main weapons were replaced with smaller quick-firing guns intended for use against fast-moving surface and aerial targets. Its last military use was as a training facility after the Second World War. Decommissioned in 1949, the fort fell into dereliction, despite its historical and architectural s

Wikipedia article of the day for March 26, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 26, 2018 is Fulvous whistling duck . The fulvous whistling duck (Dendrocygna bicolor) is a tropical and subtropical bird in the family of ducks, geese and swans. It breeds in much of Mexico and South America, the West Indies, the southern US, sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent. It has mainly reddish brown plumage, long legs and a long grey bill, and shows a distinctive white band across its black tail in flight. Like other members of its ancient lineage, it has a whistling call. The preferred habitat is shallow lakes, paddy fields or other wetlands with plentiful vegetation. The nest, placed among dense vegetation or in a tree hole, typically holds around ten whitish eggs, which hatch in 24–29 days. The downy grey ducklings leave the nest within a day or so of hatching, but the parents continue to protect them until they fledge around nine weeks later. The fulvous whistling duck feeds in wetlands by day or night on seeds and other

Wikipedia article of the day for March 25, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 25, 2018 is Walt Disney World Railroad . The Walt Disney World Railroad is a 3-foot (914 mm) narrow-gauge American heritage railroad and attraction that encircles most of the Magic Kingdom theme park of Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida. Constructed by WED Enterprises, it has three train stations along 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of track, and four historic steam locomotives, originally built by Baldwin Locomotive Works. On a typical day, two or three locomotives will complete round trips in 20 minutes on the main line. The railroad's development was led by Roger E. Broggie. The attraction's locomotives were acquired from the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatán, a narrow-gauge railroad system in Mexico, and altered to resemble locomotives built in the 1880s. The passenger cars were built from scratch. The railroad opened to the public for the first time on the theme park's opening day, October 1, 1971. Since then, it has become one of the

Wikipedia article of the day for March 24, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 24, 2018 is Jessica Chastain . Jessica Chastain (born March 24, 1977) is an American actress and film producer. She has earned critical praise for her portrayals of strong-willed women in films with feminist themes. Born and raised in Sacramento County, California, Chastain studied acting at Juilliard. She made her film debut in the drama Jolene (2008), and gained wide recognition in 2011 for starring roles in half a dozen films, including The Help, which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2012, she won a Golden Globe Award for playing a CIA agent in the thriller Zero Dark Thirty. Her highest-grossing releases were the science fiction films Interstellar (2014) and The Martian (2015). She continued to draw praise for her performances in the dramas A Most Violent Year (2014), Miss Sloane (2016), and Molly's Game (2017). Chastain is the founder of the production company Freckle Films, which promotes

Wikipedia article of the day for March 23, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 23, 2018 is The Age of Reason . The Age of Reason is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine (pictured), arguing for the philosophical position of deism. Following in the tradition of eighteenth-century British deism, it challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible. It was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807, and became a best-seller in the United States, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. Fearing its revolutionary ideas, the British government prosecuted printers and book-sellers who tried to publish and distribute it. The Age of Reason highlights what Paine saw as corruption among Christian churches and criticizes their efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason over revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as "an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely inspired text". He promotes natural religion and arg

Wikipedia article of the day for March 22, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 22, 2018 is Thaddeus McCotter presidential campaign, 2012 . The Thaddeus McCotter presidential campaign of 2012 began when he filed papers on July 1, 2011, to run for the Republican Party's 2012 nomination for President of the United States. He officially announced his candidacy the next day at a rock festival near Detroit. McCotter, who had been a congressman from Michigan since 2003, was first mentioned as a potential presidential candidate on an April 2011 episode of the Fox News show Red Eye. During the campaign, he focused on reform of government and Wall Street. Commentators noted that McCotter's lack of name recognition hindered his chances for nomination. When included in Republican presidential preference polls, he regularly received less than one percent support. Following a last place finish in the Ames Straw Poll and the lack of any invitation to presidential debates, he dropped his candidacy on September 22, 2011, and end

Wikipedia article of the day for March 21, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 21, 2018 is Capella . Capella is a star system of four stars in the constellation of Auriga, appearing as a single star to the naked eye. It is the third-brightest star or star system in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus and Vega. Always above the horizon for observers north of 44°N, the Capella system is only 42.9 light-years from the Sun. Its two largest stars are Capella Aa and Capella Ab, bright yellow giant stars in a binary pair, both around 2.5 times as massive as the Sun. They are in a very tight circular 104-day orbit, some 0.76 astronomical units (au) apart. Capella Aa is the cooler and more luminous of the two, with around 79 times the Sun's luminosity. An ageing red clump star, it is fusing helium to carbon and oxygen in its core. Ab is slightly less massive, smaller and hotter, about 73 times as luminous as the Sun. The Capella system is one of the brightest sources of X-rays in the sky, thought to come primar

Wikipedia article of the day for March 20, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 20, 2018 is Barry Voight . Barry Voight (born 1937) is an American geologist, volcanologist, author, and engineer. He was a professor of geology at Pennsylvania State University from 1964 until his retirement in 2005. He still conducts research on rock mechanics, plate tectonics, disaster prevention, and geotechnical engineering. In April 1980, Voight's publications on landslides, avalanches and other mass movements convinced Rocky Crandell of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to ask him to look at a growing bulge on the Mount St. Helens volcano in the state of Washington. Voight predicted the collapse of the mountain's north flank as well as a powerful eruption. After his predictions were realized in May 1980, he was hired by the USGS to investigate the debris avalanche that initiated the eruption. His work at St. Helens brought him international recognition, and he continued researching and guiding monitoring efforts at several acti

Wikipedia article of the day for March 19, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 19, 2018 is Resident Evil: Apocalypse . Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a 2004 science fiction action horror film filmed in Toronto, Canada, directed by Alexander Witt and written by Paul W. S. Anderson. It is the second installment in the Resident Evil film series, which is based on the video game series of the same name. Milla Jovovich (pictured) reprises her role as Alice, and is joined by Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine and Oded Fehr as Carlos Oliveira. Resident Evil: Apocalypse is set directly after the events of the first film, where Alice escaped from an underground facility overrun by zombies. She now bands together with other survivors to escape the zombie outbreak which has spread to the fictional Raccoon City. The film borrows elements from several games in the Resident Evil series, including the characters Valentine and Oliveira and the villain Nemesis. While it received mostly negative reviews from critics for its plot, the film w

Wikipedia article of the day for March 18, 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 18, 2018 is Elcor, Minnesota . Elcor is a ghost town in the U.S. state of Minnesota that was inhabited between 1897 and 1956. It was built on the Mesabi Iron Range near the city of Gilbert in St. Louis County. At its peak around 1920, Elcor had two churches, a post office, a mercantile, a primary school, a railroad station and its own law enforcement, and housed a population of nearly 1,000. Elcor was a mining town, built by the mining company to house its workers. People were allowed to own their homes, but the land on which the houses stood belonged to the company. In the early days, houses were made of wooden boards and surrounded by a four-board-high fence fronted with a boardwalk. Most of the streets were dirt roads. The townspeople were pioneers and immigrants, largely Croatian, Slovenian, Finnish, Italian, German, Scandinavian and English (especially Cornish). After the last mine closed in 1954, the residents were ordered to vacate the