News and Services

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 16, 2018 is Illinois Centennial half dollar . The Illinois Centennial half dollar is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1918. The obverse side, depicting Abraham Lincoln, was designed by Chief Engraver George T. Morgan; the reverse image, based on the Seal of Illinois, was done by his assistant and successor, John R. Sinnock. Morgan's design is based on a statue by Andrew O'Connor. The State of Illinois asked for a commemorative to mark the centennial of its 1818 statehood. In 1918, after legislation was enacted, the two engravers produced designs, but Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo required changes, not all of which were made. The coins were minted in August 1918, and were sold to the public for one dollar each. Though many were held by a bank until 1933, all were sold, and profits were used to cover the cost of local centennial celebrations or to help those in need because of W

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 15, 2018 is Ankylosaurus . Ankylosaurus was an armored dinosaur that lived roughly 67 million years ago, at the very end of the Cretaceous Period. This genus was among the last of the non-avian dinosaurs, living alongside Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, and Edmontosaurus. Its name means "fused lizard"; bones in its skull and other parts of its body were fused, increasing their strength. Ankylosaurus was up to 6.25 m (20.5 feet) long and 1.7 m (5.6 feet) tall, weighing about 4.8–8 tonnes (11,000–18,000 lb). It had a broad, robust body with a wide, low skull. The front parts of the jaws were covered in a beak, with rows of small, leaf-shaped teeth behind it, adapted for a herbivorous diet. It was covered in armor plates for protection against predators, with bony half-rings covering the neck, and had a large club on the end of its tail which may have been used as a weapon. Fossils from a few specimens of Ankylosaurus have been found in

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 14, 2018 is California State Route 94 . State Route 94 (SR 94) is a 63.3-mile (101.9 km) highway in the U.S. state of California. The western portion, known as the Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway, begins at Interstate 5 (I-5) in downtown San Diego and continues to the end of the freeway portion past SR 125 in Spring Valley. The non-freeway segment of SR 94 that continues east through the mountains to I-8 near Boulevard is known as Campo Road. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, this section was a wagon road providing access to eastern San Diego County. The Campo road was often the only road through the Peninsular Ranges to stay open for the entire winter; other roads, at higher elevations, were closed due to snow, leading to increased traffic along this road. It was added to the state highway system in 1933, and signs for Route 94 were posted along local roads later that decade. Efforts to convert the western half of the route to a freeway

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 13, 2018 is SMS Wittelsbach . SMS Wittelsbach (His Majesty's Ship Wittelsbach) was the lead ship of her class of pre-dreadnought battleships, built for the German Imperial Navy. She was the first capital ship built under the Navy Law of 1898, which was brought about by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Wittelsbach was laid down in 1899 at the Wilhelmshaven Navy Dockyard and completed in October 1902, armed with a main battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) guns and with a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph). During World War I the ship served in the IV Battle Squadron, with limited non-combat duty in the Baltic Sea, including during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. By late 1915, crew shortages and the threat from British submarines forced the navy to withdraw older battleships like Wittelsbach. The ship then saw service in auxiliary roles, first as a training ship and then as a ship's tender. In 1919, after the war, she was conv

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 12, 2018 is True Detective (season 1) . The first season of True Detective, an American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, premiered on HBO on January 12, 2014, starring Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles. The nonlinear narrative in eight episodes focuses on Louisiana State Police homicide detectives Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Harrelson) as they investigate the murder of prostitute Dora Lange in 1995. Seventeen years later, they must revisit the investigation, along with several other unsolved crimes. The first season explores themes of philosophical pessimism, masculinity, and Christianity; critics have analyzed the show's portrayal of women, its auteurist sensibility, and the influence of comics, weird fiction and horror fiction on its narrative. The episodes, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, were filmed in Louisiana. The series received

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 11, 2018 is Rochdale Cenotaph . Rochdale Cenotaph is a First World War memorial on the Esplanade in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, in the north west of England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, it is one of seven memorials in England based on his Cenotaph on Whitehall in London, and one of his more ambitious designs. The memorial was unveiled in 1922 and consists of a 10-metre (33 ft) pylon, topped by an effigy of a recumbent soldier, and Lutyens' characteristic Stone of Remembrance. A public meeting in February 1919 established a consensus to create a monument and a fund for the families of wounded servicemen. The meeting agreed to commission Lutyens to design the monument. His design for a bridge over the River Roch was abandoned after a local dignitary purchased a plot of land adjacent to Rochdale Town Hall and donated it for the site of the memorial. Lutyens revised his design, and Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby, unveiled the memor

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 10, 2018 is Hrithik Roshan . Hrithik Roshan (born 10 January 1974) is an Indian Bollywood actor. His first leading role was in his father Rakesh's Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai (2000), a box-office success that earned him several awards. After a series of unsuccessful films, he starred in the 2003 science fiction film Koi... Mil Gaya, which proved a turning point in his career; he also appeared in its highly successful sequels: Krrish (2006) and Krrish 3 (2013). Roshan earned widespread praise for his roles in Dhoom 2 (2006), Jodhaa Akbar (2008) and Guzaarish (2010). Further success came with the 2011 drama Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, the 2012 revenge film Agneepath, and Bang Bang!, a 2014 action comedy. One of the highest-paid actors in India, he has won many awards, including six Filmfares. He has also performed on stage, launched his own clothing line and debuted on television with Just Dance (2011). As a judge on the show, he became the highe

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 9, 2018 is Der 100. Psalm . Der 100. Psalm (The 100th Psalm), Op. 106, is a composition in four movements by Max Reger in D major for mixed choir and orchestra, a late Romantic setting of Psalm 100. Reger began composing the work in 1908 for the 350th anniversary of Jena University. It premiered simultaneously on 23 February 1910 in Chemnitz, conducted by the composer, and in Breslau, conducted by Georg Dohrn. Reger structured the text in four movements, as a choral symphony. He scored it for a choir of four to eight voices, a large symphony orchestra, and organ. Reger used late-Romantic features of harmony and dynamics, along with polyphony in the Baroque tradition. The last movement is a double fugue, with an instrumental cantus firmus of Luther's chorale "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" as its climax. The biographer Eugen Segnitz considered the work unique in the sacred music of its period, with a convincing musical interpre

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 8, 2018 is Periodic table . The periodic table is a chart of the chemical elements, ordered by their atomic number and electron configurations. The elements in each group (column) often have similar chemical properties. The table also shows four rectangular blocks with some similarities in physical and chemical properties. Six groups have generally accepted names, including the halogens of group 17 and the noble gases of group 18. The table provides a framework for analyzing chemical behaviour, and is extensively used in chemistry and other sciences. The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev published the first widely recognized periodic table in 1869, and correctly predicted some properties of then-unknown elements that would be expected to fill in the gaps. Mendeleev's periodic table has been expanded and refined over time; elements 1–94 have all been found to occur naturally, and elements 95–118 have been synthesized in nuclear reactors o

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 7, 2018 is William of Wrotham . William of Wrotham (died c. 1217) was a medieval English royal administrator and clergyman. Hubert Walter, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury and the king's chief minister, gave William responsibility for the royal tin mines in 1197, and the following year he was placed in charge of tin production, an office later known as the Lord Warden of the Stannaries. William also held ecclesiastical office, eventually becoming Archdeacon of Taunton, and served King John of England as an administrator of ecclesiastical lands and a collector of taxes. He was in charge of the royal fleet in the south of England from 1206 until 1215, and was one of those responsible for the development of Portsmouth as a naval dockyard. He is usually given the title of "keeper of ports" or "keeper of galleys", probably a forerunner of the office of First Lord of the Admiralty. By 1215 William had joined the First

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 5, 2018 is Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) . Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) is the fourth studio album by American rock band Marilyn Manson, released in November 2000 by Nothing and Interscope Records. A rock opera concept album, it is the final installment of a triptych that included Antichrist Superstar (1996), marking a return to the band's industrial metal style. The album was released to generally positive reviews; some praised it as the band's finest work, and multiple publications ranked it as one of the best albums of 2000. British rock magazine Kerrang! later included it on its list of the best albums of the decade. Holy Wood was not as commercially successful in the US as the band's preceding records, debuting at number 13 on the Billboard 200, but it became their most successful album internationally, and made the top twenty of numerous national charts. It was certified gold in sever

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 4, 2018 is Lilias Armstrong . Lilias Armstrong (1882–1937) was an English phonetician. Her book on English intonation, written with Ida C. Ward, was in print for fifty years. She also provided some of the first detailed descriptions of tone in Somali and Kikuyu. Armstrong grew up in Northern England. She graduated from the University of Leeds, where she studied French and Latin. She taught French in an elementary school in the London suburbs before joining the University College Phonetics Department, headed by Daniel Jones, where she was eventually appointed as a reader. Her works include the 1926 book A Handbook of English Intonation (co-written with Ward), the 1934 paper "The Phonetic Structure of Somali", and the book The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu, published posthumously in 1940. She was the subeditor of the International Phonetic Association's journal Le Maître Phonétique for more than a decade, and was praise

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 3, 2018 is Red-backed fairywren . The red-backed fairywren (Malurus melanocephalus) is a species in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is endemic to Australia and can be found near rivers and coastal areas along the northern and eastern coastlines from the Kimberley in the northwest to the Hunter Region in New South Wales. Most males adopt a striking breeding plumage, with brown wings, a brightly coloured red back, and a black head, upperparts and tail. Females, juveniles, and some males have brownish upperparts and paler underparts. The species mainly eats insects, and supplements its diet with seed and small fruits. The preferred habitat is heathland and savannah, particularly where low shrubs and tall grasses provide cover. A group consists of a socially monogamous pair with one or more grown offspring who assist in raising the young. The red-backed fairywren is sexually promiscuous, and each partner may mate with other individu

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 2, 2018 is Lawrence Wetherby . Lawrence Wetherby (January 2, 1908 – March 27, 1994) was a lieutenant governor (1947–1950) and governor (1950–1955) of the US state of Kentucky. As governor, he helped increase funding for education, government benefits, road construction, and industrial diversification. He endorsed the Supreme Court's 1954 desegregation order in the case of Brown v. Board of Education and appointed a biracial commission to oversee the successful integration of the state's schools. As chair of the Southern Governors Conference in 1954 and 1955, he encouraged other southern governors to accept and implement desegregation. Wetherby was limited to one term by the state constitution. His successor, fellow Democrat A. B. "Happy" Chandler, failed to support his attempt in 1956 to succeed Alben Barkley in the US Senate, and he lost to Republican John Sherman Cooper. From 1964 to 1966, Wetherby served on a commission

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 1, 2018 is Joe Warbrick . Joe Warbrick (1 January 1862 – 30 August 1903) was a Māori rugby union player. The youngest person ever to play first-class rugby in New Zealand, he was selected as a 15-year-old to play fullback for Auckland Provincial Clubs. In 1884 he made the first New Zealand representative team, and appeared in seven of their eight matches on their tour of New South Wales. Four years later he conceived of, selected, and led the privately funded New Zealand Native football team, which eventually included several New Zealand-born and foreign-born Europeans. Although the team played 107 matches, including 74 in the British Isles, Warbrick took part in only 21 matches due to injury. The tour, the first from the Southern Hemisphere to visit Britain, remains the longest in rugby's history. In 2008 Warbrick and the Natives were inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame. He effectively retired from rugby after returning from the

The Wikipedia article of the day for December 31, 2017 is Birthday-number effect . The birthday-number effect is the unconscious tendency of people to prefer the numbers in the date of their birthday over other numbers. First reported in 1997 by Japanese psychologists Shinobu Kitayama and Mayumi Karasawa, the birthday-number effect has been shown to hold across age and gender. The effect is most prominent for numbers over 12. Birth dates are unconsciously associated with the self, and most people like themselves; this has been offered as an explanation for the effect. Conversely, people who do not like themselves tend not to exhibit the effect. One lab study revealed an increase in favourable attitudes towards prices that were secretly manipulated to match the day of the month of the subjects’ birth, but a second study using birth year as price did not lead to the same result. People also have an unconscious preference for the letters in their name, and the two effects are significant

The Wikipedia article of the day for December 30, 2017 is William Borah . William Borah (1865–1940) was an outspoken Republican United States Senator from the state of Idaho. A progressive who served in the Senate from 1907 until his death, he is often considered an isolationist. He reluctantly voted for U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 and, once the war ended, fought successfully against Senate ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, which would have made the U.S. part of the League of Nations. Remaining a maverick, he often fought with the Republican presidents in office between 1921 and 1933, though Coolidge offered to make Borah his running mate in 1924. Deprived of his post as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the Democrats took control in 1933, Borah supported some New Deal legislation, but opposed other proposals. In his final years, he felt he might be able to settle differences in Europe by meeting with Hitler; though he did not go, this has not enh

The Wikipedia article of the day for December 29, 2017 is Qatna . Qatna is an ancient city in Syria whose remains are about 18 km (11 mi) northeast of Homs near the village of al-Mishrifeh. It was an important center circa 2000–500 BC, with one of Bronze Age Syria's largest royal palaces (pictured). An intact royal tomb has provided data on the funerary habits of that period. First inhabited circa 3500 BC, it was repopulated around 2800 BC and continued to grow. Around 2000 BC, it became the capital of a regional kingdom that spread its authority over the central and southern Levant. By the 15th century BC, Qatna had lost its hegemony and was under the authority of Mitanni. It was conquered and sacked by the Hittites 1400 BC and abandoned by 1300 BC. It was re-inhabited in 1000 BC, becoming a center of the kingdoms of Palistin and Hamath until it was destroyed by the Assyrians in 720 BC, eventually disappearing in the 6th century BC. The site has been excavated since the 1920s. As

The Wikipedia article of the day for December 28, 2017 is Death of Leelah Alcorn . Leelah Alcorn (November 15, 1997 – December 28, 2014) was an American transgender girl whose suicide attracted international attention. At age 14, she came out as transgender to her parents, and at 16, she asked to undergo transition treatment; instead, they sent her to conversion therapy. After she revealed her attraction toward males to her classmates, her parents removed her from school and revoked her access to social media. She killed herself by walking into highway traffic. In her suicide note, Alcorn blamed her parents for her loneliness and alienation, and asked people to pay more attention to discrimination and abuse faced by transgender youth. LGBT rights activists cited the incident as evidence of the problems she wrote about, and vigils were held in her memory. Petitions that called for the establishment of "Leelah's Law", a ban on conversion therapy in the U.S., received a sup

The Wikipedia article of the day for December 27, 2017 is Brazilian battleship São Paulo . São Paulo was a dreadnought battleship in the Brazilian Navy, the second of two ships in the Minas Geraes class. Launched in 1909 and commissioned a year later, São Paulo was soon involved in the Revolt of the Lash, in which crews on four Brazilian warships mutinied over poor pay and harsh punishments for even minor offenses. In 1922 the ship fired its guns in anger for the first time, attacking a fort that had been taken during the Tenente revolts. Two years later, mutineers took control of the ship and sailed to Montevideo where they obtained asylum. In the 1930s, São Paulo was passed over for modernization. When Brazil entered the Second World War, the ship sailed to the port of Recife and remained there as the port's main defense for the duration of the war. Stricken from the naval register in 1947, the dreadnought remained as a training vessel until 1951, when it was taken under tow to