Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 October 11

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From today's featured article

The Zapata rail (Cyanolimnas cerverai) is a medium-sized, dark-coloured rail. It has brown upperparts, greyish-blue underparts, a red-based yellow bill, white undertail coverts, and red eyes and legs. Its short wings render it almost flightless. It is endemic to the wetlands of the Zapata Peninsula in southern Cuba, where its only known nest was found in sawgrass tussocks. Little is known of its diet or reproductive behaviour, and its described calls may belong to a different species. The Zapata rail was discovered by Spanish zoologist Fermín Zanón Cervera in March 1927 in the Zapata Swamp near Santo Tomás, in the southern Matanzas Province of Cuba. The swamp holds one other bird found nowhere else, the Zapata wren, and also gives its name to the Zapata sparrow. Due to ongoing habitat loss in its limited range, its small population size, and predation by introduced mammals and catfish, the Zapata rail is evaluated as critically endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of threatened species. The swamp is listed as an internationally important wetland by the Convention on Wetlands. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

David Suhor

... that David Suhor (pictured) opened proceedings for a meeting of the Pensacola City Council by delivering a Satanic prayer?
... that professional Street Fighter player Daigo Umehara lost an exhibition match of Street Fighter V to rapper Lupe Fiasco?
... that Swedish photographer Gösta Peterson met his wife at a cocktail party, where he was watering the flowers?
... that the number of traffic collisions at the TEDES-monitored intersections and fast lanes in Gaziantep, Turkey, declined by about 40% within two months of its installation?
... that a 15th-century English gentleman was called "Humphrey Stafford with the Silver Hand" because of a prosthesis he wore, perhaps having lost his limb in a "bellicose engagement"?
... that Kirkus Reviews wrote that the plot and tone of the 1998 young adult novel Love Among the Walnuts were akin to those of a Preston Sturges or Frank Capra film?
... that retired Canadian meteorologist Peter Coade was certified by The Guinness Book of World Records as having had the longest career of any weather forecaster?
... that in 1595, the Chantry House in Bunbury, Cheshire, was leased for 2,000 years for the rent of a red rose?

In the news

Juan Manuel Santos

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (pictured) is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Colombian conflict.
Hurricane Matthew kills more than 1,000 people, mainly in Haiti.
Bernard L. Feringa, Jean-Pierre Sauvage, and Sir J. Fraser Stoddart are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the synthesis of molecular machines.
David Thouless, F. Duncan Haldane, and J. Michael Kosterlitz share the Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical discoveries using topology to understand superconductors, superfluids, and other exotic states of condensed matter.
Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.

On this day...

October 11: National Coming Out Day (international); Day of Ashura (Islam, 2016); Yom Kippur begins at sunset (Judaism, 2016)

Apollo 7 launch

1311 – The peerage and clergy of the Kingdom of England imposed the Ordinances of 1311 to restrict King Edward II's powers.
1614 – A group of merchants led by Adriaen Block presented a petition to the States General of the Netherlands to receive exclusive trading privileges for the New Netherland colony.
1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: The Royal Navy captured eleven Dutch Navy ships without any losses in the Battle of Camperdown.
1941 – Armed insurgents from the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia attacked Axis-occupied zones in the city of Prilep, beginning the National Liberation War of Macedonia.
1968 – Apollo 7 (lift-off pictured), the first manned mission of NASA's Apollo program, and the first three-man American space mission, launched from Complex 34 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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Today's featured picture

A deluxe airline meal by Do & Co as served aboard Austrian Airlines flights. This meal consists of boquerones, olive tapenade, tomatoes and basil in olive oil, jamon, manchego, fuet, chorizo, grilled vegetables, chocolate mousse, strawberries, and a bread basket.

Such airline meals are served to passengers on board commercial airliners and prepared by specialist airline catering services. Airline meals vary widely in quality and quantity across different airline companies and classes of travel, and may range from a simple snack or beverage in short-haul economy class to a seven-course gourmet meal in a first class long-haul flight.

Photograph: Austrian Airlines

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