Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 March 26

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From today's featured article

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 parts of plants. It has a huge range and is not threatened, despite hunting, poisoning by pesticides and natural predation by mammals, birds and reptiles. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

A photo finish captures a triple dead heat

... that dead heats between two or even three racehorses (example pictured) were more common before the introduction of the photo finish?
... that James W. Downing, a survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor, compiled lists of his shipmates' names and addresses to inform their families back home?
... that strandflats are the most studied coastal landform in Norway?
... that Ralph Abernathy was harshly criticized by other African-American civil rights activists for alleging in his autobiography that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. committed adultery the night before he was assassinated?
... that Alliance Defending Freedom's first landmark case was the 1995 US Supreme Court lawsuit Rosenberger v. University of Virginia?
... that Mary Nomura, a singer who was sent to the Manzanar concentration camp as an orphaned teenager, became known as the "songbird of Manzanar"?
... that the terms of the Treaty of Livadia between Qing China and the Russian Empire were so unfavorable to China that the negotiator Chonghou was sentenced to death?
... that sisters Carmen and Ramona Brussig were born within 15 minutes of each other and won Paralympic gold medals within 15 minutes of each other?

In the news

March for Our Lives protesters

More than two million protesters participate globally in March for Our Lives rallies for tighter gun control in the United States (protesters in Washington, D.C. pictured).
The Boat Race is held in London, with Cambridge winning both the men's and the women's events.
A gunman takes hostages at a supermarket in Trèbes, France, and kills four people before being shot dead by police.
A suicide bombing kills 33 people in Kabul, Afghanistan.
President of Peru Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (pictured) resigns amidst scandals surrounding the Operation Car Wash criminal investigation.

On this day...

March 26: Independence Day in Bangladesh (1971)

Salk administering the polio vaccine

590 – Byzantine emperor Maurice proclaimed his son Theodosius as his co-emperor.
1351 – War of the Breton Succession: Thirty knights each from France and England fought to determine who would rule the Duchy of Brittany, which later was celebrated as a noble display of the ideals of chivalry.
1885 – Feeling that Canada had failed to address the protection of their rights, the Métis people, led by Louis Riel, began the North-West Rebellion.
1953 – Jonas Salk announced the successful test of his polio vaccine on a small group of adults and children (vaccination pictured).
1971 – East Pakistan declared its independence from Pakistan to become Bangladesh, starting the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Conrad Gessner (b. 1516) · James Hutton (d. 1797) · Eazy-E (d. 1995)

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From today's featured list

Falcon 9 booster B1021 landed at sea on April 8, 2016

Since their first mission in June 2010, rockets from the Falcon 9 family have been launched 51 times. Of these, 49 missions were successful, ISS cargo vessel CRS-7 was destroyed in flight, and one mission placed Dragon CRS-1 in the correct orbit but failed to deliver a secondary payload. Additionally, one rocket exploded on the launch pad in a pre-flight test, destroying the Amos-6 satellite. Designed and operated by private manufacturer SpaceX, the Falcon 9 rocket family includes the retired versions Falcon 9 v1.0, v1.1 and v1.2 "Full Thrust", the current "Full Thrust Block 4" upgrade and Falcon Heavy, and the in-development Falcon 9 Block 5. The Falcon design features reusable first-stage boosters, landing either on a ground pad near the launch site, or on a drone ship at sea. Falcon 9 was the first rocket to land propulsively after delivering a payload to orbit. This achievement is expected to significantly reduce launch costs. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

An 1884 illustration by Carlo Cornaglia of the Milan premiere of Don Carlos. This grand opera, composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, is adapted from Friedrich Schiller's dramatic play Don Carlos and tells the conflicts of Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545–1568). First performed in 1867, the opera exists in numerous versions, the longest of which lasts four hours.

Illustration: Carlo Cornaglia; Engraving: Giuseppe Barberis; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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