Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 August 25

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From today's featured article

Richie Farmer (born August 25, 1969) is a former collegiate basketball player and Republican Party politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. He led Clay County High School to the 1987 state high school boys' basketball championship, scoring a championship game record 51 points and being named 1988's Kentucky Mr. Basketball. He played collegiately for the Kentucky Wildcats. In his senior year, the team reached the Elite Eight of the 1992 NCAA Tournament, losing to Duke in one of the most memorable college basketball games ever. He served as Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner from 2004 to 2012, winning two terms by large margins. Kentucky Senate President David L. Williams made Farmer his running mate in the 2011 gubernatorial election, but their ticket was defeated. After leaving office as commissioner, Farmer was investigated for corruption and was eventually sentenced to 27 months in federal prison. He was released from a halfway house in 2016. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Flat bottle with mailer

... that Garçon Wines produces a wine bottle (pictured) designed to fit through a letter box?
... that Hermin Esser performed 14 tenor roles at the Bayreuth Festival dedicated exclusively to stageworks by Richard Wagner, beginning in 1966 as Froh and ending in 1981 as Tristan?
... that voice actress Yuki Nakashima is a public relations officer for Japan's Wakayama Prefecture?
... that the Scottish surgeon David Wallace was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George for his work in the Boer War and knighted for his work in World War I?
... that the Maple River State Game Area contains the only known inland salt marsh in the state of Michigan?
... that Sophie Luff, who captained the boys' cricket team whilst at school, was named the "most promising young female cricketer" of 2015?
... that the different types of combined hormonal contraception include a pill, a patch, an injection, and a vaginal ring?
... that Betty Cantor-Jackson recorded over 1000 tapes of the Grateful Dead, Legion of Mary, Jerry Garcia Band, and Old & In the Way, but lost them when she could not pay the storage fees?

In the news

Ural Airlines Airbus A321 in 2013

Brazil's National Institute for Space Research announces that it has detected more than 75,000 wildfires in the country since January, at least 40,000 of which have occurred in the Amazon rainforest.
At least 80 people are killed and 160 others injured in a bombing at a wedding in Kabul, Afghanistan.
All 233 people on board Ural Airlines Flight 178 (aircraft pictured) survive a crash following bird strikes in both engines of an Airbus A321.
Typhoon Lekima impacts the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and East China, killing at least 80 people.

On this day

August 25: Independence Day in Uruguay (1825)

Rings of Neptune

1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, currently the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, was formed by royal charter from King Henry VIII.
1875 – Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, completing the journey in approximately 21 hours and 40 minutes.
1920 – Polish forces under Józef Piłsudski successfully forced the Russians to withdraw from Warsaw at the Battle of Warsaw, the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War.
1950 – In tennis, Althea Gibson became the first African-American woman to compete at the United States National Championships (now known as the US Open).
1989 – The Voyager 2 spacecraft made its closest approach to Neptune and provided definitive proof of the existence of the planet's rings (pictured).

Henry Morgan (d. 1688) · Luís Alves de Lima e Silva (b. 1803) · Babe Siebert (d. 1939)

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Today's featured picture

Wemyss Bay railway station serves the village of Wemyss Bay in Inverclyde, Scotland. The station is a terminus on the Inverclyde Line, about 26 miles (42 km) west of Glasgow Central. It incorporates the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry terminal connecting mainland Scotland to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute and is managed by Abellio ScotRail. The station was one of only ten to be awarded five stars in Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations by Simon Jenkins. The building was designed by James Miller in 1903 for the Caledonian Railway and is remarkable for its use of glass and steel curves. It is noted for its architectural qualities and, although one of Scotland's finest railway buildings and Category A listed, it has suffered from neglect. A major refurbishment scheme carried out jointly by Network Rail, Inverclyde Council and the Scottish Government from June 2014 to the spring of 2016 has seen the station buildings and adjacent ferry terminal fully restored. This picture shows the station concourse, with the ticket office and glass roof.

Photograph credit: Colin Harkness

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