Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 February 26

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From today's featured article

Waisale Serevi (born 1968) is a former Fijian rugby union footballer and coach. A member of the World Rugby Hall of Fame, he is widely considered to be the greatest rugby sevens player in the history of the game. In the 15-man game, he played for Fiji 39 times between 1989 and 2003, scoring 376 points and representing his country in the 1991, 1999, and 2003 Rugby World Cups. He also played professionally for the Mitsubishi, Leicester, Stade Montois, Stade Bordelais and Staines rugby teams. His representative sevens career started in 1989 when he played for Fiji at the Hong Kong tournament. Serevi also played in the 1993, 1997, 2001, and 2005 Rugby World Cup Sevens, winning the World Cup with Fiji in 1997 and 2005. He won silver at the Commonwealth Games in 1998 and 2002, and captured bronze in 2006. After winning the 2005 Rugby World Cup Sevens, Serevi was appointed player-coach of the Fiji Sevens national team, and led them to a 2005–06 World Sevens Series victory. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Sophie Karthäuser

... that among the Mozart roles sung by soprano Sophie Karthäuser (pictured) are Ilia, Tamiri, and Serpetta?
... that cardiac allograft vasculopathy is a complication of heart transplantation that affects up to half of recipients within ten years?
... that Liang Weiyan and his team designed the water turbines of the world's largest power plant?
... that otters and seabirds seem to be able to detect when butter clams are toxic, but humans cannot?
... that Nina Morrison was nominated for the 2019 AFL Women's Rising Star award on debut – but suffered a season-ending knee injury in training the next week?
... that in 1407, Admiral Zheng He's treasure fleet defeated the pirate force of Chen Zuyi, who had occupied Palembang in today's Indonesia, and sent him back to China for execution?
... that the Payún Matrú volcano, last active about 500 years ago, is the source of the longest Quaternary lava flow on Earth?
... that in 1832, sugar planter Hamilton Brown argued that slaves in Jamaica were better off than the poor in Britain?

In the news

Rami Malek

Green Book wins Best Picture and Bohemian Rhapsody wins in four categories (Best Actor recipient Rami Malek pictured) at the Academy Awards.
Pope Francis concludes a summit in Vatican City that discussed sexual abuse by Catholic Church clergy.
Scientists synthesize hachimoji DNA using four new nucleobases in addition to the four in natural DNA.
A fire in a historic district of Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills at least 80 people.

On this day

February 26: First day of Ayyám-i-Há (Bahá'í calendar, 2019); Birth of Fatimah al-Zahra/Mother's Day in Iran (2019)

Napoleon's Return from Elba by Charles de Steuben

747 BC – According to Ptolemy, the reign of the Babylonian king Nabonassar began and with it, a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records.
1815 – Napoleon escaped from Elba (return depicted), an island off the coast of Italy, where he had been exiled after the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau one year earlier.
1935 – Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe reinstated, violating the Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of World War I.
1979 – The Superliner railcar entered revenue service with Amtrak.
2012 – African-American teenager Trayvon Martin was killed while walking in a Sanford, Florida, neighborhood, prompting a nationwide controversy.

Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll (b. 1629) · Nadezhda Krupskaya (b. 1869) · Howard Hanson (d. 1981)

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Today's featured picture

Cygnus is a northern constellation lying on the plane of the Milky Way and named after the swan. The constellation contains Deneb, which is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, being the most distant first-magnitude star, and one corner of the Summer Triangle. It also has some notable X-ray sources and the giant stellar association of Cygnus OB2. The swan is typically formed with stars Delta and Epsilon Cygni as its wings, Deneb at the tail, and Albireo as the tip of its beak.

Photograph: Ken Crawford

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