Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 April 26

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From today's featured article

Sonja Morgenstern skating a compulsory figure

Compulsory figures were formerly a segment of figure skating, from which the sport derives its name. Requiring skaters to trace precise circles while completing difficult turns and edges, these exercises made up 60 percent of the total score at most competitions around the world until 1947. The simple figure-eight shape was executed by connecting two circles; other figures included the three turn, the counter turn, the rocker turn, the bracket turn, and the loop. Compulsory figures steadily declined in importance, and in 1990 the International Skating Union voted to discontinue them as a part of competitions. Although few skaters continue to practice them, some skaters and coaches continue to use them to develop alignment, core strength, body control, and discipline. Since 2015, the World Figure Sport Society has conducted festivals and competitions of compulsory figures, endorsed by the Ice Skating Institute. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Rendering of the Cathedral of
St. John the Divine as designed

... that the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine (design shown) in New York City has been nicknamed "St. John the Unfinished"?
... that a Roman army in Africa was wiped out by a Carthaginian attack led by an elephant charge in 255 BC?
... that footballer Jamal Farhan, who was banned for life by FIFA after punching a referee in the head, later expressed remorse and advised fans not to imitate him?
... that costermongers are named after the costard, a variety of apple that they sold?
... that Haroun and the Sea of Stories, an opera by Charles Wuorinen, is based on a children's novel by Salman Rushdie about free imagination in battle with thought control?
... that Central Collegiate Hockey Association commissioner Bill Beagan signed the first national television contract for colleges in the United States?
... that the design of the Netherlands Fractal Pattern was made to confuse a person looking at it?
... that the first act passed by the New Zealand Parliament was the "Bellamy's Bill", which permitted the sale of alcohol on the parliamentary premises?

In the news

Coronavirus pandemic

Netanyahu and Gantz (left and right respectively)

After seventeen months of stalemate, the Likud and Blue and White parties reach an agreement for Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz (both pictured) to share power in Israel.
A mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Canada, leaves twenty-two victims dead.
In the South Korean legislative election, the ruling Democratic Party and their allies increase their majority in the National Assembly.

On this day

April 26: World Intellectual Property Day

Statue of Sybil Ludington

1478 – In a conspiracy to replace the Medici family as rulers of the Republic of Florence, the Pazzi family attacked Lorenzo de' Medici and killed his brother Giuliano during Mass.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington (statue pictured) rode forty miles (64 km) through the night to warn militiamen under her father Henry's command that British troops were planning to invade Danbury, Connecticut.
1970 – The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) came into being when the WIPO Convention entered into force.
2007 – Controversy surrounding the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a Soviet Red Army World War II memorial in Tallinn, Estonia, erupted into mass protests and riots.

Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily (b. 1782)
Srinivasa Ramanujan (d. 1920)
Giorgio Moroder (b. 1940)

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Today's featured picture

Nototropis falcatus is a species of amphipod crustacean found in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and North Sea, where it lives on the seabed. Growing to a length of about 7 mm (0.3 in), the third pereiopod or thoracic leg is particularly stout, and has a curved propodus (penultimate joint) and a powerful dactylus (claw). It can swim using its abdominal legs and orienting itself on its side, and can also burrow in the soft substrate. The species probably feeds by grazing on plant material and consuming detritus.

This picture shows an N. falcatus individual collected at a dredge disposal site off Zeebrugge, Belgium.

Photograph credit: Hans Hillewaert

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