Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 February 2
From today's featured articleThe San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge half dollar is a fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936 as a commemorative coin. One of many commemoratives issued that year, it was designed by Jacques Schnier and honors the opening of the Bay Bridge that November. One side of the coin depicts a grizzly bear, a symbol of California, and the other shows the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, with the Ferry Building. Congress passed authorizing legislation for the coin in 1936. Schnier's models were approved and the coins were struck at the San Francisco Mint. Just over 70,000 coins were sold, by mail, in person, and from booths at the Bay Bridge's approaches, making it the first commemorative coin to be sold on a drive-in basis. The coins were taken off sale in February 1937, with the unsold remainder returned to the Mint for redemption and melting. The Bay Bridge half dollar catalogs in the low hundreds of dollars, depending on condition. (Full article...)
Recently featured:
Did you know ...
|
In the news
On this dayFebruary 2: Groundhog Day in Canada and the United States
Alix Le Clerc (b. 1576) · William Stanley (b. 1829) · Philip Seymour Hoffman (d. 2014)
More anniversaries:
|
Today's featured picture
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (2 February 1754 – 17 May 1838) was a French politician and diplomat. His career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI, Napoleon, Louis XVIII and Louis-Philippe, as well as the French Revolutionary era preceding Napoleon. Those whom he served often distrusted him but found him extremely useful, and the name "Talleyrand" has become a byword for crafty, cynical diplomacy. This portrait in oils was painted by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon in 1817, during the reign of Louis XVIII; Prud'hon had previously painted a portrait of each of Napoleon's two wives. The picture is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Painting credit: Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
Recently featured:
|
Other areas of Wikipedia
- Community portal – Bulletin board, projects, resources and activities covering a wide range of Wikipedia areas.
- Help desk – Ask questions about using Wikipedia.
- Local embassy – For Wikipedia-related communication in languages other than English.
- Reference desk – Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects.
- Site news – Announcements, updates, articles and press releases on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.
- Village pump – For discussions about Wikipedia itself, including areas for technical issues and policies.
Wikipedia's sister projects
Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects:
Free media repository
Wiki software development
Wikimedia project coordination
Free textbooks and manuals
Free knowledge base
Free-content news
Collection of quotations
Free-content library
Directory of species
Free learning materials and activities
Free travel guide
Dictionary and thesaurus