Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 January 18

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From today's featured article

Porlock Stone Circle, on Exmoor in the south-western English county of Somerset, is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age between 3,300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circles' builders. Many monuments were built in Exmoor during the Bronze Age, but the only other surviving stone circle in the area is the one near Withypool. The circle near Porlock is about 24 metres (79 feet) in diameter and has thirteen green micaceous sandstone rocks. Directly to the north-east of the ring is a cairn apparently connected to a linear stone row. A small lead wheel inside the circle suggests that the site was visited during the Romano-British period. The site was rediscovered in the 1920s. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Kansas City Ballet dancers in Theme and Variations

... that George Balanchine choreographed the ballet Theme and Variations (pictured) as a tribute to the imperial Russian ballet style?
... that according to a chaplain at Nonnberg Abbey, an abbot was immediately struck blind after stealing one of Saint Erentrude's relics 300 years after her death?
... that City of Champaign v. Madigan was the first decision by an Illinois court addressing whether the private emails of government officials are subject to public disclosure?
... that Chinese bandit Ma Xiang raised a thousands-strong rebel army in just one or two days, conquered three commanderies, and declared himself emperor, only to be killed by a much weaker opponent?
... that a mental-health hotline in Puerto Rico recorded a spike in calls leading up to Hurricane Beryl?
... that Georgina Schuyler led the campaign to have the poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus placed inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty?
... that the gill chambers of the tiger lucine, the dwarf tiger lucine, and the Pennsylvania lucine contain symbiotic bacteria which help them live in sediments not suited to other bivalves?
... that upon completing their apprenticeships, British printers might be doused in ink and paper shavings and paraded through the streets?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Vaccines; Portal

Yoweri Museveni

Yoweri Museveni (pictured) is re-elected as President of Uganda.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and his cabinet resign as a result of a child welfare fraud scandal.
An earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi kills at least 77 people and injures more than 800 others.
Donald Trump becomes the first U.S. president to be impeached twice after the House of Representatives charges him with incitement of insurrection.

On this day

January 18: Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States (2021)

Wilhelm I of Germany

1535 – Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes (present-day Lima, Peru) as the capital of the lands conquered for the Spanish crown.
1871 – Wilhelm I (pictured) became the first emperor, as a number of previously independent German states unified to form the German Empire.
1915 – Japanese prime minister Ōkuma Shigenobu issued the Twenty-One Demands to China in a bid to increase Japan's power in East Asia.
1943 – World War II: In Operation Iskra, the Red Army established a narrow land corridor to Leningrad, partially easing the protracted German siege.

César Cui (b. 1835)
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (d. 1873)
Philippe Starck (b. 1949)

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From today's featured list

Kevin Feige

The 2019 American superhero film Avengers: Endgame was nominated for one Academy Award, one Annie Award (which it won), one British Academy Film Award, three Critics' Choice Awards (winning two), one Grammy Award, one Hollywood Film Award (which it won), seven People's Choice Awards (winning three), and two Satellite Awards. The film is the direct sequel to Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, produced by Kevin Feige (pictured), and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and features an ensemble cast. Many of the actors were recognized for their work, including Robert Downey Jr. (seven nominations), Scarlett Johansson (six nominations), Chris Evans (five nominations), and Josh Brolin (five nominations). (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Sympetrum danae, the black darter or black meadowhawk, is a species of dragonfly found in northern Europe, Asia, and North America. Both sexes are black and yellow, but the abdomen of the male is largely black while that of the female is largely yellow. Breeding takes place in shallow acidic pools, lake margins and ditches in lowland heaths and moorland bogs. The female lays her eggs during flight by dipping the tip of her abdomen into the water. The eggs hatch the following spring, the larvae developing very rapidly and emerging as adults in as little as two months. The male seen here is perched on a frond of bracken on Warren Heath in Hampshire, England.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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