Wikipedia:Main Page history/2022 January 7b

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

From today's featured article

Skull and mandible

Hammond's rice rat (Mindomys hammondi), also known as Hammond's oryzomys, is a species of rodent in the tribe Oryzomyini of family Cricetidae. Formerly considered to be related with Nectomys, Sigmodontomys, Megalomys, or Oryzomys, it is now placed in its own genus, Mindomys, but its relationships remain obscure; some evidence supports a placement near Oecomys or as a basal member of Oryzomyini. Mindomys hammondi is known only from Ecuador, where it occurs in montane forest; a record from the Amazon basin lowlands is dubious. Reportedly, it lives on the ground and is associated with water; others suggest it lives in trees. A large, long-tailed, and long-whiskered rat, its fur is buff above and abruptly lighter below. The front part of the skull (rostrum) is heavily built. The species is named after the collector who first found it, Gilbert Hammond. He supplied natural history specimens to Oldfield Thomas and others. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Johanna Quaas

... that Johanna Quaas (pictured), the world's oldest competitive gymnast, did a tandem skydive from about 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) in 2016, dedicating it to Queen Elizabeth II?
... that The Betty White Show was the subject of significant controversy after Betty White refused to fire a black cast member?
... that when Stefan Keil moved to Yekaterinburg, Russia, as the German consul general, one of his first appearances was at the European Christmas market, dressed as Saint Nicholas?
... that When Harry Met Santa, an advert for Posten Norge featuring Santa kissing a man, commemorated 50 years since the repeal of Norway's anti-gay laws?
... that Edward M. Kirby proposed the first Pageant of Peace, to follow the lighting of the National Christmas Tree in Washington, D.C.?
... that rugby league's 2022 Challenge Cup final will take place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium instead of its traditional location of Wembley Stadium due to a scheduling conflict?
... that COVID-19 vaccine scientist Paul Duprex got his start in microbiology by experimenting with his high-school classmates' spit?
... that the origin of Christmas is uncertain?

In the news

Sidney Poitier

Bahamian-American actor Sidney Poitier (pictured) dies at the age of 94.
Kazakhstan's government resigns amid protests against a sharp increase in fuel prices.
Peter Wright wins the PDC World Darts Championship.
American actress and comedian Betty White dies at the age of 99.

On this day

January 7: Christmas (Eastern Christianity); Victory over Genocide Day in Cambodia (1979); Flag Day in Italy (1797)

Guy Menzies

1610 – Through his telescope, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei made the first observation of Jupiter's Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, although he was not able to distinguish the first two until the following night.
1782 – The Bank of North America opened in Philadelphia as the first de facto central bank of the United States.
1931 – Australian aviator Guy Menzies (pictured) flew from Sydney to New Zealand's West Coast, making the first solo trans-Tasman flight.
1989 – Representatives of Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini delivered a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev, inviting him to consider Islam as an alternative to communism, and predicting the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc.
2012 – A hot air balloon flight from Carterton, New Zealand, collided with a power line while landing, causing it to crash and killing all eleven people on board.

Nicholas Hilliard (d. 1619)
Elizabeth Louisa Foster Mather (b. 1815)
Juan Gabriel (b. 1950)

More anniversaries:

From today's featured list

Visualization of 6 as a perfect number

Mersenne primes and perfect numbers are two deeply interlinked types of natural numbers in number theory. Mersenne primes, named after the friar Marin Mersenne, are prime numbers that can be expressed as $2 p - 1$ for some positive integer $p$ . For example, $3$ is a Mersenne prime as it is a prime number and is expressible as $22 - 1$ . Perfect numbers are natural numbers that equal the sum of their positive proper divisors (all divisors excluding the number itself). There is a one-to-one correspondence between the Mersenne primes and the even perfect numbers. This is due to the Euclid–Euler theorem, partially proved by Euclid and completed by Leonhard Euler: even numbers are perfect if and only if they can be expressed in the form $2 p - 1 \times (2 p - 1)$ , where $2 p - 1$ is a Mersenne prime. (Full list...)

Recently featured:

Today's featured picture

This historical coat of arms of Illinois is an illustration from State Arms of the Union by Henry Mitchell, published by Louis Prang in 1876. It depicts a bald eagle perched on a rock carrying a shield with the stars and stripes. In the eagle's beak there is a banner with the state motto, "State Sovereignty, National Union."

Illustration credit: Henry Mitchell; restored by Andrew Shiva

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.
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.
Teahouse – To ask your first basic questions about contributing to Wikipedia.
Village pump – For discussions about Wikipedia itself, including areas for technical issues and policies.