Wikipedia:Main Page history/2024 January 1
From today's featured article
The koala is an arboreal plant-eating marsupial native to Australia, recognised worldwide as a symbol of the country. Its closest living relatives are the wombats. It has a stout, tailless body and large head with round, fluffy ears and a large, dark nose. The koala has a body length of 60 to 85 cm (24 to 33 in) and weighs 4 to 15 kg (9 to 33 lb). Fur colour ranges from silver grey to chocolate brown. Koalas typically inhabit open Eucalyptus woodlands, and the leaves of these trees make up most of their diet. Because this eucalypt diet has low nutritional and caloric content, koalas are largely sedentary and sleep for up to 20 hours a day. They are asocial animals, and bonding only exists between mothers and dependent offspring. They have few natural predators or parasites but are threatened by various pathogens, as well as by bushfires and droughts. The biggest threat to their existence is habitat destruction due to agriculture and urbanisation. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
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- ... that if the double-headed Romano-British dragonesque brooch type (example pictured) represents any real animal, it may be hares rather than dragons?
- ... that human rights activist Adeeb Youssef was imprisoned and tortured but later became the governor of Central Darfur?
- ... that the Cross Temple in Fangshan, Beijing, is the only surviving Nestorian Christian site in China?
- ... that Switch Disco's song "Everything" saw a 185-percent increase in its Spotify streams after it was used in the seventh series of Love Island?
- ... that after popularizing the term rizz, Kai Cenat stopped using the term himself, saying that TikTok had butchered the word?
- ... that Forbes said of the Jetson One aircraft, "Flying Cars Are Here"?
- ... that after accepting the job of team physician for the Green Bay Packers in 1962, E. S. Brusky was not paid a salary for at least the first nine years of his tenure?
- ... that examples of artificial planets in science fiction include Riverworld, the Well World, and the Death Star?
In the news
- In Nigeria, bandits kill at least 200 people in Plateau State.
- A mass shooting in Prague, Czech Republic, leaves 15 people dead (candlelight vigil pictured).
- Pope Francis approves a declaration that allows Catholic clergy to bless same-sex couples.
- After weeks of earthquakes, a volcanic eruption occurs near Grindavík, Iceland.
- An earthquake in Jishishan County, China, leaves more than 140 people dead.
On this day
January 1: Public Domain Day; Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Roman Rite Catholicism)
- 417 – Galla Placidia was forced by her brother Honorius into marriage with his magister militum, Constantius III.
- 1808 – As a result of the lobbying efforts by the abolitionist movement (emblem pictured), the importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned, although slavery itself was not yet abolished.
- 1914 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the U.S. state of Florida became the first scheduled airline using a winged aircraft.
- 1957 – The revised Thai criminal code came into force, strengthening the law on lèse-majesté in Thailand to include insult and treating it as a crime against national security.
- 2019 – The NASA space probe New Horizons flew by the trans-Neptunian object Arrokoth, making it the farthest object visited by a spacecraft.
- Henry of Marcy (d. 1189)
- Marie-Louise Lachapelle (b. 1769)
- Vidya Balan (b. 1979)
- Tusse (b. 2002)
From today's featured list
In 1944, the American magazine Billboard published its first chart ranking the top-performing country music songs in the United States, under the title Most Played Juke Box Folk Records. The Juke Box Folk listing was compiled based on reports from "Billboard representatives" detailing the most-played songs of the genre in jukeboxes from "all the country's leading operating centers", which were averaged to give an overall chart. The first number-one song listed was "Pistol Packin' Mama", which remained in the top spot for the first seven weeks. The song, originally recorded by Al Dexter (pictured) in 1942, had remained hugely popular ever since, and been recorded by many different singers. Dexter was the artist with the most different songs at number one in 1944, topping the chart with "Pistol Packin' Mama", "Rosalita", "Too Late to Worry" and "So Long Pal". Red Foley had the longest unbroken run at number one, spending thirteen consecutive weeks in the top spot in the fall with the patriotic wartime song "Smoke on the Water". (Full list...)
Today's featured picture
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Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It marks Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse's first appearance in a distributed film. Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, created by the Disney studio but owned at the time by Universal Pictures, and when two silent films featuring Mickey failed to gain a distributor, Walt Disney decided instead to put him in a sound cartoon – perhaps inspired by The Jazz Singer. With music arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, Steamboat Willie was one of the first cartoons with synchronized sound. The film received wide critical acclaim upon its release, and it has been preserved in the United States National Film Registry for its significance. The film enters the public domain under U.S. copyright law today (January 1, 2024), 95 years after its release in 1928. Film credit: Walt Disney Studios
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