Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 August 17
From today's featured articleHurricane Andrew (1992) was an Atlantic hurricane, the most destructive one ever in Florida. Named as a tropical storm on August 17, it hit the northwestern Bahamas six days later at Category 5 strength, leaving 1,700 people homeless, killing four, and disrupting the transport, communications, water, sanitation, agriculture, and fishing sectors. It struck Florida on August 24 with sustained wind speeds as high as 165 mph (270 km/h). In the city of Homestead in Miami-Dade County, it stripped many homes of all but their concrete foundations. Statewide, Andrew destroyed or damaged over 164,000 homes, killed 44 people, and left a record $25 billion in damage. A facility housing Burmese pythons was destroyed, releasing them into the Everglades, where they now number up to 300,000. The hurricane destroyed oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico before hitting Louisiana, where it downed 80% of the trees in the Atchafalaya River Basin, devastated agriculture, and caused 17 deaths. The storm spawned at least 28 tornadoes along the Gulf Coast, mostly in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. In total, Andrew caused $26.5 billion in damage and left 65 people dead. (Full article...)
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On this day...August 17: Independence Day in Indonesia (1945)
Nitta Yoshisada (d. 1338) · Davy Crockett (b. 1786) · Tarja Turunen (b. 1977) |
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Jajan pasar (market munchies) in Java, consisting of assorted kue and usually served as a food gift or as a dessert for a rice dish known as tumpeng. Kue is a fairly broad term in Indonesian used to describe a wide variety of bite-sized snacks, including cakes, cookies, fritters, pies, scones, and patisserie. Kue demonstrate influences from indigenous, Chinese, Indian, and European cuisines, as well as European cake and pastry influences. For example, bakpia and kue ku are of Chinese Peranakan origin; kue putu is derived from the Indian puttu; kue bugis, klepon, nagasari, getuk, lupis and wajik are native origin; and lapis legit, kue cubit, kastengel, rissoles and pastel are European influenced. Photograph: Gunawan Kartapranata
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