Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 August 9

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From today's featured article

The 2008 UAW-Dodge 400 was the third stock car race of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was held on March 2 before a crowd of 153,000 in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 267-lap race was won by Carl Edwards of the Roush Fenway Racing team, for his ninth career win in the series. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second and Edwards's teammate Greg Biffle came in third. The race was stopped when Jeff Gordon crashed on lap 262, strewing car parts into the path of other drivers; after the restart, Edwards maintained the lead. There were eleven cautions and 19 lead changes by nine different drivers during the race. Ford took over the lead of the Manufacturers' Championship, five points ahead of Dodge. The race attracted 12.1 million television viewers. Edwards was later issued with a 100-point penalty after his car was found to violate NASCAR regulations, dropping him from first to seventh in the Drivers' Championship. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

James Hervey Price

... that James Hervey Price (pictured) renamed the town of Saugeen to Southampton?
... that an entrance to one of the Villard Houses was turned into an exit because it was too close to a chapel of St. Patrick's Cathedral?
... that Hoagy Carmichael's song "Stardust" has been recorded more than 1,500 times?
... that although the Germans boasted that they captured British radio traffic with ease, the Wireless Set Number 10 was so secure that they never even knew of its existence?
... that after starting Los Angeles Spanish-language television station KVEA, a group led by Saul Steinberg bought other Spanish-language stations to form the Telemundo network?
... that Murray Koster started for the Sharks rugby team against the British and Irish Lions, paired with Werner Kok?
... that the church cantata Gelobet sei der Herr täglich (Praised be the Lord daily) by Philipp Heinrich Erlebach for four voices and strings is extant in a manuscript score from around 1710?
... that Kevin Kopps reworked his pitching delivery based on how he played fetch with his dog?

In the news

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya

Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya (pictured) travels to Poland on a humanitarian visa after attempts by the Belarus Olympic Committee to repatriate her against her will.
In Olympic athletics, Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas breaks a 26-year-old world record in the women's triple jump, and world records are set in men's and women's 400 metres hurdles by Norwegian Karsten Warholm and American Sydney McLaughlin.
Wildfires in southern Turkey kill at least eight people and injure more than 800 others.

On this day

August 9: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples; National Women's Day in South Africa (1956)

Replica of the original Fat Man atomic bomb

1877 – Nez Perce War: Both the Nez Perce and the United States Army suffered numerous casualties at the Battle of the Big Hole, which ended inconclusively.
1945 – World War II: The USAAF bomber Bockscar dropped a Fat Man atomic bomb (replica pictured) on Nagasaki, Japan.
1971 – The Troubles: British forces began arresting and interning suspected Irish republican militants in Northern Ireland.
2001 – A suicide bomber attacked a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, killing 15 people and wounding 130 others.

Stephen of Anjou (d. 1354)
Roman Dmowski (b. 1864)
John Key (b. 1961)

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From today's featured list

Mahesh Babu

The filmography of Mahesh Babu, an Indian actor known for his work in Telugu cinema, includes 39 films between 1979 and 2020. He first appeared in the 1979 film Needa when he was four years old, and continued to perform as a child actor in several films, most of which featured his father Krishna. After starring as the hero in Balachandrudu (1990) while still a child, Babu put his career on hold to concentrate on his education until taking on his first lead role as an adult in the 1999 film Raja Kumarudu, for which he won the Nandi Award for Best Male Debut. Afterwards, his career stagnated until successes like Murari (2001), Okkadu (2003) and Athadu (2005) brought him fame. In 2006, he played a gangster in the Puri Jagannadh–directed action-thriller Pokiri. The film became the highest-grossing Telugu film of all time and cemented Babu's reputation as a "superstar". In the wake of the failures of Sainikudu (2006) and Athidhi (2007), Babu took a long-term break from cinema for personal reasons. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The sapphire-throated hummingbird (Chrysuronia coeruleogularis) is a shiny, metallic-green hummingbird found in Panama, Colombia, and Costa Rica. During flight, hummingbirds have one of the highest metabolic rates among small birds and therefore need to eat more than their own weight of nectar each day to avoid starvation; insects and spiders are also consumed for added protein. Males are polygamous, and after mating play no part in nest-building or rearing the young. This male sapphire-throated hummingbird was photographed in the gardens of Biomuseo, a natural-history museum in Panama City designed by Frank Gehry.

Photograph credit: Charles James Sharp

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