Wikipedia:Main Page history/2022 January 21b

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

From today's featured article

Torpedo Boat No. 38 (formerly Kranich), of the Schichau class

The Schichau class consisted of 22 torpedo boats built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy between 1885 and 1891. Initially powered by steam from a locomotive boiler and armed with two 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss guns and two 356 mm (14 in) torpedo tubes, they all received two Yarrow boilers and a second funnel between 1900 and 1910. Ten were converted into minesweepers between 1911 and 1913. One boat was discarded in 1911 and the rest saw active service as part of local defence forces for Adriatic naval bases during World War I. The nine torpedo boats which survived were also converted into minesweepers in 1917. After the war, sixteen of the boats were allocated to Italy and four to the Royal Yugoslav Navy. All of the boats had been discarded by 1929 except for one Yugoslav vessel. Captured during the 1941 Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, it served with the Italians and later the Germans. It was lost sometime after September 1943. (This article is part of a featured topic: Ships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy.)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Belt buckle from Finnestorp

... that archaeologist Bengt Nordqvist interprets a Migration Period belt buckle (pictured) found at Finnestorp as a depiction of a mythological scene known from the Old Norse poem Völuspá?
... that in her 2021 book White Evangelical Racism, professor of religion Anthea Butler called American evangelicalism a pro-Trump, "nationalistic political movement"?
... that the steamship Clyde was wrecked in 1879 while carrying more than 500 replacements for the British 24th Regiment, which had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Isandlwana?
... that in his final collegiate game, Tufts University football player Carl Etelman kicked a field goal with a broken ankle?
... that the construction of Auckland's Panmure Bridge in 1865 involved underwater repairs using Heinke diving suits?
... that Leon Stynen has been called one of Belgium's greatest architects of the 20th century?
... that the glass surface on the BNL BNP Paribas headquarters has alternating angles that follow the principle of the "two-faced Janus"?
... that U.S. Virgin Islands suffragist Ella Gifft smuggled rum during Prohibition by hiding it in her underwear?

In the news

Hunga Tonga eruption

Belgian-British pilot Zara Rutherford becomes the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.
Microsoft announces its forthcoming acquisition, pending regulatory approvals, of video game company Activision Blizzard.
A 5.3 magnitude earthquake in Badghis Province, Afghanistan, kills at least 28 people.
The Hunga Tonga volcano erupts (satellite animation shown), causing damage in Tonga and tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean.

On this day

January 21

Members of the First Dáil

763 – The Abbasid Caliphate crushed the Alid revolt when a rebel leader was mortally wounded in battle near Basra in present-day Iraq.
1789 – The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, widely considered to be the first American novel, was published.
1919 – The First Dáil (members pictured) convened at the Mansion House in Dublin and adopted a declaration of independence calling for the establishment of the Irish Republic.
1972 – Tripura, formerly part of the independent Twipra Kingdom, became a state of India.
2017 – An estimated five million people participated in worldwide demonstrations to advocate for legislation and policies on human rights and other issues.

Theodor Fliedner (b. 1800)
Edith Tolkien (b. 1889)
Vincent Lingiari (d. 1988)

More anniversaries:

From today's featured list

Bryan Cranston

Breaking Bad, an American drama series, received more than two hundred awards and nominations. Created by Vince Gilligan, the series premiered on January 20, 2008, and broadcast sixty-two episodes before concluding on September 29, 2013. It stars Bryan Cranston (pictured) as Walter White, a chemistry teacher who decides to produce and distribute crystal meth with his former student Jesse Pinkman, a drug dealer portrayed by Aaron Paul. Upon release, the series was praised for its acting, characters, writing, direction, and cinematography. In 2014, it entered Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed show of all time. Throughout its run, the series was nominated for fifty-eight Emmy Awards and won sixteen. For their performances, Cranston won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and Paul won three times for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. The success of Breaking Bad led to the creation of the spin-off Better Call Saul and the 2019 film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. (Full list...)

Recently featured:

Today's featured picture

I puritani (The Puritans) is an 1835 opera by Vincenzo Bellini, set to an Italian libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli. This aquatint shows the set design for the Hall of Arms in act 1, scene 3, as it appeared at the opera's premiere at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris in January 1835. The opera was a great success; as Bellini reported to a friend: "The French had all gone mad; there were such noise and such shouts that they themselves were astonished at being so carried away."

Aquatint credit: Luigi Verardi and Vittore Pedretti, after Domenico Ferri; restored by Adam Cuerden

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.

Wikipedia's sister projects

Wikipedia is written by volunteer editors and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other volunteer projects:

Commons
Free media repository
MediaWiki
Wiki software development
Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia project coordination
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals
Wikidata
Free knowledge base
Wikinews
Free-content news
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations
Wikisource
Free-content library
Wikispecies
Directory of species
Wikiversity
Free learning tools
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus

Wikipedia languages

This Wikipedia is written in English. Many other Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.

1,000,000+ articles
- العربية
- Deutsch
- Español
- Français
- Italiano
- Nederlands
- 日本語
- Polski
- Português
- Русский
- Svenska
- Українська
- Tiếng Việt
- 中文
250,000+ articles
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Bahasa Melayu
- Bân-lâm-gú
- Български
- Català
- Čeština
- Dansk
- Esperanto
- Euskara
- فارسی‎
- עברית
- 한국어
- Magyar
- Norsk Bokmål
- Română
- Srpski
- Srpskohrvatski
- Suomi
- Türkçe
50,000+ articles