Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 January 28

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From today's featured article

Persoonia linearis, the narrow-leaved geebung, is a shrub native to New South Wales and Victoria in eastern Australia. It reaches 3 m (9.8 ft), or occasionally 5 m (16 ft), in height and has thick, dark grey papery bark. The leaves are linear in shape, up to 9 cm (3.5 in) long, and 0.1 to 0.7 cm (0.04 to 0.28 in) wide. The small yellow flowers appear from December to July, followed by small green fleshy fruits. P. linearis interbreeds with several other Persoonia species where they grow together. This shrub is found in dry forest on poor sandstone-based soils, and is adapted to a fire-prone environment; the plants resprout epicormic buds from beneath their thick bark after bushfires. The fruit are consumed by vertebrates such as kangaroos, possums and currawongs. P. linearis is rare in cultivation as it is very hard to propagate by seed or by cuttings, but once propagated, it adapts readily, preferring acidic soils with good drainage and at least a partly sunny aspect. (Full article...)

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In the news

Billie Eilish

At the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Billie Eilish (pictured) wins the major categories of Best New Artist, and Song, Record, and Album of the Year.
American former basketball player Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others die in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles.
An earthquake in Elazığ, Turkey, kills at least thirty-eight people and injures more than a thousand others.

On this day

January 28

Jane Austen, c. 1810

1069 – Robert de Comines, Earl of Northumbria, was killed in Durham, causing William the Conqueror to embark on a campaign to subjugate northern England.
1393 – King Charles VI of France was nearly killed when several dancers' costumes caught fire during a masquerade ball.
1813 – The novel Pride and Prejudice by English author Jane Austen (portrait shown) was published, using material from an unpublished manuscript that she originally wrote between 1796 and 1797.
1933 – Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet in which he called for the creation of a Muslim state in north-western India that he termed "Pakstan".
1964 – An unarmed U.S. Air Force T-39 Sabreliner on a training mission was shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19, killing all three aboard.

George S. Boutwell (b. 1818) · Kathleen Lonsdale (b. 1903) · Paul Henderson (b. 1943)

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Today's featured picture

The tropical kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus) is a large tyrant flycatcher, growing to a length of about 22 cm (8.7 in). It feeds on insects, either catching them in flight, or gleaning them from the surface of foliage, and also eats some fruit. The birds remain in pairs all year round, and drive intruders from their territories, including birds much larger than them. It nests high in trees, usually in the fork of a branch, building a bulky, untidy structure. The female incubates the typical clutch of two to four eggs and the young fledge in about 18 days. Its breeding range extends from the southern United States to central Argentina, with birds near the northern and southern limits of the range being migratory. This picture shows a T. m. melancholicus individual in the Pantanal, Brazil.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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