Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 March 25

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From today's featured article

M. servinei

Megarachne was a predatory freshwater arthropod of the order of eurypterids, often called sea scorpions. Two fossil specimens of the genus have been discovered, in San Luis, Argentina, in deposits of Late Carboniferous age from the Gzhelian stage. Megarachne ("great spider") was initially misidentified as a spider. With a body length of 54 cm (1.77 ft), it was a medium-sized eurypterid, similar to others within the Mycteropoidea, a rare group known primarily from South Africa and Scotland. The mycteropoids evolved a specialized method of feeding referred to as sweep-feeding, raking through the substrate of riverbeds to capture and eat smaller invertebrates. Due to their fragmentary fossil record and similarities between the genera, Megarachne and two other members of its family, Mycterops and Woodwardopterus, have been hypothesized to represent different developmental stages of a single genus. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Swanwick Shore Strict Baptist Chapel

... that Swanwick Shore Strict Baptist Chapel (pictured), a place of worship in the borough of Fareham in Hampshire, England, was built to replace a converted wooden boatshed that flooded during high tides?
... that Kurdish nationalist Dara Tawfiq was the editor of Iraq's only independent newspaper in the early 1970s?
... that records from the National Archives at Seattle are planned to be moved to California and to Kansas City, Missouri?
... that in 1918, Edith A. Ellis advocated an all-female government with the slogan "Insist that no man shall occupy a position that a woman can fill"?
... that the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Luis Parra and six other Venezuelan politicians in relation to an alleged corruption plot?
... that Cecylia and Maciej Brogowski, a Polish Catholic couple, were posthumously recognised as Righteous Among the Nations for having sheltered a Jewish girl during the Holocaust?
... that the winged wheel on the coat of arms of the Institution of Municipal Engineers represented traffic and machinery?
... that the song "I've danced with a man, who's danced with a girl, who's danced with the Prince of Wales" was inspired by Edna Deane being asked for a dance nine times by the future Edward VIII?

In the news

Coronavirus pandemic

Igor Matovič

Igor Matovič (pictured) becomes Prime Minister of Slovakia following elections in February.
Edwin Catmull and Pat Hanrahan receive the Turing Award for their work on computer-generated imagery.
Paleontologists announce the discovery of Asteriornis maastrichtensis, the oldest definitive species of modern bird, which lived at the end of the Mesozoic era.

On this day

March 25: Bengali Genocide Remembrance Day; Cheti Chand begins / Ugadi in parts of India (Hinduism, 2020)

Scotia, part of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition

717 – Byzantine emperor Theodosius III abdicated in favour of Leo the Isaurian after he captured Theodosius's son.
1387 – Hundred Years' War: The English navy captured more than 80 ships and at least 8,000 tuns of wine from an allied French, Castilian and Flemish fleet at the Battle of Margate in the English Channel.
1903 – The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (ship pictured) anchored in the South Orkney Islands with the intention of establishing the first meteorological station in Antarctic territory.
1934 – Enrico Fermi published his discovery of neutron-induced radioactivity, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938.
1971 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese forces abandoned a campaign to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail, which supplied North Vietnamese troops, in Laos.

Kō no Moronao and Kō no Moroyasu (d. 1351) · Frances Glessner Lee (b. 1878) · Elton John (b. 1947)

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Today's featured picture

View from Stalheim is an 1842 oil-on-canvas painting by Norwegian artist Johan Christian Dahl, depicting the view from the village of Stalheim, in the county of Vestland in western Norway. A major work of Romantic nationalism, it is regarded as a national icon and one of Dahl's best works. The scene overlooks the Nærøy Valley, with the sugarloaf-shaped peak of Jordalsnuten in the background, framed by other peaks and a rainbow. A small village in the centre is illuminated by the late afternoon sun. One of Dahl's purposes in the painting was that of realism; the other was to capture the glory and magnificence of the mountains, and his country's culture associated with it. He had trouble with the painting, and avoided similarly large works after its completion. The painting is now in the collection of the National Gallery in Oslo.

Painting credit: Johan Christian Dahl

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