The Wikipedia article of the day for May 21, 2016 is 1987 Giro d’Italia.
The 1987 Giro d’Italia was the 70th event in the series, one of cycling’s Grand Tour races. It began on 21 May with a 4 km (2.5 mi) prologue in San Remo, and concluded on 13 June with a 32 km (19.9 mi) individual time trial in Saint-Vincent. A total of 180 riders from 20 teams entered the 22-stage, 3,915 km (2,433 mi) race. Defending champion Roberto Visentini of the Carrera Jeans–Vagabond team led the first stage, and Dutchman Erik Breukink led the second. Irishman Stephen Roche, Visentini’s teammate, took the overall lead after his team won the stage three team time trial. Visentini regained the lead for two days, but Roche rode ahead of him in the fifteenth stage, against orders from the team management, and held onto the lead for the win. Second place was taken by British rider Robert Millar, and Breukink took third. It was the second time in the history of the Giro that there were no Italian riders on the winners’ podium. Roche was the second rider ever to win the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France, and the World Championship road race in the same year, a feat commonly called the Triple Crown of Cycling.
Archives for May 2016
Wikipedia article of the day for May 21, 2016
Wikipedia article of the day for May 20, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 20, 2016 is Sesame Workshop.
Sesame Workshop, originally the Children’s Television Workshop, is the American non-profit organization behind the production of Sesame Street, now in its 47th consecutive season on the public broadcasting channel PBS. In 1966 Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett began researching a television show to help children, especially those from low-income families, prepare for school. Sesame Street premiered in 1969. Conney credited “educational advisers, researchers, and television producers … as equal partners” in the show’s success. The early 1980s were a challenging period for the Workshop; the end of government funding, difficulty in finding audiences for their other productions, and a series of bad investments hurt the organization until 1985, when licensing agreements had stabilized revenues. The organization expanded into other areas, including books and music, international co-productions, outreach programs to preschools, and interactive media and new technologies. By 2005, income from international co-productions of the show was $96 million, and by 2008, the Sesame Street Muppets accounted for $15–17 million per year in licensing and merchandising fees.
Wikipedia article of the day for May 19, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 19, 2016 is 2003 Pacific hurricane season.
The 2003 Pacific hurricane season produced tropical cyclones that mainly affected Mexico. Hurricane Ignacio killed 2 people in Mexico and Marty killed 12; together they were responsible for damage worth about $1 billion. Two other Pacific hurricanes, one Pacific tropical storm and three Atlantic storms also had a direct impact on Mexico. The only other significant storm of the season was Hurricane Jimena, which passed just to the south of the island of Hawaii, becoming the first storm in several years to directly threaten the island. The season officially started on May 15, 2003, in the eastern Pacific, and on June 1, 2003, in the central Pacific, lasting until November 30, 2003. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. There were 16 named storms, including 7 hurricanes; both totals are comparable with the long-term averages. This was the first Pacific hurricane season since 1977 with no major hurricanes, that is, storms Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.
Wikipedia article of the day for May 18, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 18, 2016 is SECR K and SR K1 classes.
The SECR K class was a type of tank locomotive designed in 1914 by Richard Maunsell for express passenger duties on the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR). The Southern Railway (SR) K1 class was a three-cylinder variant of the K class, designed in 1925 to suit a narrower loading gauge. They were among the first non-Great Western Railway (GWR) types to use and improve upon the basic design principles of power and standardisation established by George Jackson Churchward, the GWR’s Chief Mechanical Engineer. The locomotives were based on the GWR 4300 class, improved by the Midland Railway’s ideals of simplicity and ease of maintenance. The K class was designed to be mechanically similar to the SECR N class mixed-traffic locomotives. The class was the earliest large-scale use of the 2-6-4 wheel arrangement in Britain. Production began towards the end of the First World War, and the prototype rolled out of Ashford Works three years after design work was completed due to wartime production constraints. They continued in service with British Railways until 1966. One K class rebuild (No. 31806) is preserved on the Swanage Railway in Dorset.
Wikipedia article of the day for May 17, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 17, 2016 is William Brill (RAAF officer).
William Brill (17 May 1916 – 12 October 1964) was a senior officer and bomber pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Born in the Riverina district of New South Wales, he was a farmer before joining the RAAF in 1940. Posted to Britain to take part in the air war over Europe, Brill first saw combat with No. 460 Squadron RAAF, flying Vickers Wellingtons. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in 1942 for attacking a target after his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. In 1944 he became a flight commander in No. 463 Squadron RAAF, flying Avro Lancasters. Brill’s leadership and determination to complete his missions despite damage to his aircraft—on one occasion inflicted by another Lancaster’s bombs—earned him the Distinguished Service Order. Promoted to wing commander, he took over No. 467 Squadron RAAF and was awarded a bar to his DFC for his skill in evading night fighters. Returning to Australia after the war, he led No. 10 Squadron, commanded air bases, and was twice RAAF Director of Personnel Services, gaining promotion to group captain. He was serving at the Department of Air when he died of a heart attack in 1964.
Wikipedia article of the day for May 16, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 16, 2016 is Blonde on Blonde.
Blonde on Blonde is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on May 16, 1966, by Columbia Records. The album completes a rock trilogy, with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. Unsatisfied with the initial recording sessions, Dylan brought his keyboardist Al Kooper and guitarist Robbie Robertson to the CBS studios in Nashville, Tennessee, where all but one of the songs were recorded in February and March. Combining the expertise of Nashville session musicians with a modernist literary sensibility, the album’s songs have been described as operating on a grand scale musically, while featuring lyrics that the writer Michael Gray called “a unique blend of the visionary and the colloquial”. One of the first rock double albums, it peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 chart in the US, where it eventually went double-platinum, and reached No. 3 in the UK. Blonde on Blonde spawned two top twenty singles in the US: “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and “I Want You”. “Just Like a Woman” and “Visions of Johanna” made Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. The album has consistently ranked high in greatest-albums polls.
Wikipedia article of the day for May 15, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 15, 2016 is Epacris impressa.
Epacris impressa, also known as common heath, is a plant of the heath family, Ericaceae, that is native to southeast Australia: the states of Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and New South Wales. French botanist Jacques Labillardière collected the species in 1793 and described it in 1805. Four forms have been identified, but no subspecies are recognised. Growing in heathland, shrubland or open forest, it is generally a small shrub around 0.5 to 1 m (1 ft 8 in – 3 ft 3 in) tall, with small stiff leaves. The red, pink or white tube-like flowers appear from late autumn to early spring. Honeyeaters, particularly the eastern spinebill, feed upon the nectar of the flowers. It regenerates after bushfire by seed or by resprouting. A pink-flowered form is the floral emblem of the state of Victoria. E. impressa is difficult to propagate reliably, which has limited its use in horticulture and revegetation. It grows best in well-drained but moist soil in a semishaded position. A highly regarded garden plant, the common heath was first cultivated in England in 1825 with over seventy named cultivars, most of which have now vanished.
Wikipedia article of the day for May 14, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 14, 2016 is Eardwulf of Northumbria.
Eardwulf was king of Northumbria from 796 until at least 806. Northumbria in the last years of the eighth century was the scene of dynastic strife between several noble families, and in 790, Æthelred I attempted to have Eardwulf assassinated. Æthelred himself was assassinated in 796. The reign of his successor Osbald lasted only twenty-seven days before he was deposed, and Eardwulf became king on 14 May 796. In 798 Eardwulf fought a battle at Billington Moor against a nobleman named Wada, who had been one of those responsible for King Æthelred’s death; Wada was defeated and driven into exile. In 801 Eardwulf led an army against Coenwulf of Mercia, perhaps because of Coenwulf’s support for other claimants to the Northumbrian throne. Eardwulf was deposed in 806. According to a Frankish source, he returned to his kingdom in 808, but no record has survived of his death or the end of his reign. He was possibly buried at the Mercian royal monastery of Breedon on the Hill, which carries a dedication to Saint Mary and Saint Hardulph, identified as Eardwulf by several historians.
Wikipedia article of the day for May 13, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 13, 2016 is Carolina Panthers.
The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Under head coach Ron Rivera, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Founder Jerry Richardson and his family have a controlling interest in the club. The team plays at Bank of America Stadium, one of the few stadiums owned by an NFL team. The Panthers were announced as the league’s 29th franchise in 1993. The team played well in their first two years, finishing 7–9 in 1995 (an all-time best for an NFL expansion team’s first season) and 12–4 the following year, and winning the NFC West championship. In the 2003 season they reached Super Bowl XXXVIII, losing to the New England Patriots. After recording a playoff appearance in 2005, they won NFC South division championships in the 2008, 2013 and 2014 seasons. The next season, they defeated the Seattle Seahawks and the Arizona Cardinals to advance to Super Bowl 50, where they lost to the Denver Broncos.
Wikipedia article of the day for May 12, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for May 12, 2016 is British contribution to the Manhattan Project.
British scientists were crucial to the success of the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bombs during World War II. After Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch at the University of Birmingham calculated that a small sphere of pure uranium-235 could explode with the power of thousands of tons of dynamite, their memorandum led to Britain’s own atomic bomb project. This project shared research with the US, but was eventually subsumed by the Manhattan Project under the 1943 Quebec Agreement. A British mission led by the Australian physicist Mark Oliphant assisted in the development of electromagnetic separation processes for enriching uranium; Wallace Akers led a similar mission assisting with gaseous diffusion. James Chadwick (pictured) was the head of a distinguished team of British scientists working on bomb design at the Los Alamos Laboratory that included Niels Bohr, Peierls, Frisch, Geoffrey Taylor, and James Tuck, as well as Klaus Fuchs, who was later revealed to be a Soviet atomic spy. American and British cooperation ended with the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. In October 1952, Britain became the third country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon.
