The Wikipedia article of the day for July 13, 2017 is Blade Runner.
Blade Runner is a 1982 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Harrison Ford (pictured), Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. It depicts a dystopian world in 2019, where genetically engineered humanoid replicants are used for dangerous work on off-world colonies. Four of them have illegally come to Los Angeles to confront the man who designed them. They are hunted by Rick Deckard (Ford), who is troubled by his relationship with Rachael, an advanced replicant. The film, a loose adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, was written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. It polarized critics and underperformed in theaters, but won many awards and has since become a cult film. It was one of the first films released on DVD. Hailed for its tech noir production design, it was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1993, and is now highly regarded by many critics. In 2007 Warner Bros. released a remastered version. A sequel, Blade Runner 2049, is set for release in October 2017.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 13, 2017
Wikipedia article of the day for July 12, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 12, 2017 is Battle of Prokhorovka.
The Battle of Prokhorovka (12 July 1943), one of the largest tank battles in history, was fought between Waffen-SS units of Nazi Germany and Red Army units of the Soviet Union during the Second World War on the Eastern Front. The climax of the German offensive Operation Citadel, it resulted when the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army intercepted the II SS-Panzer Corps of the German Wehrmacht near Prokhorovka. The Soviet forces were decimated in the attack, but succeeded in preventing the Wehrmacht from capturing Prokhorovka and breaking through the last heavily fortified defensive belt. With the Germans unable to accomplish their objective for Operation Citadel, they cancelled it and began redeploying their forces to deal with new pressing developments elsewhere. The failure of the operation marked the first time in the war that a major German offensive was halted before it could break through enemy defences. The Soviet Union permanently gained the strategic initiative, and Germany permanently lost the capacity to launch offensives of this scale on the Eastern Front.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 11, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 11, 2017 is Dredd.
Dredd is a 2012 science fiction action film directed by Pete Travis and written and produced by Alex Garland, released first on 11 July at the San Diego Comic-Con, and worldwide that September. Karl Urban (pictured) stars as Judge Dredd (based on the 2000 AD comic book character), a law enforcer given the power of judge, jury and executioner in a vast, post-apocalyptic metropolis called Mega-City One. Dredd and his apprentice partner, Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), are instructed to bring order to a 200-storey high-rise block of flats and deal with its resident drug lord, Ma-Ma (Lena Headey). Produced by the British studio DNA Films, Dredd began principal photography, using 3D cameras throughout, in November 2010. Filming took place on practical sets and in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Critics were generally positive about the film’s visual effects, casting and action, but found it too violent, and out of touch with the satire of the comic strip. It earned just over $41 million at the box office on an estimated budget of $30–45 million, but saw greater success following its home release, and has since been recognised as a cult film.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 9, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 9, 2017 is Weird Tales.
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in March 1923. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom would go on to be popular writers. Under its second editor, Farnsworth Wright, its fiction included Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos stories, some of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories, and Seabury Quinn’s series about Jules de Grandin, a detective who specialized in the supernatural. When the magazine was launched there were none specializing in science fiction, and Wright included stories in that genre by Edmond Hamilton and others. After William Delaney took over as publisher, replacing Wright with Dorothy McIlwraith as editor in 1940, some successful new authors and artists, such as Ray Bradbury and Hannes Bok, continued to appear, but the magazine ceased publication in 1954. It was relaunched many times, including for one run of over 20 years that started in 1988. The magazine is regarded by historians of fantasy as one of the most influential in the genre.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 8, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 8, 2017 is Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve.
Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve is a protected area in the northern Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon near the California border, managed since 1933 by the US National Park Service. The 4,554-acre (1,843 ha) park features a marble cave that was discovered in 1874. Three years after President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act of 1906, President William Howard Taft used it to establish Oregon Caves. In 2014 the protected area was expanded by about 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) and designated a National Monument and Preserve. Oregon Caves is a solutional cave, with passages totaling about 15,000 feet (4,600 m), formed in marble. The parent rock was originally limestone that metamorphosed to marble during the geologic processes that created the Klamath Mountains, including the Siskiyous. Although the limestone formed about 190 million years ago, the cave itself is no older than a few million years. Another attraction at the park is the Oregon Caves Chateau, a six-story hotel built in a rustic style in 1934; it is a National Historic Landmark and is part of the Oregon Caves Historic District within the monument.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 7, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 7, 2017 is The Beatles.
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison were joined by Ringo Starr two years later. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock and roll, they later experimented with musical styles ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. They incorporated classical elements and unconventional recording techniques. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act, and producer George Martin guided and developed their recordings. Beatlemania took hold in 1963, as the group began to embody the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1960s. They led the British Invasion of the US pop market in 1964. After their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers, in which McCartney and Starr remain active. (Lennon was shot and killed in 1980; Harrison died of cancer in 2001.) The Beatles became the best-selling band in history, with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide, and they top various sales and most-played lists, including most UK singles sold and most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 6, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 6, 2017 is Eega.
Eega (The Fly) is an Indian bilingual fantasy film released on 6 July 2012, written by K. V. Vijayendra Prasad and directed by his son, S. S. Rajamouli. It was produced by Korrapati Ranganatha Sai’s production house Varahi Chalana Chitram with an estimated budget of ₹260 to 400 million, simultaneously in Telugu and Tamil. The film stars Sudeep, Nani and Samantha Ruth Prabhu (pictured with the director). The narrative is in the form of a bedtime story told by a father to his daughter. Its protagonist is Nani, who is in love with his neighbour Bindu. Nani is murdered by a wealthy businessman named Sudeep, who is attracted to Bindu and considers Nani a rival. Nani reincarnates as a housefly and tries to protect Bindu while avenging his death. The film’s production began in 2010 at Ramanaidu Studios in Hyderabad, and principal photography ran from early 2011 to early 2012. The two versions of the film, alongside a Malayalam-dubbed version titled Eecha, were released globally on approximately 1,100 screens. Screened at international film festivals, Eega won two National Film Awards, five Filmfare Awards, and three South Indian International Movie Awards.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 5, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 5, 2017 is Head VI.
Head VI is a 1949 painting by the Irish-born, English figurative artist Francis Bacon. It is the last of six panels making up his “1949 Head” series, which are largely modeled on Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Innocent X. Applying forceful, expressive brush strokes, Bacon placed the figure within a draped glass cage. The intended effect is of a man trapped and suffocated by his surroundings, screaming into an airless void. Head VI was the first of Bacon’s paintings to reference Velázquez, whose portrait of Pope Innocent X haunted Bacon and inspired his series of over 45 “screaming popes”. Head VI contains many figurations that were to reappear throughout his career; the geometric cages are present as late as the 1985–86 Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych. In 1949 Bacon was a highly controversial artist, best known for his 1944 Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, and as the enfant terrible of British art. The curator Lawrence Gowing wrote that the “shock of the picture, when it was seen with a whole series of heads … was indescribable. It was everything unpardonable.” Today the panel is considered among Bacon’s finest.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 4, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 4, 2017 is Baseball.
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport, played on a field with bases arranged in a diamond. After batters hit a thrown ball, they and any teammates on a base can try to advance to another base, scoring a run when they return to the home base. The batting team hits against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to get players out (off the field), usually by striking them out, catching a hit ball, throwing to a base that players have to run to, or tagging them with the ball between bases. After three outs, the teams trade places, and after three more, the next inning begins. Professional games last at least into the ninth inning. Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game and the related rounders were brought by British and Irish immigrants to North America, where the modern version of baseball developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball has become popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, particularly Japan.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 3, 2017
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 3, 2017 is Castle.
A castle is a type of fortified structure, generally built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages. Usually the private residences of lords and nobles, castles ranged from hill forts and country houses to expansive keeps surrounded by curtain walls and fortified towers. After the fall of the Carolingian Empire in the ninth century, castles were used for defence, as bases for raiders, as centres of administration, and for controlling trade routes. As symbols of power, some grand castles had long winding approaches that dominated their landscape. In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a scientific approach to castle defence emerged, leading to the proliferation of towers, with an emphasis on flanking fire. Many new castles were polygonal or relied on concentric stages of defence that could all function at the same time. Castle building began to decline in the 15th century, when artillery became powerful enough to break through stone walls. In the 18th and 19th centuries, mock castles with no military purpose epitomized the Romantic revival of Gothic architecture.
