The Wikipedia article of the day for July 15, 2016 is Learie Constantine.
Learie Constantine (1901–1971) was a West Indian cricketer, lawyer and politician who played 18 Test matches before the Second World War. Although his Test record was modest, he helped to establish a uniquely West Indian style of aggressive play. He served as Trinidad’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and in 1969 became the UK’s first black peer. His early experiences of race discrimination affected him profoundly, and in later life he was influential in the passing of the 1965 Race Relations Act in Britain. Born in Trinidad, Constantine toured England with the West Indies cricket teams in 1923 and 1928 before signing as a professional with the Lancashire League club Nelson. He played for the club between 1929 and 1938, while continuing to appear in Test cricket for the West Indies; he lived mainly in England for the rest of his life. After qualifying as a barrister in 1954, Constantine returned to Trinidad, entered politics and served in the Trinidad government as minister of communications. In 1961 he was appointed Trinidad’s High Commissioner in the UK, serving until 1964 and remaining in London thereafter. In his final years, he served on the Race Relations Board, the Sports Council and the Board of Governors of the BBC.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 15, 2016
Wikipedia article of the day for July 14, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 14, 2016 is 2002 Atlantic hurricane season.
The 2002 Atlantic hurricane season produced 14 tropical cyclones, including 12 named storms, 4 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes. A record-tying eight storms developed in September. No tropical storms formed after October 6—a rare occurrence, caused partly by El Niño conditions. The most intense hurricane of the season was Isidore, with a minimum central pressure of 934 mbar, although Hurricane Lili attained higher winds and peaked at Category 4 on the Saffir–Simpson Scale. The season was less destructive than average, causing an estimated US$2.6 billion in property damage and 23 fatalities. In September, Hurricane Gustav moved ashore on Nova Scotia as it was transitioning into an extratropical cyclone, lashing the region with high winds for several days. Isidore struck the Yucatan Peninsula and later the United States, causing about $970 million in damage and killing a total of seven. Several other storms directly affected land during August and September, including the longest lived of the season, Hurricane Kyle. In early October, Lili made landfall in Louisiana, where it caused $860 million in damage and 15 deaths.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 13, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 13, 2016 is Margaret Murray.
Margaret Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, historian, and folklorist. The first female archaeology lecturer in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London (UCL) and served as President of the Folklore Society. Born in Calcutta, Murray moved to London and began studying Egyptology at UCL. The department head Flinders Petrie encouraged her research and soon appointed her Junior Professor. She established a reputation in Egyptology for her excavations of the Osireion temple and Saqqara cemetery. She taught at the British Museum and also the Manchester Museum, where she led the unwrapping of one of the mummies from the Tomb of the Two Brothers. A first-wave feminist, Murray joined the Women’s Social and Political Union. During the First World War, she began promoting the hypothesis that the witch trials of Early Modern Christendom were an attempt to extinguish a surviving pre-Christian religion devoted to a Horned God. Although later academically discredited, the theory gained widespread attention and provided the basis for Wicca.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 12, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 12, 2016 is Katsudō Shashin.
Katsudō Shashin is a filmstrip speculated to be the oldest work of animation in Japan. Three seconds long, it depicts a boy who writes “moving picture” in Japanese script, removes his hat, and waves. Discovered in a collection of films and projectors in Kyoto, its creator is unknown. Natsuki Matsumoto, an expert in iconography at the Osaka University of Arts, determined that it was most likely made before 1912. It may have been influenced by animated filmstrips for German cinematographs, devices that first appeared in Japan in 1904. Evidence suggests Katsudō Shashin was mass-produced to be sold to wealthy owners of home projectors. To Matsumoto, the relatively poor quality and low-tech printing technique indicate it was likely from a smaller film company. Unlike in traditional animation, the frames were not produced by photographing the images, but were impressed directly onto film. They were stencilled in red and black using a device for making magic lantern slides, and the filmstrip was fastened in a loop for continuous play.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 11, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 11, 2016 is Satoru Iwata.
Satoru Iwata (December 6, 1959 – July 11, 2015) was a Japanese game programmer and businessman who became the fourth president and chief executive officer of Nintendo in 2002. Born in Sapporo, Japan, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and later majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He joined the game developer HAL Laboratory in 1980 and became its president in 1993. Joining Nintendo as the head of its corporate-planning division in 2000, he brought growth to the company. As a self-declared gamer, he focused on expanding the appeal of video games across all demographics and increasing the market space. He also built a strong relationship with Nintendo fans through social media and his regular appearances in Iwata Asks and Nintendo Direct, becoming the public face of the company. Under his direction, Nintendo developed the profitable Nintendo DS and Wii video game consoles, but the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U dropped net sales by two-thirds from 2009 to 2012, leaving the company with its first operating losses in 30 years. Iwata voluntarily halved his salary as an apology in 2011 and 2014.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 10, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 10, 2016 is No. 90 Wing RAAF.
No. 90 (Composite) Wing was a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) wing that operated during the early years of the Malayan Emergency. Its purpose was to serve as an overarching organisation for the RAAF units deployed in the conflict, No. 1 (Bomber) Squadron, flying Avro Lincolns, and No. 38 (Transport) Squadron, flying Douglas C-47 Dakotas. The wing was established on 10 July 1950 and headquartered at Changi, on the east coast of Singapore. No. 1 Squadron operated from Tengah, in Singapore’s west. No. 38 Squadron was based at Changi and, from April 1951 to February 1952, at Kuala Lumpur in central Malaya. The Lincolns generally conducted area bombing missions, as well as precision strikes, to harass communist insurgents. The Dakotas were tasked with airlifting cargo, VIPs, troops and casualties, as well as courier flights and supply drops. Following No. 38 Squadron’s departure in December 1952, No. 90 Wing was disbanded, leaving No. 1 Squadron to carry on as the sole RAAF unit in the campaign until its withdrawal to Australia in July 1958.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 9, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 9, 2016 is Deinocheirus.
The genus Deinocheirus (Greek for “horrible hand”) was a dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous around 70 million years ago. In 1965 its shoulder girdles and a pair of large arms (pictured) were first discovered in the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia, and in 2014 two complete specimens were described. Deinocheirus was the largest ornithomimosaur (ostrich dinosaur), at 11 m (36 ft) long, and weighed 6.36 t (14,000 lb), although it had many hollow bones. The arms were among the largest of any bipedal dinosaurs at 2.4 m (7.9 ft) long, with large, blunt claws on its three-fingered hands. The legs were relatively short, and bore blunt claws. Its vertebrae had tall spines that formed a sail along its back. The skull was 1.024 m (3.36 ft) long, with a wide bill and a deep lower jaw. Deinocheirus is thought to have been omnivorous; its skull shape indicates a diet of plants, and fish scales were found with one specimen. It probably used gastroliths to grind food. The large claws may have been used for digging and gathering plants. Bite marks on Deinocheirus bones have been attributed to the tyrannosaurid Tarbosaurus.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 8, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 8, 2016 is New York Herald.
The Jeannette Expedition of 1879–81 was an attempt led by George W. De Long to reach the North Pole using a route through the Bering Strait to the fabled temperate Open Polar Sea. The expedition was financed by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the proprietor of the New York Herald, and based on the ocean current theories of the German cartographer August Petermann. The attempt failed; the expedition’s ship, USS Jeannette (pictured), drifted in the polar ice for nearly two years before being crushed and sunk, north of the Siberian coast. De Long then led his men on a journey by boat and sled to the Lena Delta. Before ultimate rescue, more than half of the ship’s complement died, including De Long. During Jeannette’s long drift the expedition discovered what were later called the De Long Islands, and collected significant meteorological and oceanographic data. Although the ship’s fate demolished the long-standing Open Polar Sea theory, the appearance in 1884 of debris from the wreck on the south-west coast of Greenland indicated that an Arctic current carried the ice from east to west. This discovery inspired Fridtjof Nansen to mount his Fram expedition nine years later.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 7, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 7, 2016 is Aaliyah (album).
Aaliyah, released on July 7, 2001, by Blackground Records and Virgin Records America, is the third and final studio album by American R&B recording artist Aaliyah (pictured). Recorded periodically from 1998 to 2000, it is an R&B and neo soul record, drawing on funk, hip hop, alternative rock, and electronica sounds, among others. Most of the song lyrics were written by Static Major, and deal with the complexities of romantic love and the stages of a relationship; Aaliyah viewed the album as a reflection of herself as both a young adult and a matured vocalist. Aaliyah received positive critical reviews, and debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, though sales began to drop off shortly after its release. Following Aaliyah’s death in a plane crash on August 25, 2001, seven weeks after the album’s release, sales skyrocketed, and the album reentered the Billboard 200 at number one. Aaliyah was released during a period of peak activity in contemporary R&B; since its initial reception, it has been cited by critics as one of the best R&B records of its time.
Wikipedia article of the day for July 6, 2016
The Wikipedia article of the day for July 6, 2016 is History of the New York Yankees.
The history of the New York Yankees Major League Baseball team spans more than a century. Frank J. Farrell and William Stephen Devery bought the rights to an American League (AL) club in New York City after the 1902 season. The team, which became the Yankees in 1913, won their first AL title in 1921, followed by their first World Series championship in 1923. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were part of the team’s Murderers’ Row lineup; under Miller Huggins, they led the Yankees to a Series championship and a 110-win season, a league record in 1927. The Yankees won the World Series every year from 1936 to 1939 with a team that featured Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. New York set a major league record by winning five consecutive championships from 1949 to 1953, and appeared in the World Series nine times during the next 11 years. Despite management disputes, the team reached the World Series four times between 1976 and 1981, claiming the championship in 1977 and 1978. Their 1998–2000 teams were the last to win three straight World Series titles. In 2009, they won the title for a record 27th time.
