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Today's featured article

1 Wall Street is a skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York. Designed in the Art Deco style, the building is 654 feet (199 m) tall and consists of two sections. The original 50-story building was constructed between 1929 and 1931 for Irving Trust. A 28-story annex to the south (later expanded to 36 stories) was built between 1963 and 1965. The building occupies a full city block between Broadway, Wall Street, New Street, and Exchange Place. At the time of its construction, 1 Wall Street occupied what was considered one of the most valuable plots in the city. The building is one of New York City's Art Deco landmarks, although architectural critics initially ignored it in favor of such buildings as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. The original portion of the building is designated as a New York City landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2007. (Full article...)

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Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest and most massive of its four rocky planets. About 29 percent of Earth's surface is land, with the remaining 71 percent covered with water and much of Earth's polar regions covered in ice. Earth's interior is active with a solid-iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates Earth's magnetic field, and a convective mantle that drives plate tectonics. Earth formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. Within the first billion years of Earth's history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect Earth's atmosphere and surface. Since then, the combination of Earth's distance from the Sun, its physical properties and its geological history have allowed life to evolve and thrive, including more than 8 billion humans as of 2024. Earth is orbited by one permanent natural satellite, the Moon, which orbits Earth at a radius of 384,400 km (238,900 mi) and is roughly a quarter as wide as Earth. This photograph of Earth straddling the lunar horizon was taken in 2015 by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter while located 134 km (83 mi) above the crater Compton, visible in the foreground. To capture the image, the spacecraft had to be rolled 67 degrees to its side, and slewed with the direction of travel to maximize the width of the lunar horizon, while traveling more than 1600 m/s (3600 mph) relative to the surface.

Photograph credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center / Arizona State University; edited by Bammesk

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In the News

location of truck-ramming attack

Eleven people are killed and thirty-six others are injured in a truck-ramming and shooting attack in New Orleans, Louisiana (street pictured).
Former president of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter dies at the age of 100.
Jeju Air Flight 2216 crashes at Muan International Airport, South Korea, killing 179 people.
Acting president and prime minister of South Korea Han Duck-soo is impeached by the National Assembly.

Did you know?

Paora

... that following public backlash over the mistreatment of Paora (pictured), Zoo Miami stated: "We have offended the nation of New Zealand"?
... that lacrosse player Austin Staats was undefeated in his college career?
... that one of the major prey groups of the paddle crab, Ovalipes catharus, is other paddle crabs?
... that Arab Christian physician Abu Sulayman Da'ud served both Latin Christian and Arab Muslim rulers?
... that jazz dancer LaTasha Barnes used to be a sergeant in the U.S. Army?
... that the basic tune for "As Long as You're Mine" from 2003's Wicked was written by Stephen Schwartz in the 1970s?
... that Jing Tsu remembers being called "female tiger" because her schoolteachers' punishments had little effect on her?
... that booing heard after the United Kingdom's entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 was reportedly either a response to past football hooliganism, claims of lip syncing, or alleged plagiarism of the Supremes?
... that the 2024 American Samoan gubernatorial election was won by Pula and Pulu?

On this day...

January 1: Public Domain Day; Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Roman Rite Catholicism)

Lachlan Macquarie

1725 – J. S. Bach led the first performance of his chorale cantata Jesu, nun sei gepreiset, which features trumpet fanfares at the start and end.
1801 – Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres, naming it after the Roman goddess of agriculture and of motherly love.
1810 – Lachlan Macquarie (pictured) became Governor of New South Wales, eventually playing a major role in the shaping of the social, economic and architectural development of the colony in Australia.
1960 – Three men were killed and two wounded in a mass shooting at a public house in Sheffield, England.
1994 – The revolutionary leftist Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiated twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

Betsy Ross (b. 1752)
Alfred Ely Beach (d. 1896)
Gary Johnson (b. 1953)
Lhasa de Sela (d. 2010)

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