Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 November 17

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From today's featured article

Nihonium is a synthetic chemical element with symbol Nh and atomic number 113. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable known isotope, nihonium-286, has a half-life of about 10 seconds. In the periodic table, nihonium is a transactinide element at the intersection of period 7 and group 13. Its creation was reported in 2003 by a Russian–American collaboration at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, and in 2004 by a team of Japanese scientists at Riken in Wakō, Japan. The discoveries were confirmed by independent teams working in the United States, Germany, Sweden, and China. In 2016 the element was officially recognised and naming rights were assigned to Riken, as they were judged to have been first to observe it. The name, approved in the same year (announcement pictured), derives from a Japanese word for Japan, Nihon. Few details are known about nihonium, as it has only been formed in very small amounts that decay away within seconds. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

King Kalākaua during his state visit

... that King Kalākaua's 1874–75 state visit to the United States (Kalākaua pictured) made the African-American Pacific Appeal newspaper wonder if there was "a sudden abandonment of colorphobia prejudice"?
... that historian Felix Römer found that 116 of 137 German World War II combat divisions he researched implemented the Commissar Order, contrary to postwar denials?
... that after Schafkopf and Watten, Wallachen is probably the most widely-played card game in Old Bavaria and an indispensable part of Bavarian pub culture?
... that the back cover of Luis Miguel's album México en la Piel was changed in 2005 because the original had altered the colors of the Mexican flag, which is illegal in Mexico?
... that Chang Chun-Yen, a pioneer of Taiwan's hi-tech industry, was forbidden from going abroad to study because of his father's involvement in the February 28 incident?
... that neuroendocrinologist Catherine Woolley found evidence of brain plasticity using a technique described in 1873?
... that an enclave of Edmonds, Washington, was formed after several failed attempts at annexing the community of Esperance?
... that Brennan's Criterion Bar in Bundoran, Ireland, had no television, discouraged live music, and banned swearing?

In the news

Maithripala Sirisena

The International Committee for Weights and Measures confirms new definitions for the units kilogram, ampere, kelvin and mole.
Amidst a constitutional crisis, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka suspends the attempt by President Maithripala Sirisena (pictured) to dissolve parliament.
American comic book creator Stan Lee dies at the age of 95.
An outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has killed more than 200 people since August.

On this day

November 17

Queen Elizabeth I of England

1558 – Elizabeth I (pictured) became Queen of England and Ireland, marking the beginning of the Elizabethan era.
1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: French forces defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Arcole in a manoeuvre to cut the latter's line of retreat.
1968 – NBC controversially cut away from an American football game between the Oakland Raiders and New York Jets to broadcast Heidi, causing viewers in the Eastern United States to miss the game's dramatic ending.
2009 – Administrators at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia discovered that their servers had been hacked and thousands of emails and files on climate change had been stolen.
2013 – Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363 crashed during an aborted landing at Kazan International Airport in Tatarstan, Russia, killing all 50 people on board and leading to the revocation of the airline's operating certificate.

Agnes of Jesus (b. 1602) · Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1818) · Robert Hofstadter (d. 1990)

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Today's featured picture

The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. Drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.

This photograph, titled Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!, was taken by Dorothea Lange in 1937 and depicts a Missouri migrant family's jalopy stuck near Tracy, California.

Photograph: Dorothea Lange. Restoration: Adam Cuerden.

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