Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 August 11

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From today's featured article

The MAX Yellow Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It connects North Portland to Portland City Center and Portland State University. Following years of failed attempts to construct the South/North Line between Clackamas County and Clark County, Washington, Portland business leaders and local residents persuaded TriMet to build a light rail extension from the city center to North Portland in 1999. The line began construction in 2001 and opened on May 1, 2004. As a source of funding, the city created an urban renewal area, which has been blamed for gentrifying historically black inner-city neighborhoods; about 10,000 people of color left Portland's Central City between 2000 and 2010. The line serves 17 stops and runs for approximately 21 hours daily with a minimum headway of 15 minutes during most of the day. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

VikkiKitty

... that VikkiKitty (pictured) casted the first ever Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament?
... that the Mandinka douga, the "dance of the vulture" described in 20th-century African literature, may go back to Sundiata, and reach across to American Gullah culture, buck dance, and the minstrel show?
... that the campfire ash ceremony is a worldwide Scouting service said to date back to Robert Baden-Powell in 1907?
... that the Embassy of the Philippines in Mexico City was badly damaged in the 2017 Puebla earthquake?
... that Tolulope Oluwatoyin Sarah Arotile, the first female combat helicopter pilot in the Nigerian Army, died in a freak car accident?
... that there is a recent trend to reverse the Hebraization of street names in mixed Jewish–Arab cities in Israel?
... that before Kanye West sampled "Hey Young World" by Slick Rick on a track in 2018, his frequent collaborator Jay-Z had sampled it back in 2002?
... that Canadian sports journalist Jim Proudfoot was reportedly a lifetime hitchhiker to get to sporting events?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

The aircraft involved in the accident

The Lebanese cabinet, led by Prime Minister Hassan Diab, resigns in the wake of the explosions in Beirut that killed 220 people.
An Air India Express aircraft (pictured) overruns the runway at Calicut International Airport in Kerala, India, killing 18 people on board.
The incumbent Sri Lanka People's Freedom Alliance coalition claims a landslide victory in the parliamentary election.
In India, construction of the Ram Temple on disputed land officially begins, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi laying the foundation stone.

On this day

August 11: Krishna Janmashtami (Hinduism, 2020); Independence Day in Chad (1960)

1975 Ford Pinto

1309 – Reconquista: Aragonese forces led by King James II landed on the coast of Almería, beginning an ultimately unsuccessful siege of the Muslim-held city.
1945 – Amid rumors of kidnappings of children by Jews in Kraków, a crowd of Poles took part in a pogrom, resulting in at least one death.
1977 – The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration initiated an investigation into the alleged vulnerability of the Ford Pinto (example pictured) to fuel leakage and fire in a rear-end collision.
2012 – At least 306 people were killed and 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran.

John Hunyadi (d. 1456)
Steve Wozniak (b. 1950)
Nicola Zagame (b. 1990)

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Today's featured picture

Kirinia roxelana, the lattice brown, is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae found in south-eastern Europe and the Near East. It is found in a variety of habitats such as warm, dry grassland and scrubland near woodland, forest verges, vineyards and olive groves, usually in association with rocks or stone walls. It is a large butterfly with a wing length of about 3 cm (1.2 in); adults are most commonly on the wing between May and July, while caterpillars feed on broad-leaved grasses. Like other members of its family, it stands on only four legs while the other two remain curled up. The wings are covered with minute scales, and their distinctive pattern help the butterfly protect itself by camouflage. This photograph shows a K. roxelana male resting on a rock in Mount Carmel National Park, Israel.

Photograph credit: Gideon Pisanty

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