Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 July 22

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From today's featured article

Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up 30 per cent of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. North of the River Irwell, 5 miles (8 km) to the west of Manchester, it occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km²). Peat development seems to have begun there at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, and the depth of peat ranges from 24 to 30 feet (7 to 9 m). A great deal of reclamation work has been carried out, but a large network of drainage channels is required to keep it from reverting to bog. In 1958 peat extractors discovered the severed head of what is believed to be a Romano-British Celt, possibly a sacrificial victim. Much of Chat Moss is now prime agricultural land, although farming in the area is in decline. A 228-acre (92 ha) area of Chat Moss, notified as Astley and Bedford Mosses, has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Chat Moss threatened the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, until George Stephenson succeeded in constructing a railway line through it in 1829; his solution was to "float" the line on a bed of bound heather and branches topped with tar and covered with rubble stone. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Paratropis tuxtlensis (pictured), a newly discovered species of spider, coats its body in soil, apparently to conceal itself?
... that Michael Botticelli is the first director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to state that he is in recovery for a substance abuse problem?
... that "Jaga Dia Untukku", a song by Siti Nurhaliza, was inspired by feelings about her husband's motorcycle accident?
... that Émilie Tremblay grew radishes and lettuces on the sod roof of her cabin in the Yukon?
... that the short-lived MGM-Pathé Communications was formed in 1990 when Giancarlo Parretti purchased MGM/UA Communications Inc. and merged it with his Pathé Communications Group?
... that after Arsenal's defeat in the 2005 FA Community Shield, manager Arsène Wenger stated, "no-one regards it as a trophy so I do not mind anymore"?
... that on Kuntry Livin', recording artist Big Smo blends country music and hip hop in a style known as hick hop?

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In the news

In golf, Rory McIlroy wins the Open Championship.
The Cook Islands Party retains its majority in the Cook Islands general election.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (aircraft pictured), en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, is shot down in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
Israel launches a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Militants attack two checkpoints in the Chaambi Mountains, Tunisia, killing fourteen soldiers.
Typhoon Rammasun causes at least 94 deaths in the Philippines and at least 18 in China.
The BRICS summit is held in Brazil.
A train derails on the Moscow Metro, killing at least 23 people and injuring at least 160 others.

Ongoing: Ukrainian unrest
Recent deaths: James Garner – Elaine Stritch – Karl Albrecht – Johnny Winter

On this day...

July 22: Feast day of Mary Magdalene; Pi Approximation Day

838 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The forces of the Abbasid Caliphate defeated Byzantine Empire troops, led by Emperor Theophilos himself, at the Battle of Anzen near present-day Dazman, Turkey.
1864 – American Civil War: Confederate forces unsuccessfully attacked Union troops at the Battle of Atlanta.
1933 – Wiley Post (pictured) became the first pilot to fly solo around the world, landing after a seven-day, nineteen-hour flight at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York City.
1992 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxurious private prison and spent the next 17 months on the run.
2011 – Two sequential terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utøya claimed the lives of 77 people in the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II.

More anniversaries: July 21 – July 22 – July 23

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It is now July 22, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

A female (top) and male orange-bellied parrot (Neophema chrysogaster), photographed in Melaleuca, Tasmania, Australia. First described by John Latham, this small parrot breeds only in South West Tasmania. Fewer than 50 individuals are known in the wild, and the species is considered critically endangered, though there is a captive breeding population.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

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