Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 October 15

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From today's featured article

Tropical Storm Kiko was a strong tropical storm that capsized a boat off the western coast of Mexico, killing at least 15 people. The 15th and final tropical cyclone of the 2007 Pacific hurricane season, Kiko developed out of a tropical wave that formed off the coast of Africa on September 26 and traversed the Atlantic. The wave crossed over Central America and entered the Pacific Ocean on October 8, where it spawned Tropical Depression 15-E on October 15. The depression drifted to the south over the next day before briefly being declared Tropical Storm Kiko. It subsequently weakened into a tropical depression, but later reattained tropical storm intensity. By October 18, Kiko was forecast to make landfall along the western Mexican coastline as a moderate tropical storm. As a precaution, port captains in the area shut down shipping and residents were advised to avoid low-lying areas that might flood and to move to temporary shelters. The cyclone turned to the west without making landfall and reached its peak intensity of 70 mph (110 km/h) on October 20. The tropical storm slowly weakened to a remnant low-pressure area by October 24 and completely dissipated on October 27. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that shoddy tunnel construction in the 1840s forced the Hastings Line to use a restricted loading gauge and special narrow-bodied trains (Class 33/2 locomotive pictured) until 1986?
... that Twitterature has been called a literary genre, but is more accurately an adaptation of various genres to social media?
... that the 1982 dungeon crawler Telengard began as a hobbyist game for the PDP-10 mainframe computer and later joined what Gamasutra called "The Silver Age" of computer role-playing games?
... that Todd Lake in the Deschutes National Forest of Oregon is well known for its summer wildflowers display?
... that the 1989 film Masque of the Red Death, produced by Roger Corman, is a remake of the 1964 picture of the same name which was directed by him?
... that Francis Henry Medcalf was Mayor of Toronto for five years – spread over a twelve-year period?
... that umpires in German hobby horse polo force punitive sherries on non-galloping players?

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In the news

Australian author Richard Flanagan (pictured) wins the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
Jean Tirole is awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of market power and regulation.
Evo Morales is re-elected for a third term as President of Bolivia.
Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism against the oppression of children and young people.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to French historical author and novelist Patrick Modiano.
Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William Moerner are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on stimulated emission depletion microscopy and photoactivated localization microscopy.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Hong Kong protests – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Recent deaths: Jean-Claude Duvalier

On this day...

October 15: Shemini Atzeret begins at sunset (Judaism, 2014)

1764 – English historian Edward Gibbon (pictured) observed friars singing Vespers at Capitoline Hill in Rome, inspiring him to write The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
1864 – American Civil War: The Confederates captured Glasgow, Missouri, although it had little long-term benefit as Price's Missouri Expedition was defeated a week later.
1894 – Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer in the French military, was wrongly arrested for treason.
1917 – Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad for spying for Germany.
1954 – Hurricane Hazel made landfall in the Carolinas in the United States before moving north to Toronto in Canada later the same day, killing a total of 176 people in both countries.

More anniversaries: October 14 – October 15 – October 16

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It is now October 15, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

A map of the world using the Natural Earth projection, a pseudocylindrical projection which is neither conformal nor equal-area. The projection was designed by Tom Patterson, an American cartographer with the National Park Service who has developed several open-source tools and base maps for cartographers.

This map is a derivative of NASA's Blue Marble summer month composite, with oceans lightened to enhance legibility and contrast.

Map: Strebe, using the Geocart map projection software

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