Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 April 25

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From today's featured article

Amphibians are a class of cold-blooded vertebrates, mostly four-limbed. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats in freshwater, on or under the ground, or in trees. Typically starting their lives as aquatic larvae with gills, they generally undergo metamorphosis into adults with air-breathing lungs. They use their skins as a secondary respiratory surface; some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely on their skins. The earliest amphibians evolved in the Devonian Period from fish with lungs and bony-limbed fins. The three modern orders of amphibians are Anura (the frogs and toads), Caudata (the salamanders), and Gymnophiona (the caecilians). The number of known species is approximately 7,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs. The smallest living amphibian is a frog from New Guinea with a length of just 7.7 mm (0.3 in). The largest is the 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) Chinese giant salamander, but this is dwarfed by the extinct 9 m (30 ft) Prionosuchus from Brazil. With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often indicators of ecological disturbance, and in recent decades their populations have declined around the globe. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that according to Walter Brasch's 1982 book Columbia County Place Names, some maps list the valley of Davis Hollow (pictured) as being in Fishing Creek Township while others list it as being near Rohrsburg?
... that certain offences from Singapore's new anti-harassment law include online acts committed outside of the nation?
... that in reaction to child sexual exploitation cases in Rochdale and in Rotherham, police investigated and prosecuted a similar case in Peterborough?
... that Béla Bartók composed his Rhapsody, Op. 1, in Lisztian style?
... that Jane Spencer, Baroness Churchill, the longest serving member of Queen Victoria's personal household, predeceased the monarch by one month?
... that the Parade All-America Boys Basketball Team is the longest-running selection of high school basketball All-Americans in the United States?
... that the early DVD release of The Last Proletarians of Football was shipped with a pennant claiming that Hamburger SV won the 1982 UEFA Cup Final, even though that team lost the final?

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In the news

Almost 450 people die after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake strikes Nepal.
The Armenian Apostolic Church canonizes 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide.
The L0 Series maglev train breaks the world speed record and becomes the first train to run at more than 600 km/h (375 mph).
Deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (pictured) is sentenced to 20 years in prison for ordering killings during the 2012–13 Egyptian protests.

Ongoing: Yemeni Civil War – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
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On this day...

April 25: Feast day of Mark the Evangelist (Christianity); Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand (1915); Liberation Day in Italy; Elbe Day in Russia and the United States (1945)

1644 – The Ming dynasty of China fell when the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.
1849 – After Lord Elgin, the Governor General of Canada, signed the Rebellion Losses Bill into law to compensate the residents of Lower Canada for losses incurred in Rebellions of 1837, protestors rioted and burned down the Parliament building in Montreal.
1915 – First World War: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Anzac Cove (pictured) while British and French troops landed at Cape Helles to begin the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire.
1945 – German troops retreated from northern Finland, bringing the Lapland War to a close.
1990 – Violeta Chamorro took office as the President of Nicaragua, the first woman elected in her own right as a head of state in the Americas.

More anniversaries: April 24 – April 25 – April 26

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It is now April 25, 2015 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

HMAS Australia was a County-class heavy cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy. Laid down in Scotland in 1925, the ship entered service in 1928. She served predominantly in the South-West Pacific until the beginning of World War II, when she was tasked to the northern Atlantic. In 1942, Australia was reassigned as flagship of the ANZAC Squadron, where she supported US naval and amphibious operations throughout South-East Asia. A series of kamikaze attacks during the invasion of Lingayen Gulf led to Australia being recalled for repairs in the United Kingdom, where she remained until the end of the war. In her later years, Australia served as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan and as a training ship. She was sold for scrap in 1955.

Photo: Allan Green; restoration: Chris Woodrich

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