Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 February 23

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From today's featured article

The rainbow pitta (Pitta iris) is a small passerine bird in the pitta family, Pittidae, endemic to northern Australia. The species is most closely related to the superb pitta of Manus Island. A colourful bird, it has a velvet black head with chestnut stripes above the eyes, olive green upper parts, black underparts, a bright red belly and an olive green tail. The rainbow pitta lives in the monsoon forests, as well as some drier eucalypt forests. As with other pittas, it is a secretive and shy bird. The diet consists mainly of insects, arthropods and small vertebrates. Pairs defend territories and breed during the rainy season, as this time of year provides the most food for nestlings. The female lays three to four eggs with blotches inside its large domed nest. Both parents defend the nest, incubate the eggs and feed the chicks. The species is common within its range, and is not threatened. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Flag of Spokane, Washington

... that the flag of Spokane, Washington (pictured), was taken to the summit of Mount Everest in 1981?
... that Hildegard Heichele, a soprano of the Oper Frankfurt known for performing Mozart roles, appears as Adele on a DVD of Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus from the Royal Opera House?
... that The Patient Assassin, a biography of Udham Singh by Anita Anand, uses evidence from documents released under the UK's Freedom of Information Act?
... that after being treated for uterine cancer, Ai Kidosaki taught cooking to hospital employees?
... that Michael Waltrip's 2019 documentary film Blink of an Eye has been called "NASCAR's answer to Senna"?
... that Al Ahed FC is the first Lebanese association football club to win the AFC Cup?
... that in 2003, a painting by Nazlı Ecevit was hung in the workplace of the Turkish prime minister, an office that her son Bülent Ecevit had previously held?
... that the Battle of Drepana was ill-fated for the Romans because their sacred chickens refused to eat?
... that at the age of 17, Esther Arditi saved a pilot and a navigator from a burning plane?

In the news

The Dáil chamber

Shootings in Hanau, Germany, leave eleven people dead and five others wounded.
The Irish general election concludes with no party holding a majority of seats in Dáil Éireann (chamber pictured).
South Korean film Parasite wins four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bong Joon-ho.
A mass shooting in Korat, Thailand, leaves thirty people dead and more than fifty others injured.

On this day

February 23: The Emperor's Birthday in Japan

Scene of the Grayrigg derailment

1778 – American Revolutionary War: Prussian military officer Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania as a volunteer for the Continental Army.
1854 – The Orange River Convention was signed in Bloemfontein, with Britain agreeing to recognise the independence of the Orange Free State in present-day South Africa.
1945 – Second World War: An Allied bombing run on Pforzheim, Germany, killed approximately 31 percent of its population and destroyed about 83 percent of its buildings.
2007 – A Virgin express train derailed (accident scene pictured) near Grayrigg in North West England, killing one person and seriously injuring thirty others.

Balthazar Gerbier (b. 1592) · Anna Hofman-Uddgren (b. 1868) · Lotika Sarkar (d. 2013)

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Today's featured picture

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is an iconic photograph of six United States Marines raising the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the final stages of the Pacific War. The photograph, taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press on February 23, 1945, was first published in Sunday newspapers two days later and reprinted in thousands of publications. It was the only photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in the same year as its publication, and was later used for the construction of the Marine Corps War Memorial in 1954, which was dedicated to honor all Marines who died for their country since 1775. The memorial, sculpted by Felix de Weldon, is located in Arlington Ridge Park, near the Ord-Weitzel Gate to Arlington National Cemetery and the Netherlands Carillon. The photograph has come to be regarded in the United States as one of the most significant and recognizable images of World War II.

Photograph credit: Joe Rosenthal; restored by Bammesk

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