Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-03-19/Featured content
Featured content
Featured content on the upswing!
This edition covers content promoted between 11 and 17 March 2012
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Featured articles
Eight featured articles were promoted this week:
- Golding Bird (nom) by SpinningSpark. Golding Bird (1814-1854) became interested in chemistry as a child, studying on his own and eventually teaching other students; at age 14 he was given a license as an apothecary without taking the normally-required test. He then became active as a lecturer on medicine and a researcher. In 1838 he received an MD from the University of St Andrews, followed by a master's in arts in 1840. Bird, who was often ill, died at the age of 39. During his life, he helped pioneer the use of electricity for medical purposes and conducted extensive research into urine and kidney stones. A devout Christian, Bird often preached the need for medical students to pray and study Christianity, eventually founding the Christian Medical Association to further this goal.
- James Garrard (nom) by Acdixon. James Garrard (1749–1822) was a farmer and Baptist minister who served as the second governor of Kentucky from 1796 to 1804. After serving in the Revolutionary War, he was chosen as a delegate to five of the ten statehood conventions that secured Kentucky's separation from Virginia and helped write the state's first constitution. Due to term limits imposed by the state constitution adopted in 1799, he was the last Kentucky governor elected to two consecutive terms until the restriction was eased by a 1992 amendment, allowing Paul E. Patton's re-election in 1999.
- HMS Queen Mary (nom) by Sturmvogel 66. HMS Queen Mary was the last battlecruiser built by the Royal Navy before the First World War. The sole member of her class, Queen Mary shared many features with the Lion-class battlecruisers, including her eight 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns. She was completed in 1913 and in 1914 participated in the Battle of Heligoland Bight as part of the Grand Fleet. Her wreck was discovered in 1991 and rests in pieces, some of which are upside down, on the floor of the North Sea. It is designated as a protected place under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 as it is the grave of 1,266 officers and men.
- Spanish conquest of Guatemala (nom) by Simon Burchell. The Spanish conquest of Guatemala was a conflict that furthered the Spanish colonization of the Americas within the territory of what became the modern country of Guatemala in Central America. Before the conquest, this territory contained a number of competing Mesoamerican kingdoms, the majority of which were Maya. The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries.
- Noisy Miner (nom) by Casliber and Mdk572. The Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) is a highly vocal bird in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. Endemic to eastern and south-eastern Australia, the Miner primarily inhabits dry, open eucalypt forests that lack understory shrubs. It is divided into four subspecies, with the Tasmanian subspecies recognised first. The birds are gregarious and territorial, living in groups of up to several hundred, with smaller subgroups occasionally formed for specific tasks. The birds copulate in a frenzied communal event which can occur at any time of the year, with females laying an average of two to four eggs. Currently a protected species, the Miner's population has increased in recent years; its current conservation status is Least Concern.
- St Cuthbert Gospel (nom) by Johnbod. The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is a 7th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin, which was probably placed in the tomb of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne a few years after he died in 687. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western book-binding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 5.25 by 3.5 inches (13.3 × 8.9 cm), the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.
- Common Tern (nom) by Jimfbleak. The Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution; its four subspecies breed in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migratory, wintering in coastal tropical and subtropical regions. Breeding adults have light grey upperparts, white to very light grey underparts, a black cap, orange-red legs, and a narrow pointed bill. Depending on the subspecies, the bill may be mostly red with a black tip or all black. There are a number of similar species, including the partly sympatric Arctic Tern, which can be distinguished according to plumage details, leg and bill colour, or vocalisations.
- United States Bicentennial coinage (nom) by Wehwalt. The United States Bicentennial coinage was a set of circulating commemorative coins, consisting of a quarter, half dollar and dollar struck by the United States Mint in 1975 and 1976. Regardless of when struck, each coin bears the double date 1776–1976 on the normal obverses for the Washington quarter, Kennedy half dollar and Eisenhower dollar. No coins dated 1975 of any of the three denominations were minted.
Featured lists
Six featured lists were promoted this week:
- 1984 Summer Olympics medal table (nom) by Miyagawa. The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States, from 28 July to 12 August 1984. These Olympic Games had 6,829 athletes from 140 National Olympic Committees participating in a total of 221 events in 23 sports.
- Liverpool F.C. league record by opponent (nom) by NapHit. Liverpool Football Club is an English association football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside, which competes in the top tier of English football, for the 2011–12 season. The team that Liverpool have met most in league competition are local arch-rivals Everton, against whom they have contested 186 league matches; having drawn 57 of these, Everton are also the side Liverpool have tied with most in league competition.
- List of accolades received by David Lynch (nom) by Grapple X. David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound design. In the course of his career, Lynch has received multiple awards and nominations.
- List of Ohio class submarines (nom) by Sp33dyphil. Named after its lead boat, the Ohio class of nuclear-powered submarines is, as of March 2012, serving with its sole operator, the United States Navy. Fourteen of the eighteen boats are ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), which, along with U.S. Air Force strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, constitute the nuclear-deterrent triad of the U.S. The remaining four have been converted from their initial roles as SSBNs to cruise-missile carriers.
- Public holidays in Rhodesia (nom) by Cliftonian. Public holidays observed in Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe in 1980) were largely based around milestones in the country's short history. Annual holidays marked various aspects of the arrival of white people to the country during the 1880s and 1890s, as well as the unilateral declarations of independence (1965) and of republican government (1970). A number of Christian holidays were also observed according to custom.
- List of heavy cruisers of Germany (nom) by Parsecboy. The German navies of the 1920s through 1945 – the Reichsmarine and later Kriegsmarine – built or planned a series of heavy cruisers starting in the late 1920s, initially classified as Panzerschiffe (armored ships). Four different designs – the Deutschland, D, P, and Admiral Hipper classes, comprising twenty-two ships in total – were prepared in the period, though only the three Deutschland-class ships and three of the five Admiral Hipper-class cruisers were built.
Featured pictures
Nine featured pictures were promoted this week:
- Film Poster for The Mummy (nom; related article), created by Karoly Grosz and nominated by Crisco 1492. One of the most expensive film posters in the world and the most expensive American film poster (pictured above), this advertisement for the 1932 film The Mummy (starring Boris Karloff among others) fetched US$435,500 in 1997. The horror film follows the attempts of a resurrected Egyptian mummy to find his lost love by mummifying a modern woman.
- Map of German offensive at the Battle of the Bulge (nom; related article) by Grandiose and Matthewedwards. After an unsuccessful nomination in mid-February during which four edits were made, this new featured map passed unanimously. It depicts the movements of the German offensive at the start of the Battle of the Bulge from 16 to 25 December 1944; movements which created a nose-like protruding frontline.
- Portrait of a Young Girl (nom; related article), created by Petrus Christus, digitized by Google Art Project and nominated by Crisco 1492. This is one of the last paintings completed by Netherlandish artist Petrus Christus. Executed in oil on oak panel c. 1470, the small portrait marks a stylistic advance in both Christus's work and the development of Netherlandish portraiture.
- Aeroflot Airbus A330 in flight (nom; related article), created by Sergey Kustov and nominated by Russavia. The Airbus A330 is a wide-body twin-engine jet airliner which first flew on 2 November 1992. As of 29 February 2012, 854 had been built, with the first delivered to Air Inter on 17 January 1994. The new featured picture was taken as the Aeroflot-operated craft departed Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow.
- Wandering Albatross in flight (nom; related article) by JJ Harrison. The second featured picture of this species (this image was promoted in December 2011), the new image shows a Wandering Albatross while flying east of the Tasman Peninsula. The species has the largest wingspan of any living bird, averaging from 2.51–3.50 m (8.2–11.5 ft), with a mean span of 3.1 m (10 ft) in one large colony.
- Hollerith keypunch use (nom; related article) by an unknown author, restored by Mmxx and nominated by Eustress. Initially thought to have been taken in 1890 (no clear date was given by the source), later analysis showed that this featured picture was probably taken in the 1940s or 1950s. The image, held at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C., depicts a woman using a Hollerith keypunch to enter census data similar to what was done in the 1890 US census.
- Edinburgh Ale, 1844 (nom; related article), created by Hill & Adamson and nominated by Crisco 1492. The new featured picture, a salt print depicting James Ballantine, George William Bell, and David Octavius Hill drinking Edinburgh Ale, may date among the earliest photographs of people drinking beer. The ale itself has been described as "a potent fluid, which almost glued the lips of the drinker together, and of which few, therefore, could dispatch more than a bottle."
- The Nude Maja (nom; related article), created by Francisco Goya and nominated by Crisco 1492. This new featured painting and the one below have a shared history. Goya originally painted his The Nude Maja (La maja desnuda) between 1797 and 1800. However, when first displayed it caused controversy for its explicit depiction of nudity; it is sometimes said to be the first clear depiction of female pubic hair in a large Western painting.
- The Clothed Maja (nom; related article), created by Francisco Goya and nominated by Crisco 1492. Rather than paint over his existing painting, from 1798 and 1805 Goya worked to create a second, clothed figure. Today the paintings are shown together at the Museo del Prado. The featured picture nomination was stalled due to small watermarks pockmarking the images, but passed unopposed once they were removed.
The Nude Maja
The Clothed Maja
These two new featured images by Spanish painter Francisco Goya have a shared history. The Nude Maja was painted first and met with public outcry upon release. Instead of painting over his work, Goya created The Clothed Maja, a separate painting. The two are held by the Museo del Prado and are usually displayed together.
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