Wikiwand Today
Your daily knowledge snacks, directly from Wikipedia
Latest News
- Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (pictured) is elected as President of Somalia.
- In the United States, ten people are killed in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
- Ukraine, represented by Kalush Orchestra with the song "Stefania", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
- Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan inherits the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and becomes President of the United Arab Emirates after the death of Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Today in History
May 17: International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia; Galician Literature Day in Galicia, Spain
- 1395 – An outnumbered Wallachian army repulsed invading Ottoman forces at the Battle of Rovine.
- 1642 – The Société Notre-Dame de Montréal founded Fort Ville-Marie, a permanent mission that eventually grew into the Canadian city of Montreal.
- 1902 – The Antikythera mechanism, the oldest known surviving geared mechanism, was discovered among artifacts retrieved from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera.
- 1947 – After renegotiating a contract with the makers of her signature perfume Chanel No. 5, Coco Chanel (pictured) received a share of wartime profits from its sale, making her one of the richest women in the world.
- 1974 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force detonated a series of car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland, killing 34 people and injuring almost 300 more.
- Martin Delrio (b. 1551)
- Seth Warner (b. 1743)
- Dorothy Levitt (d. 1922)
Did You Know?
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- ... that in 2020 Barbora Mokošová (pictured) won Slovakia's first medal at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships?
- ... that Orange William was a very-long-range British anti-tank missile that was cancelled as the Chieftain tank appeared to outperform it?
- ... that Judy Ann Santos received the Box Office Queen award for starring in Isusumbong Kita sa Tatay Ko, the first Filipino film to earn 100 million pesos at the box office?
- ... that the music video for Matt and Kim's New Glow song "Can You Blame Me" involves fans filming themselves with iPads near their heads playing headshots of the duo lip-syncing?
- ... that the historian and political journalist Lancelot Lawton addressed a House of Commons committee in London in 1935, beginning: "The chief problem in Europe to-day is the Ukrainian problem"?
- ... that Love, a sculpture by Ukrainian artist Alexander Milov, represents two wire-frame adults who appear to be alienated, but inside their bodies two children reach out to each other?
- ... that Ed Jasper started all 16 games for the Atlanta Falcons in 2002, helping the team qualify for the NFL playoffs that year?
- ... that desert kites in the Middle East and North Africa were used as traps for wild game?
Today's Featured Article
Colossal Cave Adventure is a 1976 text-based adventure game by Will Crowther, based on his own spelunking experience, and expanded in 1977 by Don Woods. In it, the player explores a vast cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold, by typing one- or two-word commands. These are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake. The version by Woods expanded the game in size and increased the amount of fantasy elements present in it, such as a dragon and magic spells. Both versions were spread around the nascent ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, and were very popular in the computer community. Noted as one of the most influential video games, it was in 2019 inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. (Full article...)
Today's Featured Picture
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Altolamprologus compressiceps is a species of fish in the family Cichlidae, endemic to the shallow rocky areas of Lake Tanganyika. The lake holds at least 250 species of cichlid fish, including species yet to be described. Almost all (98 percent) of Tanganyika cichlid species are endemic to the lake, and it is thus an important biological resource for the study of speciation in evolution. A. compressiceps is categorized as a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This fish was photographed at the Karlsruhe Zoo in Germany. Photograph credit: H. Zell
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