Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 February 25

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From today's featured article

The Flood is a fictional parasitic alien life form. Flood-infected creatures, also called Flood, in turn infect other sentient hosts. They were introduced as a second enemy faction in the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in Bungie's Halo multimedia franchise. Their design and fiction was spearheaded by Bungie artist Robert McLees, with sound design led by Martin O'Donnell. The ringworld setting of the first Halo game was stripped of many of its large creatures to make the Flood's surprise appearance more startling. For Halo 3, Bungie environment artist Vic DeLeon spent six months of pre-production time refining their fleshy aesthetic and designing the organic interiors of Flood-infested space ships. Reaction to the Flood has varied; while some reviewers found the creatures too derivative and a cliché element of science fiction, others ranked them among the greatest video game villains of all time. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Abby Franquemont

... that hand-spinning writer Abby Franquemont (pictured) spent her early childhood in Peru, where women "spun to eat and pay for the home they lived in"?
... that larvae of the red tube worm do not settle on bull kelp, probably because that seaweed inflates its float chambers with carbon monoxide?
... that professional world barrel-racing champion Hailey Kinsel won $433,333.33 in one day at the American Rodeo in February 2017?
... that the economy of the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos saw its first crisis in 1969 because of heavy borrowing in preparation for the Marcos re-election campaign?
... that Soni Sumarsono served as acting governor of three provinces of Indonesia without being elected?
... that Portland's MAX Red Line light rail, initially planned decades into the future, was built ahead of other projects because of an unsolicited proposal by Bechtel?
... that Olympians Jacques and Philippe Lacarrière were the second father–son pair to be inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame?
... that a short story about a child raised without a gender served as an inspiration for a 1975 scientific experiment?

In the news

DNA double helix

Scientists synthesize hachimoji DNA using four new nucleobases in addition to the four in natural DNA (structure pictured).
A fire in a historic district of Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills at least 80 people.
German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, best known for his creative work at Chanel, dies at the age of 85.
A suicide bombing attack near Pulwama, in Indian-administered Kashmir, kills 40 security personnel.
NASA concludes the 15-year Opportunity Mars rover mission after being unable to wake the rover from hibernation.

On this day

February 25: Soviet Occupation Day in Georgia (1921); National Day in Kuwait (1961)

Edvard Beneš

138 – Roman emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius as his son and successor, after the death of Hadrian's first adopted son Lucius Aelius.
1870 – Representing Mississippi in the Senate, Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first African American to serve in the United States Congress.
1948 – Fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention in recent unrest, Czechoslovakian president Edvard Beneš (pictured) ceded control over the government to the Communist Party.
1994 – Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim Arabs praying at the mosque in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, killing 29 people and wounding 125 others.
2009 – Members of the Bangladesh Rifles mutinied at its headquarters in Pilkhana, resulting in 74 deaths, in addition to 8 mutineers killed.

Quirinus Kuhlmann (b. 1651) · George Reid (b. 1845) · Yi Han-yong (d. 1997)

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From today's featured list

Gwyneth Paltrow

The 71st Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 21, 1999, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 24 categories honoring films released in 1998. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Gilbert Cates and directed by Louis J. Horvitz. Actress Whoopi Goldberg hosted for the third time. She first hosted the 66th ceremony held in 1994 and had last hosted the 68th ceremony in 1996. Shakespeare in Love won seven awards including Best Picture and Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow (pictured). Other winners included Saving Private Ryan with five awards and Life Is Beautiful with three. The telecast garnered nearly 46 million viewers in the United States. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

An original Xbox One home video game console with a controller and a Kinect motion-sensing input device. XBox One is a line of eighth generation consoles developed by Microsoft. It was released in 2013 as the third console in the Xbox family and successor to the Xbox 360. The name of the consoles reflects Microsoft's marketing of the device as an all-in-one entertainment system. The Xbox One line competes against consoles such as Sony's PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's Wii U and Switch.

Photograph: Evan Amos

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