Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 October 25

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From today's featured article

Katy Perry (born 1984) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She pursued a career in gospel music as a teenager, releasing her debut album in 2001, then moved to Los Angeles to venture into secular music. After signing to Capitol Records in 2007, she rose to fame in 2008 with the release of the single "I Kissed a Girl" from her second album, One of the Boys. Perry's third album, Teenage Dream (2010), became the first by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs. Her fourth album, Prism, was released in 2013 and included the number-one singles "Roar" and "Dark Horse". Perry has received many awards and nominations, and been included in the Forbes list of "Top-Earning Women In Music" for 2011, 2012, and 2013. She has sold 11 million albums and 81 million singles worldwide, making her one of the best-selling artists of all time. She made her film debut voicing Smurfette in The Smurfs in 2011, and released a documentary film in 2012, which concentrated on her life as a touring artist and the dissolution of her brief marriage to English actor and comedian Russell Brand in the early 2010s. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that one of the designers of the Swedish Navy stealth ship HSwMS Visby (pictured) said it looked like a "lunchbox"?
... that although Don Bitterlich scored the first points in Seattle Seahawks history, he was released after three games?
... that a beaver attack killed a fisherman in Belarus?
... that Nicolae Colan was the only Romanian Orthodox bishop who remained in Northern Transylvania after the region was ceded to Hungary in 1940?
... that the fossil ant Azteca eumeces is one of two Azteca species found in Dominican amber?
... that Emily Sartain was the first woman in Europe and the United States to practice the art of mezzotint engraving?
... that The Caravan Club in London claimed to be "the most unconventional spot in town" with "All night gaiety" and "Dancing to Charlie"?

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In the news

A soldier is shot dead at the National War Memorial (pictured) in Ottawa, Canada, and shots are fired in the Centre Block Parliament building.
Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege is awarded the Sakharov Prize for helping victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Comet Siding Spring makes a very close approach to Mars and is observed by means of surface rovers and satellites.
At least 43 people are killed in Nepal's worst snowstorm disaster around the mountains of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri.
Jean Tirole is awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of market power and regulation.
Cyclone Hudhud strikes India and Nepal, killing at least 96 people.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Hong Kong protests – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Recent deaths: Ben Bradlee – Gough Whitlam – Oscar de la Renta

On this day...

October 25: Retrocession Day in Taiwan (1945)

1616 – The Dutch sailing ship Eendracht reached Shark Bay on the western coastline of Australia, as documented on the Hartog Plate etched by explorer Dirk Hartog.
1854 – Crimean War: Lord Cardigan led his cavalry to disaster (pictured) in the Battle of Balaclava.
1924 – The Zinoviev letter, later found to be a forgery, was published in the Daily Mail, helping to ensure the British Labour Party's defeat in the UK general election four days later.
1944 – Heinrich Himmler ordered a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a nonconformist youth group that assisted army deserters and others hiding from the Nazis.
2001 – Windows XP, one of the most popular and widely used versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system, was released.

More anniversaries: October 24 – October 25 – October 26

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It is now October 25, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

An evening view of the Sella group, a plateau-shaped massif in the Dolomite mountains of northern Italy. The highest peak is Piz Boè at 3,151 m (10,338 ft) above sea level. Visible here are Piz Ciavazes on the right and Torri del Sella on the left.

Photograph: Dmitry A. Mottl

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