Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 February 21

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Grus is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the crane, a type of bird. It is one of twelve constellations conceived by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. Grus first appeared on a celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius and was depicted in Johann Bayer's star atlas Uranometria of 1603 (shown here). French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille gave Bayer designations to its stars in 1756, some of which had previously been considered part of the neighbouring constellation Piscis Austrinus. The constellations Grus, Pavo, Phoenix and Tucana are collectively known as the "Southern Birds". The constellation's brightest star, Alpha Gruis, is also known as Alnair and appears as a 1.7-magnitude blue-white star. Beta Gruis is a red giant variable star with a magnitude of 2.3 to 2.0. Six star systems have been found to have planets: the red dwarf Gliese 832 is one of the closest stars to Earth that has a planetary system. Another—WASP-95—has a planet that orbits every two days. Deep-sky objects found in Grus include the planetary nebula IC 5148, also known as the Spare Tyre Nebula, and a group of four interacting galaxies known as the Grus Quartet. (Full article...)

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... that the alleged remains of a fort supposedly built by the Fishing Creek Confederacy lie in the vicinity of Painter Run (pictured)?
... that Bruna Papandrea co-founded a film production company with actress Reese Witherspoon?
... that after his assassination, Laurent Kabila lay in state at the People's Palace of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which had been commissioned by the president he overthrew?
... that a Corroboree frog described in a monograph by John Alexander Moore was featured on an Australian postage stamp?
... that the Italian cruiser Vettor Pisani almost bombarded Prevesa during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–12 until protests by the Austro-Hungarian Empire forced the Italians to cancel the operation?
... that Methodist preacher Stephen G. Roszel opposed abolition?
... that Marian Engel's 1976 novel Bear has been called "the most controversial novel ever written in Canada"?
... that Dick Whittington gave London a public toilet with 128 seats, known as Whittington's Longhouse?

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Prokopis Pavlopoulos (pictured) is elected President of Greece.
Limpet teeth are found to have the highest tensile strength among biomaterials, outperforming spider silk.
At least sixteen people are killed in a stampede at a Mardi Gras parade in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Egypt strikes ISIS targets in Libya after a video is released showing the beheading of twenty-one Egyptian Copts.
Taxi, by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, wins the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The attempted rape and subsequent murder of a student on a bus spark protests across Turkey.
Two people are killed in shootings at a free-speech seminar and at a synagogue service in Copenhagen.

Ongoing: Boko Haram – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – War in Ukraine
Recent deaths: D. Ramanaidu – Philip Levine – Louis Jourdan

February 21: Language Movement Day in Bangladesh

1437 – King James I of Scotland was murdered at Perth in a failed coup by his uncle and former ally Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl.
1848 – Communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, which became one of the world's most influential political tracts.
1921 – Rezā Khan seized Tehran to make himself the most powerful person in Iran, which eventually led to the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty.
1965 – Black nationalist Malcolm X (pictured) was assassinated while giving a speech in New York City's Audubon Ballroom.
1971 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, a United Nations treaty designed to control psychoactive drugs, was signed at a conference of plenipotentiaries in Vienna.

More anniversaries: February 20 – February 21 – February 22

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It is now February 21, 2015 (UTC) – Reload this page

The Panamanian golden frog (Atelopus zeteki) is a rare species of toad endemic to Panama. First described by Emmett Reid Dunn in 1933, this species was found close to mountain streams on the eastern side of the Tabasará mountain range in Coclé and Panamá Provinces, but is now critically endangered and possibly extinct in the wild.

Photograph: Brian Gratwicke

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