Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 May 11

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The Sega Saturn is a 32-bit home video game console developed by Sega. Released in 1994 in Japan, and 1995 in North America and Europe, the Saturn is the successor to the Sega Genesis, and Sega's fourth game console. It has dual-CPU architecture and eight processors, and was designed around a CPU developed by electronics company Hitachi. Its games are in CD-ROM format. The system was initially successful in Japan, but failed to sell large numbers in the United States after a surprise launch four months before its scheduled release, and an aggressive price war against Sony's PlayStation. Following the release of the Nintendo 64 in late 1996, the Saturn rapidly lost market share in the U.S., and was discontinued in 1998 in the country. The console is considered a commercial failure, selling just over 9 million units worldwide, blamed in part due to Sega's failure to release a Sonic the Hedgehog video game, known in development as Sonic X-treme, for the system. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Kalavati Devi

... that Kalavati Devi (pictured) has built 4,000 toilets so that people in Kanpur would not be subjected to a "living hell"?
... that the 1957–1958 influenza pandemic killed at least one million people worldwide?
... that the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox was inspired by Deborah Feldman's memoir Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots?
... that Sampson Mathews was nicknamed the "master driver of cattle" for transporting more than 100 cattle 160 miles (260 km) through the Allegheny Mountains in 19 days for the Battle of Point Pleasant?
... that 48 Wall Street's cornerstone was laid on Alexander Hamilton's 171st birthday, and the building opened exactly one year later?
... that, although in ruins, the Forty Saints Monastery in Sarandë, Albania, still retains some religious importance for the local Greek Orthodox population?
... that Roderick Jones became general manager of Reuters after Herbert de Reuter killed himself?
... that some Taiwanese train tickets are collected because the combination of station names is considered to be auspicious?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Wide-field image of HR 6819

A gas leak in Andhra Pradesh, India, kills thirteen people and injures over a thousand others.
Astronomers announce the discovery of the first black hole located in a star system visible to the naked eye (pictured).
In the Philippines, the leading television network ABS-CBN is ordered to stop broadcasting by the National Telecommunications Commission.

On this day

May 11

Crossing of the Blue Mountains

1813 – William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth departed westward from Sydney on an expedition to become the first confirmed Europeans to cross the Blue Mountains (depicted).
1880 – A land dispute between the Southern Pacific Railroad and settlers in Hanford, California, turned deadly when a gun battle broke out, leaving seven dead.
1997 – Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in six games, becoming the first chess computer to win a match against a world champion.
2010 – David Cameron took office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed the country's first coalition government since the Second World War.

Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen (b. 1720)
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (b. 1827)
Doris Eaton Travis (d. 2010)

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Breydon Water

There are 163 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in Norfolk, out of which 123 are biological, 25 are geological and 15 are both biological and geological. In England, SSSIs are designated by Natural England, which is responsible for protecting England's natural environment. Designation as an SSSI gives legal protection to the most important wildlife and geological sites. Sixty-one sites in Norfolk are Special Areas of Conservation, forty-four are Special Protection Areas, thirty-two are Ramsar sites, forty are Geological Conservation Review sites, and thirty-five are Nature Conservation Review sites. Twenty-two sites are managed by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, one by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, three by the National Trust, one by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and one by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust. (Full list...)

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Green Wheat Field with Cypress is an oil-on-canvas painting by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. It is part of a series of paintings of wheat fields that he painted in 1889 while a voluntary patient in the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Besides a fondness for cypress trees, Van Gogh had a special affinity with wheat fields, depicting them dozens of times over the years; to him, they symbolized the cycle of life and death, and he found in them both solace and inspiration. This painting is now in the collection of the National Gallery Prague.

Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh

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