Wikipedia article of the day for July 28, 2020

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 28, 2020 is Elasmosaurus.
Elasmosaurus was a large marine reptile in the order Plesiosauria. The genus lived about 80.5 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous. The first specimen was sent to the American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope after its discovery in 1867 near Fort Wallace, Kansas. Only one incomplete skeleton is definitely known, consisting of a fragmentary skull, the spine, and the pectoral and pelvic girdles, and a single species, E. platyurus, is recognized today. Measuring 10.3 meters (34 ft) long, the genus had a streamlined body with paddle-like limbs or flippers, a short tail, and a small, slender, triangular head. With a neck around 7.1 meters (23 ft) long, Elasmosaurus was one of the longest-necked animals to have lived, with the largest number of neck vertebrae known, 72. It probably ate small fish and marine invertebrates, seizing them with long teeth. Elasmosaurus is known from the Pierre Shale formation, which represents marine deposits from the Western Interior Seaway.

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Wikipedia article of the day for July 27, 2020

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 27, 2020 is Osbert Lancaster.
Osbert Lancaster (4 August 1908 – 27 July 1986) was an English cartoonist, architectural historian and stage designer. He became known in the 1930s for his books on architecture, aiming to amuse the general reader while demystifying the subject. Several of the terms he coined as labels for architectural styles such as "Pont Street Dutch" have gained common usage, and his books have continued to be regarded as important works of reference on the subject. In the Daily Express from 1938 to 1981 he drew the "pocket cartoons", a form he introduced to Britain. They featured a cast of regular characters, led by his best-known creation, Maudie Littlehampton, through whom he expressed his views on the fashions, fads and political events of the day. In 1951 he was commissioned to create costumes and scenery for a new ballet, Pineapple Poll. Between then and the early 1970s he designed new productions for the Royal Ballet, Glyndebourne, D'Oyly Carte, the Old Vic and the West End.

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Wikipedia article of the day for July 26, 2020

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 26, 2020 is Carlos Castillo Armas.
Carlos Castillo Armas (November 4, 1914 – July 26, 1957) was a military officer and the 28th president of Guatemala. He came to power in a 1954 coup d'état backed by the US Central Intelligence Agency that overthrew the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz, and consolidated his position in an October 1954 election in which he was the only candidate. A member of the right-wing National Liberation Movement party, he was also the first of a series of authoritarian rulers in Guatemala who were close allies of the United States. Under Castillo Armas, the reforms of the Guatemalan Revolution were largely undone. Land was confiscated from small farmers and returned to large landowners, and thousands of people were arrested, tortured, or killed under suspicion of being communists. In 1957 Castillo Armas was assassinated by a presidential guard. His policies sparked a series of leftist insurgencies culminating in the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted from 1960 to 1996.

Wikipedia article of the day for July 25, 2020

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 25, 2020 is Operation Cobra.
Operation Cobra was an offensive launched by the First United States Army under Omar Bradley against the German 7th Army commanded by Paul Hausser in the Cotentin Peninsula during the Normandy campaign of World War II. The attack commenced on 25 July 1944, having been delayed several times by poor weather. Supporting offensives had drawn the bulk of German armored reserves toward the British and Canadian sectors, and the lack of men and materiel available to the Germans meant they were unable to form successive lines of defense. After a slow start the offensive gathered momentum and by 27 July most organized resistance had been overcome and the Americans advanced rapidly. The German response was ineffectual and the entire Normandy front soon collapsed. Operation Cobra, together with concurrent offensives by the British Second Army and the Canadian First Army, was decisive in securing an Allied victory in the Normandy campaign and the loss of the German position in northwestern France.

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