Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Wikipedia article of the day for July 22, 2021

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 22, 2021 is Hurricane Emily (1993).
Hurricane Emily was the strongest storm of the 1993 Atlantic hurricane season, and caused record flooding in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The fifth named storm of the season, Emily became a tropical storm on August 25, after becoming nearly stationary southeast of Bermuda. On August 31, the hurricane reached peak winds of 115 mph (185 km/h) on its approach to North Carolina. Part of the eye passed over Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, but its absolute center remained 23 mi (37 km) offshore. Emily's strong winds coincided with high tides during a full moon, causing severe flooding along the Pamlico Sound. The villages of Avon and Hatteras were inundated, and in Buxton, the floods left behind water marks as high as 10.54 ft (3.21 m). The storm wrecked 553 homes, leaving a quarter of the Cape Hatteras population homeless. Off the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia, three swimmers drowned.

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Wikipedia article of the day for July 21, 2021

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 21, 2021 is Dementia with Lewy bodies.
Dementia with Lewy bodies is a common dementia characterized by changes in sleep, behavior, cognition, movement, and automatic bodily functions. Symptoms worsen over time until cognitive decline interferes with normal daily functioning. The core features are REM sleep behavior disorder (in which people act out their dreams), visual hallucinations, marked fluctuations in attention or alertness, and parkinsonism. The exact cause is unknown, but involves deposits of abnormal clumps of protein in the brain, known as Lewy bodies. Gastrointestinal and heart function can be affected. Definitive diagnosis usually requires an autopsy, and a probable diagnosis—based on symptoms and tests—is often missed. Management of the many symptoms is challenging and involves multiple specialties. There is no cure or medication to stop the disease progression. After the suicide of Robin Williams (pictured) in 2014, his autopsy found that diffuse Lewy bodies explained his symptoms.

Monday, July 19, 2021

Wikipedia article of the day for July 20, 2021

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 20, 2021 is Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins.
The Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins were issued by the United States Mint in 2019 to mark the 50th anniversary of the first crewed landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. There is a gold half eagle (five-dollar coin), two sizes of silver dollars, and a copper-nickel clad half dollar, all with the same design and curved, with the obverse concave and the reverse convex. The obverse shows a bootprint on the lunar surface, and the reverse (pictured), based on a well-known photo by Armstrong, depicts the visor of Aldrin's space suit, reflecting Armstrong, the U.S. flag and the Lunar Module Eagle. The depiction of Aldrin made him the seventh individual depicted on a U.S. coin to be alive at the time it was struck. The program was the most successful U.S. commemorative coin issue since the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame coins, with more than 600,000 Apollo 11 coins sold. The larger silver dollar won the Coin of the Year Award for 2019-dated issues.

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Wikipedia article of the day for July 19, 2021

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 19, 2021 is Characters of Carnivàle.
The two central characters of Carnivàle, an HBO television series, were Ben Hawkins (actor pictured), a young man working in a traveling carnival; and Brother Justin Crowe, a Californian preacher. Most of the characters are introduced in Ben's story, though several others interact mainly with Brother Justin; some appear in mysterious dreams and visions connecting the slowly converging storylines. Show creator Daniel Knauf submitted elaborate character biographies, which were rewritten before the filming of the first season began and provided to the actors and production personnel. The original character backgrounds were summarized on HBO's website, and were provided in full to fans after the show's cancellation. Due to their nature, these sources contain information on the intended fate of the characters beyond the cancellation of Carnivàle after the second season. They do not offer canon information per se, but provide a frame for the characters' motivation throughout the series. (This article is part of a featured topic: Carnivàle.)

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Wikipedia article of the day for July 18, 2021

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 18, 2021 is Temporary gentlemen.
"Temporary gentlemen" is a colloquial term referring to male officers of the British Army who held temporary (or war-duration) commissions, particularly when such men came from outside the traditional officer class. Historically the officers of the British Army were drawn from the gentry and upper middle classes. The First World War required a rapid expansion of the officer corps and more than 200,000 additional officers were recruited, many on temporary commissions. Many of these were drawn from the lower middle and working classes. They came to be referred to as "temporary gentlemen" with the expectation that they would revert to their former social standing after the war. The term was revived in the Second World War, which saw a similar increase in the number of officers holding temporary commissions. The term continued to see use for officers commissioned from those conscripted for National Service, which lasted until 1963.

Friday, July 16, 2021

Wikipedia article of the day for July 17, 2021

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 17, 2021 is Paper Mario.
Paper Mario is a video game spinoff series of the Mario franchise, developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for its various video game consoles. The series began when Square took its Final Fantasy franchise to Sony's PlayStation console, leaving Nintendo without a role-playing game (RPG) for the Nintendo 64. The series follows Mario on various quests to defeat one or more antagonists (including Bowser) in worlds created with papercraft materials. The first game in the series, Paper Mario, was released in August 2000. The series has received praise for its writing, characters, and graphics, but garnered criticism for its transition from traditional role-playing to action-adventure, starting with Super Paper Mario for the Wii. The newest game in the series, The Origami King, was released on July 17, 2020.

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Wikipedia article of the day for July 16, 2021

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 16, 2021 is Morningside Park (Manhattan).
Morningside Park is a 30-acre (12-hectare) public park in Upper Manhattan, New York City. The area, originally known as "Muscota" by the Lenape Native Americans, features a cliff that separates Morningside Heights (to the west) from Harlem. The city commissioned Central Park's designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to produce a design for the park, which they did in 1873. Jacob Wrey Mould was hired to design new plans in 1880, but little progress occurred until Olmsted and Vaux were asked to modify their plans following Mould's death in 1886. After the park was completed in 1895, three sculptures were installed: Lafayette and Washington, Carl Schurz Memorial, and Alfred Lincoln Seligman Fountain. Columbia University proposed constructing a gym in the park's southern end in the early 1960s, but abandoned the plan after students protested in 1968. The site of the unbuilt gym was turned into a waterfall and pond around 1990, and an arboretum was added in 1998.