Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 January 8

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From today's featured article

The periodic table is a chart of the chemical elements, ordered by their atomic number and electron configurations. The elements in each group (column) often have similar chemical properties. The table also shows four rectangular blocks with some similarities in physical and chemical properties. Six groups have generally accepted names, including the halogens of group 17 and the noble gases of group 18. The table provides a framework for analyzing chemical behaviour, and is extensively used in chemistry and other sciences. The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev published the first widely recognized periodic table in 1869, and correctly predicted some properties of then-unknown elements that would be expected to fill in the gaps. Mendeleev's periodic table has been expanded and refined over time; elements 1–94 have all been found to occur naturally, and elements 95–118 have been synthesized in nuclear reactors or laboratories. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Gorgon IIA

...that the United States Navy placed orders for the Gorgon IIA (pictured) and Gorgon IIC missiles with the Singer Manufacturing Company, better known for its sewing machines?
... that Wolfgang Kläsener conducted his Kettwiger Bach-Ensemble in a memorial concert, combining the last work by Thomas Beimel with one Mass by Bach and one by Bruckner?
... that houseflies have been used in germ warfare to distribute cholera?
... that at Harvard University, Walter J. Leonard designed "one of the country's earliest and most effective affirmative-action programs, which became a model for other universities around the country"?
... that the initial plan for the renovation of the Metropolitan Theatre in Winnipeg was for a rock and roll museum?
... that in 1992, Camille Robinson-Regis became the youngest senator to be appointed to the cabinet of Trinidad and Tobago?
... that Yiqu was conquered by Qin after its king was killed either by his mistress Queen Dowager Xuan, or by her son the king of Qin?
... that North-West Mounted Police Corporal William Dempster found the Lost Patrol?

In the news

Rob Cross

A passenger train collides with a truck on a level crossing near Kroonstad, South Africa, killing 18 people and injuring more than 250 others.
In darts, Rob Cross (pictured) wins the PDC World Championship on his debut.
George Weah is elected President of Liberia.
Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardons jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori.
Typhoon Tembin sweeps through the southern Philippines, killing more than 260 people.

On this day...

January 8: Coming of Age Day in Japan (2018)

Harvey Milk

1697 – Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead became the last person in Britain to be executed for blasphemy.
1889 – Statistician Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electric tabulating machine, the precursor to modern computers.
1936 – Reza Shah issued the Kashf-e hijab decree, ordering police to physically remove hijab from any woman in public.
1978 – Harvey Milk (pictured) was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man elected into public office in the United States.
2010 – Gunmen from an offshoot of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus transporting the Togo national football team to the Africa Cup of Nations, killing three.

Athelm (d. 926) · Fanny Bullock Workman (b. 1859) · Bronislava Nijinska (b. 1891)

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2004 inductee ASIMO

The Robot Hall of Fame is an American hall of fame that recognizes notable robots in various scientific fields and general society, as well as achievements in robotics technology. The organization was established in 2003 by the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as an acknowledgement of Pittsburgh's achievements in the field of robotics and with the aim of creating a broader awareness of the contributions of robotics in society. The idea for the Robot Hall of Fame was conceived by Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science dean James H. Morris, who described it as a means of "honor[ing] robots that have served an actual or potentially useful function and demonstrated real skill, along with robots that entertain and those that have achieved worldwide fame in the context of fiction." The first induction ceremony was held at the Carnegie Science Center on November 10, 2003. Thirty robots – both real and fictional – have been inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame since its inception. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Jaffa Clock Tower is a clock tower on Yefet Street at the northern entrance of Jaffa, an ancient city now part of Tel Aviv. The tower, which was constructed by the Ottoman Empire between 1900 and 1903, is made of limestone. It incorporates two clocks, as well as a plaque commemorating the Israelis killed in the battle for the town in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

Photograph: Andrew Shiva

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