Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 September 6

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From today's featured article

Babakotia, an extinct genus of sloth lemurs, lived in the northern part of Madagascar. The name comes from the Malagasy word for the indri, to which all sloth lemurs are closely related. Its morphological traits show intermediate stages between the slow-moving smaller sloth lemurs and the suspensory large sloth lemurs, and suggest a close relationship between both groups and the extinct monkey lemurs. All sloth lemurs share many traits with living sloths, demonstrating convergent evolution. Babakotia had long forearms, curved digits, and highly mobile hip and ankle joints. It shared its range with other sloth lemurs, including Palaeopropithecus ingens and Mesopropithecus dolichobrachion. It was primarily a leaf-eater, though it also ate fruit and hard seeds. It is known only from subfossil remains and may have died out shortly after the arrival of humans on the island, but not enough radiocarbon dating has been done with this species to know for certain. (Full article...)

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In the news

Typhoon Jebi

Typhoon Jebi (satellite image shown) affects Taiwan and Japan, killing at least 16 people overall and causing extensive damage in the Kansai region of Japan.
Arif Alvi is elected as President of Pakistan.
A court in Myanmar sentences two Reuters journalists to seven years in prison for violating the state secrets act while investigating violence against the Rohingya minority.
A fire destroys the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro.
In Gaelic football, Dublin win the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, defeating Tyrone in the final.

On this day

September 6

A Piggly Wiggly store in 1918

1781 – American Revolutionary War: General Benedict Arnold led British forces to victory in the Battle of Groton Heights.
1916 – The first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly (pictured), was founded in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
1944 – World War II: Soviet forces captured the city of Tartu on their way to re-establishing their rule in Estonia.
1970 – The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked four jet aircraft, landing two of them at Dawson's Field in Zarqa, Jordan, and one in Beirut, with the last hijacking attempt foiled.
1997 – An estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide watched the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales on television.

Isabella Leonarda (b. 1620) · Frederick Abel (d. 1902) · Wendi Richter (b. 1961)

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Today's featured picture

The Game.com is a fifth-generation handheld video game console manufactured by Tiger Electronics. Designed as a competitor to Nintendo's Game Boy series, it was released in September 1997. It sold fewer than 300,000 units and was discontinued in 2000 as a commercial failure.

Photograph: Evan Amos

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