From today's featured article
Fatima Whitbread (born 1961) is a retired British javelin thrower. She broke the women's javelin throw world record with a throw of 77.44 metres (254 ft 3⁄4 in) at the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, and also won the European title that year. She took the gold medal at the 1987 World Championships in Athletics and is a two-time Olympic medallist, winning bronze at the 1984 games and silver at the 1988 games. She was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1987. During her career, she had a well-publicised rivalry with another British javelin athlete, Tessa Sanderson. Her later career was affected by a persistent shoulder injury, and in 1992 she retired from competition. She has since appeared on several television programmes, including I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! in 2011. Whitbread was named the Sports Writers' Association Sportswoman of the Year in 1986 and 1987. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to athletics. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
- ... that the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes at the University of Notre Dame (pictured) contains two stones originally from the grotto at which Our Lady of Lourdes is said to have appeared to Saint Bernadette?
- ... that the "You've Got Mail" voice actor was one of dozens of people fired from an Ohio TV station after its takeover by Paxson Communications?
- ... that Paul Freeman became one of the few Westerners interred at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, following his death in an experimental propeller-driven Soviet railcar?
- ... that Lewis Fry Richardson's Statistics of Deadly Quarrels suggested that the establishment of a world government might end wars?
- ... that a bloodied fingerprint on newspaper was the central piece of evidence in the murder of Vivianne Ruiz?
- ... that Sylvia Plath criticized her own award-winning poem for its "old crystal-brittle and sugar-faceted voice"?
- ... that Edward A. Hanna wanted to eliminate the New York State Assembly while he served in it, and later wanted to close down the government of the city of Utica while he was its mayor?
- ... that Pulaski's Masterpiece, billed as the "world's most valuable dog", disappeared without a trace in 1953?
In the news
![Rescuers in winter jackets, two of them in firefighter uniforms, standing in front and on top of the rubble of a collapsed commercial centre.](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/2023_Turkey_Earthquake_Damage.jpg/187px-2023_Turkey_Earthquake_Damage.jpg)
- An earthquake (damage pictured) strikes Turkey and Syria, killing over 29,000 people and injuring more than 87,000 others.
- Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf dies at the age of 79.
- A Chinese balloon suspected of surveillance and espionage is shot down after overflying Canada and the United States.
- Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) makes its closest approach to the Earth.
- A suicide bombing in a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, kills 100 people and injures more than 220 others.
On this day
February 11: National Foundation Day in Japan (660 BC)
from La fille du régiment
- 1584 – Spanish explorer Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa founded the town of Nombre de Jesús, the first of two short-lived colonies at the Strait of Magellan.
- 1823 – Around 110 boys were killed in a human crush at the Convent of the Minori Osservanti in Valletta on the last day of the Maltese Carnival.
- 1840 – La fille du régiment (audio featured), an opéra comique by Gaetano Donizetti, premiered in Paris to highly negative reviews but later became a success.
- 1919 – Friedrich Ebert was elected the provisional president of Germany by the Weimar National Assembly.
- 2008 – Rebel East Timorese soldiers invaded the homes of President José Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, seriously wounding the former.
- René Descartes (d. 1650)
- Elizabeth Siddal (d. 1862)
- Whitney Houston (d. 2012)
Today's featured picture
![]() |
Kremenets is a city in the Ternopil Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kremenets Raion, and lies to the north-east of Pochayiv Monastery. The city is situated in the historic region of Volhynia and features the 12th-century Kremenets Castle. During the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' in 1240 and 1241, Kremenets was one of few cities that Batu Khan failed to capture. This photograph depicts the former buildings of the Krzemieniec Lyceum, as seen from Castle Hill. Photograph credit: Konstantin Brizhnichenko
Recently featured:
|
Other areas of Wikipedia
- Community portal – The central hub for editors, with resources, links, tasks, and announcements.
- Village pump – Forum for discussions about Wikipedia itself, including policies and technical issues.
- Site news – Sources of news about Wikipedia and the broader Wikimedia movement.
- Teahouse – Ask basic questions about using or editing Wikipedia.
- Help desk – Ask questions about using or editing Wikipedia.
- Reference desk – Ask research questions about encyclopedic topics.
- Content portals – A unique way to navigate the encyclopedia.
Wikipedia's sister projects
Wikipedia is written by volunteer editors and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other volunteer projects:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
MediaWiki
Wiki software development -
Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia project coordination -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikispecies
Directory of species -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
Wikipedia languages
This Wikipedia is written in English. Many other Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.
-
1,000,000+ articles
-
250,000+ articles
-
50,000+ articles