Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 December 12

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From today's featured article

The South Lake Union Streetcar is a streetcar route in Seattle, Washington, United States. Traveling 1.3 miles (2.1 km), it connects downtown to the South Lake Union neighborhood on Westlake Avenue, Terry Avenue, and Valley Street. It was the first modern Seattle Streetcar line, beginning service on December 12, 2007, two years after a separate heritage streetcar ceased operations. It was conceived as part of the redevelopment of South Lake Union into a technology hub, with lobbying and financial support from Paul Allen. The line is popularly known by its nickname, the South Lake Union Trolley (abbreviated as "SLUT"), which is used on unofficial merchandise. The streetcar was controversial in its first few years due to its slow speed, low ridership, and ties to real estate development. Improvements to its corridor since 2011 have increased service and improved schedule reliability, but ridership has declined since 2014. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Hoffman's packing puzzle

... that it is possible to pack 27 equal cuboids (pictured) into a cube?
... that Fred Thomas has been described as "the greatest Canadian athlete you've never heard of"?
... that the television series The Bold Type is inspired by the life and career of former Cosmopolitan magazine editor-in-chief Joanna Coles?
... that Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, was a failure in its original form, but was revised partly at the behest of Carl Weinmüller, who then appeared in the premiere in the bass role of Rocco?
... that because photomicrographs of Longan witches broom-associated virus were not published, the virus was not initially accepted as the cause of the eponymous disease?
... that according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, Thomas Evans Blackwell was the first hydraulic engineer in England?
... that in the Newar festival of Depukhu, young men compete for the carcass of a young female goat that is first sacrificed by drowning in the Deopokhari pond in Khokana, Nepal?
... that there is a lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge in Fort Washington Park?

In the news

Whakaari/White Island

In New Zealand, the Whakaari/White Island volcano (pictured) erupts, leaving at least eight people dead, at least eight missing, and at least thirty others injured.
The World Anti-Doping Agency bans Russia from participating in major international sporting events for four years due to doping violations.
A factory fire in Delhi, India, kills at least forty-three people and injures more than fifty others.

On this day

December 12: Feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Catholicism); Yule Lads begin arrival in Iceland

HMS Duchess

627 – A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeated Emperor Khosrow II's Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh, near present-day Mosul, Iraq.
1388 – Unable to defend her possessions, Maria of Enghien sold the Lordship of Argos and Nauplia to the Republic of Venice.
1939 – The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duchess (pictured) collided with HMS Barham, the battleship she was escorting, sinking with heavy loss of life.
1979 – A M_w 8.2 earthquake struck just offshore of Tumaco, Colombia, causing at least 300 deaths, mostly by the resulting tsunami.
2012 – North Korea made its first successful satellite launch, as Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2 successfully reached orbit.

Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (b. 1724) · Gustave Flaubert (b. 1821) · Evelyn S. Lieberman (d. 2015)

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Today's featured picture

Laura Dekker (born 1995) is a New Zealand–born Dutch sailor who completed a solo circumnavigation of the globe in a 12.4-metre (41-foot) two-masted ketch from 2010 to 2012. Dekker was fourteen years old when she set off from Gibraltar rather than the Netherlands, because the Dutch shipping regulations did not permit anyone under the age of sixteen to skipper a boat of that size in Dutch waters. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, she started her record-breaking attempt from Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, passing through the Panama Canal and traversing the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans before completing her circumnavigation back at Sint Maarten. This picture shows Dekker attending the 2011 Hiswa Boat Show in Amsterdam.

Photograph credit: Savyasachi, retouched by ukexpat

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