Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 August 31

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From today's featured article

Liberty wearing a Native American headdress

The Indian Head eagle was an American ten-dollar gold piece, or eagle, produced from 1907 until 1916, and then irregularly until 1933. Beginning in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed the introduction of more artistic designs on US coins, prompting the Mint to hire the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create them. Roosevelt chose a design for the obverse of the eagle (pictured) that the sculptor had meant to use for the cent, and for its reverse he selected a design featuring a standing bald eagle, which had been developed for the twenty-dollar piece designed by Saint-Gaudens. Following the sculptor's death on August 3, 1907, Roosevelt insisted that the new eagle be finished and struck that month, and new pieces were given to the President on August 31. The omission of the motto "In God We Trust" on the new coins caused public outrage, and prompted Congress to pass a bill mandating its inclusion. The Indian Head eagle was struck regularly until 1916, and then intermittently until President Franklin Roosevelt directed the Mint to stop producing gold coins in 1933; many were later melted down. Its termination ended the series of eagles struck for circulation begun in 1795. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that the mountain parakeet (pictured) is found in the Andes at altitudes of up to 4,500 metres (14,800 ft)?
... that English biochemist Ida Maclean was the first woman on staff at the Manchester University chemistry department, and the first to be admitted to the London Chemical Society?
... that the Sargent Bridge is one of the few early 20th-century steel truss bridges remaining in central Nebraska?
... that a 1921 paper by Étienne Biéler and James Chadwick was praised as "marking the birth of the strong interactions"?
... that during the third kingdom of Ebla, Hadad and Ishtar became the city's most important deities?
... that Lydia Yu-Jose, who was conferred the Order of the Rising Sun for her contributions to Japanese studies in the Philippines, began her studies out of boredom with her political science classes?
... that a new species of the extinct ant Archimyrmex was described in 2012?

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In the news

Hamas and Israel agree to a long-term ceasefire brokered by Egypt after seven weeks of conflict.
At the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, Modern Family wins Outstanding Comedy Series and Breaking Bad wins Outstanding Drama Series.
A copy of the 1938 Action Comics #1 is auctioned for US$3.2 million, the highest price paid for a single issue of a comic book.
Bank of America agrees to pay more than US$16 billion for the sale of risky mortgage-backed securities before the Great Recession.
At least 71 people are killed by a series of landslides (damage pictured) in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Ukrainian conflict
Recent deaths: Richard Attenborough – U. R. Ananthamurthy

On this day...

August 31: Independence Day in Malaysia (1957) and Trinidad and Tobago (1962)

1813 – Peninsular War: At the Battle of San Marcial, the Spanish Army of Galicia under Manuel Alberto Freire turned back Nicolas Soult's last major offensive against Arthur Wellesley's allied army.
1897 – Thomas Edison was granted a patent for the Kinetoscope (pictured), a precursor to the movie projector.
1939 – Nazi forces, posing as Poles, staged an attack against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany, creating an excuse to invade Poland the next day.
1959 – A parcel bomb sent by Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm, failed to kill Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
1986 – Aeroméxico Flight 498 collided with a privately owned Piper PA-28 Cherokee aircraft over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground.

More anniversaries: August 30 – August 31 – September 1

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It is now August 31, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

This image represents a view from the "front" of the neural system of a giant scallop, slightly turned, with the shell or "valve" hinge line at the top and open free margin along the bottom (this image shows what most observers might think of as a "side view" or "edge view"— see inset for orientation). The largest, most important ganglia are the parietovisceral (not the cerebral) which connect to the circumpallial nerve somewhat like an axle connects via spokes to the rim of a wheel. The circumpallial nerve forms a complete folded double ring around the edge of the animal's disk-like mantle inside each valve (mantle not shown here). The hundreds of nerves of the scallop's eyes and tentacles would have appeared as long thin lines jutting off along the entire length of this nerve like hazy fringe.

Diagram: K.D. Schroeder

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