Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 February 18

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From today's featured article

Kyle Busch

The 2012 Budweiser Shootout was the first exhibition stock car race of the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was held on February 18, 2012, before a crowd of 82,000 in Daytona Beach, Florida, at the Daytona International Speedway, one of six superspeedways to hold NASCAR races. The 82-lap race was won by Kyle Busch (pictured) of the Joe Gibbs Racing team. It was Busch's first victory in the event; Tony Stewart finished second and Marcos Ambrose came in third. The race saw twenty-six lead changes, shared among thirteen drivers. Before the first turn, pole position driver Martin Truex, Jr. was passed by Jeff Gordon, and at the end of the first lap, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. led. On the ninth lap, a multiple-car accident prompted the first caution flag. Sixteen laps later the second caution was issued, with Jamie McMurray leading. During the caution period, all teams made pit stops. On lap 62 Gordon reclaimed the lead and held it until his car hit the wall and rolled over, prompting the fifth and final caution. Stewart took the lead, but in the final lap, Busch passed him to win. The race attracted 7.46 million television viewers. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Rob Roy in 1924

... that Calvin Coolidge described his beloved dog Rob Roy (pictured) as a "stately gentleman of great courage and fidelity"?
... that shortly after the forced conversions of Muslims in Castile, a fatwa was issued which allowed outward practice of Christianity while secretly keeping the Islamic faith?
... that while everyone else thought the field horsetail growing on nursery land in Palmerston North was ornamental, Dame Ella Orr Campbell correctly identified it as an invasive species?
... that the Sarvasara Upanishad text is one of two dedicated glossaries embedded in the collection of ancient and medieval Upanishads of Hinduism?
... that Thomas Gilovich tested his hypothesis of the spotlight effect by using Barry Manilow T-shirts?
... that despite being described by its leader as "liberal", the Social Encounter Party supported a constitutional amendment in Baja California to ban same-sex marriage?
... that Sarah Tenant-Flowers has worked as an administrator for the Choir of the Year and as General Manager of "The Sixteen"?
... that the Soviet RPG-1 anti-tank rocket was intended to combine the best features of the US's bazooka with those of the German Panzerfaust?

In the news

Alejandro G. Iñárritu

A bombing in Ankara, Turkey, kills at least 28 people and injures 61 others.
The Revenant wins five awards, including Best Film and Best Director (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, pictured), at the British Academy Film Awards.
Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill jointly call for an end to persecution of Christians in the Middle East and to wars in the region.
Scientists using the LIGO detector announce the first direct observation of gravitational waves.
Eleven people are killed in a head-on collision between two passenger trains near Bad Aibling, Germany.

Ongoing events:
- Zika virus outbreak
- European migrant crisis
Recent deaths:
- Boutros Boutros-Ghali
- Antonin Scalia

On this day...

February 18: Independence Day in the Gambia (1965)

Enterprise on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

1766 – A mutiny by captive Malagasy began at sea on the slave ship Meermin, leading to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present-day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators.
1878 – Competition between two merchants in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, US, turned into a range war when a member of one faction was murdered by the other.
1943 – Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, delivered the "total war speech" to motivate the German people when the tide of World War II was turning against Germany.
1977 – NASA's first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, made its first "flight" atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (pictured).
2010 – Rebels attacked the presidential palace in Niamey, Niger, and replaced President Mamadou Tandja with a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.

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Today's featured picture

The Fall of Phaeton is a painting by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens depicting the Greek myth of Phaeton, the son of the sun god Apollo. In the myth, Phaeton received permission to drive the Sun chariot around Earth, but was unable to control the chariot and risked incinerating the world. Zeus was thus forced to kill him.

Rubens painted The Fall of Phaeton in Rome c. 1604/1605; the painting was probably reworked later, around 1606/1608. It is housed in the National Gallery of Art.

Painting: Peter Paul Rubens

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