Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 February 28

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From today's featured article

Flight Unlimited III is a 1999 flight simulator video game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Electronic Arts. It allows players to pilot reproductions of real-world commercial and civilian aircraft in and around Seattle in the US state of Washington. Players may fly freely or engage in challenges such as thwarting a theft or locating Bigfoot. The development team built on the general aviation gameplay of Flight Unlimited II, with more detailed physics and terrain, more planes and a real-time weather system. Lead designer Peter James described Flight Unlimited III's development as a struggle, due to a lack of interest from Electronic Arts and from Looking Glass's management. Directly competing with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 and Fly!, the game became one of Looking Glass's biggest commercial flops. After selling only around 20,000 units in the United States during 1999, the company closed the next year. The game was well received by critics, who praised its terrain rendering and dynamic weather. A few reviewers lauded its simulated physics, but others objected to the exceptional system requirements. (Full article...)

Part of the Looking Glass Studios video games series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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Did you know...

Marițica Bibescu

... that the recognition of Marițica Bibescu (pictured) as Princess-consort of Wallachia involved "complicated maneuvers", including the ousting of an Ecumenical Patriarch?
... that Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter received one of the largest-ever advances from Knopf to secure the rights to publish his debut novel The Emperor of Ocean Park?
... that the Clementi rail accident on the Singapore MRT was caused by a 50-litre (11 imp gal; 13 US gal) oil spill?
... that the New York City neighborhood of Canarsie struggled with school integration and conflict over desegregation busing between the 1960s and 1980s?
... that phase precession is part of how the brain codes for location?
... that the Memorial of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea has collected the names of 183,108 Chinese soldiers killed in the Korean War?
... that the bass Dmitry Belosselskiy appeared internationally in title roles, as Boris Godunov, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra, and Ivan Susanin?
... that the AMES Type 82 3D radar got a job with Archie, then tended Bloodhounds, and finally found steady work in air traffic control?

In the news

Billy Graham

At least 31 people are killed and about 300 others are injured by an earthquake in Papua New Guinea.
American evangelical preacher Billy Graham (pictured) dies at the age of 99.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri wins five awards, including Best Film, at the British Academy Film Awards.
Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 3704 crashes in the Zagros Mountains, killing all 65 people on board.
South African president Jacob Zuma resigns amid corruption claims, and is succeeded by Cyril Ramaphosa.

On this day...

February 28: Fast of Esther (Judaism, 2018); Kalevala Day in Finland

Pope Benedict XVI

202 BC – Rebel leader Liu Bang was enthroned as Emperor Gaozu of Han after overthrowing the Qin dynasty, the first imperial dynasty of China.
1893 – USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time, was launched.
1975 – In London an underground train failed to stop at Moorgate terminus station and crashed into the end of the tunnel, killing 43 people.
1997 – Two heavily armed bank robbers exchanged gunfire with officers of the Los Angeles Police Department in North Hollywood, in one of the longest and bloodiest shootouts in American police history.
2013 – Pope Benedict XVI (pictured) became the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign from the papacy.

Guillaume Delisle (b. 1675) · Hortense Allart (d. 1879) · Henry James (d. 1916)

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Today's featured picture

Augusta Savage (1892–1962) was an African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Much of her work is in clay or plaster, as she could not often afford bronze, and some—such as Lift Every Voice and Sing, created for the 1939 New York World's Fair—were destroyed for lack of funds. As a teacher, she promoted equal rights in art, and her studio was important to the careers of such artists as Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, and Norman Lewis.

Photograph: Unknown; restoration: Yann

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