Welcome to Wikipedia

,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

From today's featured article

Miley Cyrus on tour in the title role

Hannah Montana is an American teen sitcom created by Michael Poryes, Rich Correll, and Barry O'Brien that aired on Disney Channel for four seasons between March 2006 and January 2011. The series centers on Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus), a teenage girl living a double life as the famous pop singer Hannah Montana (pictured), an alter ego she adopted so she could maintain her anonymity and live a normal life as a typical teenager. The Walt Disney Company commissioned the series to continue its successful line of music-based franchises. Hannah Montana is one of Disney Channel's most commercially successful franchises; the program influenced the development of merchandise, soundtrack albums, and concert tours. It also helped launch Cyrus's musical career and established her as a teen idol. Hannah Montana was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Children's Program from 2007 to 2010. However, television critics disliked the writing and depiction of gender roles and stereotypes. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Flying Balloon Girl by Banksy

... that one Palestinian man criticized the beauty of West Bank Wall graffiti art (example pictured), telling Banksy: "We don't want this wall to be beautiful. We hate it. Go home"?
... that Kelly Hecking won more Big East Conference championships than any other Notre Dame athlete?
... that the three oak saplings on the flag of Prince Edward Island represent the three counties that make up the province?
... that Bert Longfellow took on a one-man crusade which halved the drowning rate in the United States?
... that Holy Trinity Church in Newcastle-under-Lyme was praised as the "finest modern specimen of ornamental brickwork in the kingdom"?
... that the Ukrainian violinist Diana Tishchenko played Skoryk's Melody on a tour of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra to Germany in April 2022?
... that a Pacific Cyber/Metrix's Bubbl-Dek fits into the floppy drive bay of an IBM PC, allowing it to take a bubble memory module?
... that Dr. Dot started to give her mother "bite massages" at the age of five?

In the news

Yair Lapid

Uzbekistan declares a state of emergency after protests in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan.
Yair Lapid (pictured) succeeds Naftali Bennett as Prime Minister of Israel.
In ice hockey, the Colorado Avalanche defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning to win the Stanley Cup.
At least twenty-one people are found dead in a nightclub in East London, South Africa.

On this day

July 5: Fifth of July in New York

The Shard, London

1841 – Thomas Cook, the founder of the British travel company Thomas Cook & Son, organised his first excursion, escorting about 500 people from Leicester to Loughborough.
1852 – Frederick Douglass gave his speech known as "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", arguing that positive statements about liberty, citizenship, and freedom, were an offense to the enslaved population of the United States because of their lack of those things.
1937 – The Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam, the canned precooked meat product that would eventually enter into pop culture, folklore, and urban legend.
1950 – Korean War: In the first encounter between North Korean and American forces, an unprepared and undisciplined U.S. Army task force was routed at the Battle of Osan.
2012 – The Shard (pictured) in London was inaugurated as the tallest building in Europe, with a height of 310 m (1,020 ft), but was surpassed by Moscow's Mercury City Tower four months later.

Nicéphore Niépce (d. 1833)
Sophie Wyss (b. 1897)
Kenneth Lay (d. 2006)

More anniversaries:

Today's featured picture

Pseudatelus is a genus of shield bugs of the family Pentatomidae. They range from 14 to 20 millimetres (0.55 to 0.79 in), depending on the species, and have a typical shield-shaped body. They are usually brown or dark brown in colour, with a triangular-shaped scutellum. This Pseudatelus shield bug was photographed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Photograph credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

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: