Wikipedia news and articles from December 24th, 2014

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From today's featured article


An American paddlefish in a large aquarium tank
The American paddlefish is one of the largest freshwater fish in North America. Closely related to the sturgeon, it is one of only two extant taxa in the paddlefish family (the other being the Chinese paddlefish). Fossil records of paddlefish date back over 300 million years, nearly 50 million years before dinosaurs appeared. The American paddlefish is referred to as a relict species (because it retains some morphological characteristics of its early ancestors) even though it is highly derived with evolutionary adaptations specifically for filter feeding. The rostrum and cranium of American paddlefish are covered with tens of thousands of sensory receptors for locating swarms of zooplankton, their primary food source. American paddlefish are native to the Mississippi River Basin and once moved freely under the relatively natural, unaltered conditions that existed prior to the early 1900s. Their numbers have declined dramatically primarily because of overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. They are currently found in only twenty-two U.S. states, and their range has been reduced to the Mississippi and Missouri river tributaries and Mobile Bay drainage basin. (Full article...)
Recently featured: 1995 Pacific hurricane season – Colin Hannah – James Whiteside McCay
Archive – By email – More featured articles...

Did you know...


From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

Sandro Botticelli's The Madonna of the Book
... that in Botticelli's Madonna of the Book (pictured), cherries represent the blood of Christ and plums indicate the tenderness between Mary and the Child?
... that Mischocyttarus mexicanus female wasps may be brood parasites, cannibalizing eggs of a foreign nest and placing an egg of their own in an empty cell?
... that Confucius' disciple Bu Shang played a significant role in the transmission of the I Ching?
... that lens.com lost its trademark for the word LENS in 2012 because the courts decided that a retail website did not meet the definition of "computer software"?
... that in 1970 NAACP chairman Stephen Gill Spottswood publicly termed the Nixon administration's social policies "anti-Negro"?
... that strain partitioning results in rocks being deformed in different ways when exposed to stress?
... that Josef Knubel first climbed the Matterhorn as a fifteen-year-old?
Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

 
In the news


Béji Caïd Essebsi
Beji Caid Essebsi (pictured) wins the Tunisian presidential election.
India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk III successfully completes its first flight, carrying the crew vehicle demonstrator CARE.
U.S. aid worker Alan Gross and three members of the Cuban Five are released by Cuba and the United States, respectively, as both nations move to resume diplomatic relations.
In an effort to curtail the rapid decline of the ruble, the Central Bank of Russia raises interest rates to 17%.
At least 141 people are killed as Taliban gunmen storm a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Recent deaths: K. Balachander – Joe Cocker

On this day...


December 24: Christmas Eve (Gregorian calendar)

Christmas Island (Kiritmati)
1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island (pictured), the largest coral atoll in the world.
1814 – The Treaty of Ghent was signed in Ghent, in present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the United States.
1826 – More than one third of the cadets enrolled in the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, rioted over the smuggling of whiskey to make eggnog for a Christmas Day party.
1964 – The Viet Cong bombed the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, killing two US Army officers, raising fears of an escalation in the Vietnam War.
1974 – Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Australia, eventually destroying more than 70 percent of the city.
More anniversaries: December 23 – December 24 – December 25
Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries
It is now December 24, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page




Today's featured picture


Yule log
A Yule log cake made of chocolate sponge cake, filled with raspberry jam, and decorated to resemble its namesake. Such cakes, known as bûche de Noël in French, are traditional desserts served near Christmas in France and several of its former colonies.
Photograph: Jebulon
Recently featured: Hotel Astoria (Saint Petersburg) – Leaf morphology – Julie Delpy

Archive – More featured pictures...




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Jump to: navigation, search



Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
4,676,934 articles in English

 Arts
Biography
Geography
 History
Mathematics
Science
 Society
Technology
All portals



From today's featured article


An American paddlefish in a large aquarium tank
The American paddlefish is one of the largest freshwater fish in North America. Closely related to the sturgeon, it is one of only two extant taxa in the paddlefish family (the other being the Chinese paddlefish). Fossil records of paddlefish date back over 300 million years, nearly 50 million years before dinosaurs appeared. The American paddlefish is referred to as a relict species (because it retains some morphological characteristics of its early ancestors) even though it is highly derived with evolutionary adaptations specifically for filter feeding. The rostrum and cranium of American paddlefish are covered with tens of thousands of sensory receptors for locating swarms of zooplankton, their primary food source. American paddlefish are native to the Mississippi River Basin and once moved freely under the relatively natural, unaltered conditions that existed prior to the early 1900s. Their numbers have declined dramatically primarily because of overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. They are currently found in only twenty-two U.S. states, and their range has been reduced to the Mississippi and Missouri river tributaries and Mobile Bay drainage basin. (Full article...)
Recently featured: 1995 Pacific hurricane season – Colin Hannah – James Whiteside McCay
Archive – By email – More featured articles...

Did you know...


From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

Sandro Botticelli's The Madonna of the Book
... that in Botticelli's Madonna of the Book (pictured), cherries represent the blood of Christ and plums indicate the tenderness between Mary and the Child?
... that Mischocyttarus mexicanus female wasps may be brood parasites, cannibalizing eggs of a foreign nest and placing an egg of their own in an empty cell?
... that Confucius' disciple Bu Shang played a significant role in the transmission of the I Ching?
... that lens.com lost its trademark for the word LENS in 2012 because the courts decided that a retail website did not meet the definition of "computer software"?
... that in 1970 NAACP chairman Stephen Gill Spottswood publicly termed the Nixon administration's social policies "anti-Negro"?
... that strain partitioning results in rocks being deformed in different ways when exposed to stress?
... that Josef Knubel first climbed the Matterhorn as a fifteen-year-old?
Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

 
In the news


Béji Caïd Essebsi
Beji Caid Essebsi (pictured) wins the Tunisian presidential election.
India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk III successfully completes its first flight, carrying the crew vehicle demonstrator CARE.
U.S. aid worker Alan Gross and three members of the Cuban Five are released by Cuba and the United States, respectively, as both nations move to resume diplomatic relations.
In an effort to curtail the rapid decline of the ruble, the Central Bank of Russia raises interest rates to 17%.
At least 141 people are killed as Taliban gunmen storm a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Recent deaths: K. Balachander – Joe Cocker

On this day...


December 24: Christmas Eve (Gregorian calendar)

Christmas Island (Kiritmati)
1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island (pictured), the largest coral atoll in the world.
1814 – The Treaty of Ghent was signed in Ghent, in present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the United States.
1826 – More than one third of the cadets enrolled in the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, rioted over the smuggling of whiskey to make eggnog for a Christmas Day party.
1964 – The Viet Cong bombed the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, killing two US Army officers, raising fears of an escalation in the Vietnam War.
1974 – Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Australia, eventually destroying more than 70 percent of the city.
More anniversaries: December 23 – December 24 – December 25
Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries
It is now December 24, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page




Today's featured picture


Yule log
A Yule log cake made of chocolate sponge cake, filled with raspberry jam, and decorated to resemble its namesake. Such cakes, known as bûche de Noël in French, are traditional desserts served near Christmas in France and several of its former colonies.
Photograph: Jebulon
Recently featured: Hotel Astoria (Saint Petersburg) – Leaf morphology – Julie Delpy

Archive – More featured pictures...




Other areas of Wikipedia
Community portal – Bulletin board, projects, resources and activities covering a wide range of Wikipedia areas.
Help desk – Ask questions about using Wikipedia.
Local embassy – For Wikipedia-related communication in languages other than English.
Reference desk – Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects.
Site news – Announcements, updates, articles and press releases on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.
Village pump – For discussions about Wikipedia itself, including areas for technical issues and policies.

Wikipedia's sister projects
Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects:
Commons Commons
 Free media repository MediaWiki MediaWiki
 Wiki software development Meta-Wiki Meta-Wiki
 Wikimedia project coordination
Wikibooks Wikibooks
 Free textbooks and manuals Wikidata Wikidata
 Free knowledge base Wikinews Wikinews
 Free-content news
Wikiquote Wikiquote
 Collection of quotations Wikisource Wikisource
 Free-content library Wikispecies Wikispecies
 Directory of species
Wikiversity Wikiversity
 Free learning materials and activities Wikivoyage Wikivoyage
 Free travel guide Wiktionary Wiktionary
 Dictionary and thesaurus

Wikipedia languages

This Wikipedia is written in English. Started in 2001, it currently contains 4,676,934 articles. Many other Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.
More than 1,000,000 articles: Deutsch ·
 español ·
 français ·
 italiano ·
 Nederlands ·
 polski ·
 русский ·
 svenska
  
More than 400,000 articles: català ·
 فارسی ·
 日本語 ·
 norsk bokmål ·
 português ·
 Tiếng Việt ·
 українська ·
 中文
  
More than 200,000 articles: العربية ·
 Bahasa Indonesia ·
 Bahasa Melayu ·
 čeština ·
 Esperanto ·
 euskara ·
 한국어 ·
 magyar ·
 română ·
 српски / srpski ·
 suomi ·
 Türkçe
  
More than 50,000 articles: български ·
 dansk ·
 eesti ·
 Ελληνικά ·
 English (simple) ·
 galego ·
 עברית ·
 hrvatski ·
 latviešu ·
 lietuvių ·
 norsk nynorsk ·
 slovenčina ·
 slovenščina ·
 srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски ·
 ไทย
  
Complete list of Wikipedias
  




Navigation menu



Create account
Log in



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Talk









Read

View source

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Featured content
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Donate to Wikipedia
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Recent changes
Contact page

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What links here
Related changes
Upload file
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Permanent link
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Download as PDF
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Languages
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العربية
Bahasa Indonesia
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Български
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Complete list


Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page