This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from March 2 through April 20. Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
An Australian army CH-47 Chinook Helicopter lifts a front loader off the flight line at Special Operations Task Force-Southeast's Forward Operating Base Camp Ripley, Tarin Kowt
Keechaka Vadham(nominated by Ssven2) is an Indiansilent film produced, directed, filmed and edited by R. Nataraja Mudaliar. Released in the late 1910s, it was the first film to have been made in South India, and was shot in five weeks at Nataraja Mudaliar's production house, India Film Company. As the members of the cast were Tamils, Keechaka Vadham is considered to be the first Tamil film. No print of it is known to have survived, making it a lost film.
Droxford railway station(nominated by Iridescent) was a small station on the Meon Valley Railway, built to a design by T. P. Figgis and opened in 1903. It served the villages of Droxford, Soberton and Hambledon in Hampshire, England. The railway served a relatively lightly populated area, but was built to main line specifications in anticipation of it becoming a major route to Gosport. Consequently, although the station was built in an area with only five houses, it was designed with the capacity to handle 10-carriage trains. It initially proved successful both for the transport of goods and passengers, but services were reduced during the First World War and the subsequent recession, and the route suffered owing to competition from road transport.
Ice drilling(nominated by Mike Christie) allows scientists studying glaciers and ice sheets to gain access to what is beneath the ice, to take measurements in the interior of the ice, and to retrieve samples. Instruments can be placed in the drilled holes to record temperature, pressure, speed, direction of movement, and for other scientific research, such as neutrino detection.
The Red-tailed tropicbird(nominated by RileyBugz) is a seabird native to tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. One of three closely related species of tropicbird, it was described by Pieter Boddaert in 1783. Superficially resembling a tern in appearance, it has almost all-white plumage with a black mask and a red bill. The sexes have similar plumage. Adults have red tail streamers that are about twice their body length, which gives rise to its common name.
Vesna Vulović(nominated by 23 editor) was a Serbian flight attendant. She holds the Guinnessworld record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 metres (33,330 ft). Her fall took place after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash near Srbská Kamenice, Czechoslovakia. She was the sole survivor of the crash, which air safety investigators attributed to a briefcase bomb. She was fired from JAT in the early 1990s after taking part in anti-government protests but avoided arrest because the government was concerned about the negative publicity that her imprisonment would bring. The final years of her life were spent in seclusion and she struggled with survivor's guilt. Having divorced, she lived alone in her Belgrade apartment on a small pension until her death in 2016.
Sir Osbert Lancaster CBE(nominated by Tim riley) was an English cartoonist, architectural historian, stage designer and author. He was known for over 10,000 cartoons in the British press, and for his lifelong work to inform the general public about good buildings and architectural heritage. Lancaster died in 1986 aged 77.
The Pyramid of Neferirkare(nominated by Mr rnddude) was built for the Fifth Dynasty pharaoh Neferirkare Kakai – referred to as Neferirkare – in the 25th century BC. It was the tallest structure located on the highest site at the necropolis site of Abusir – found between Giza and Saqqara – and still towers over the necropolis today. The pyramid is also significant because its evacuation led to the discovery of the Abusir papyri.
The Carolwood Pacific Railroad(nominated by Jackdude101) was a 7 1⁄4-inch (184 mm) gauge ridable miniature railroad run by Walt Disney in the backyard of his home in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. It featured the Lilly Belle, a 1:8-scalelive steam locomotive built by the Walt Disney Studios'machine shop, and made its first test run on December 24, 1949. The locomotive pulled a set of freight cars, as well as a caboose that was almost entirely built by Disney himself. It was Disney's lifelong fascination with trains, as well as his interest in miniature models, that led to the creation of the CPRR. The railroad, which became operational in 1950, was 2,615 feet (797.1 m) long and encircled his house. The backyard railroad attracted visitors to Disney's home; he invited them to ride and occasionally drive his miniature train. In 1953, after an accident occurred in which a guest was injured, the CPRR was closed to the public.
The Moorgate tube crash(nominated by SchroCat) occurred on 28 February 1975 at 8:46 am on the London Underground's Northern City Line; 43 people died and 74 were injured after a train failed to stop at the line's southern terminus, Moorgate station, and crashed into its end wall. It is considered the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground. No fault was found with the train, and the inquiry by the Department of the Environment concluded that the accident was caused by the actions of Leslie Newson, the 56-year-old driver. In the aftermath of the crash, London Underground introduced a safety system that automatically stops a train when travelling too fast. This became known informally as Moorgate protection. Northern City Line services into Moorgate ended in October 1975 and British Rail overground services started in August 1976. After a long campaign by relatives of the dead, two memorials were unveiled in the vicinity of the station, one in July 2013 and one in February 2014.
The Design A-150 battleship(nominated by The ed17 and Sturmvogel 66) popularly known as the Super Yamato class, was a planned class of battleships for the Imperial Japanese Navy. In keeping with the navy's long tradition, they were designed to be quantitatively superior to battleships it might face in battle, such as those from the United States or Great Britain. As part of this, the class would have been armed with six 51-centimeter (20.1 in) guns, the largest weapons carried aboard any warship in the world. Design work on the A-150s began after the preceding Yamato class in 1938–1939 and was mostly finished by early 1941, when the Japanese began focusing on aircraft carriers and other smaller warships in preparation for the coming conflict. No A-150 would ever be laid down, and many details of the class' design were destroyed near the end of the war.
Banksia petiolaris(nominated by Cas Liber) is a species of flowering plant of the family Proteaceae native to Western Australia, where it is found in sandy soils in the south coastal regions from Munglinup east to Israelite Bay. B. petiolaris is one of several closely related species that all grow as prostrate shrub, with horizontal stems and thick, leathery upright leaves. Those of this species can be viable for up to 13 years—the longest-lived of any flowering plant recorded. It bears yellow cylindrical flower spikes, known as inflorescences, up to 16 cm (61⁄4 in) high in spring. As the spikes age, they turn grey and develop up to 20 woody seed pods, known as follicles, each.
2017–18 Bergen County eruv controversy:(nominated by Wehwalt) In July 2017, a controversy began when the municipalities of Mahwah, Upper Saddle River and Montvale in Bergen County, New Jersey, in the United States, began efforts to prevent the completion of an eruv within their borders. The three municipalities ordered that the eruv be taken down, as their permission had not been obtained, but it remained during the pendency of federal lawsuits filed in response, and the settlements allowed the remaining construction to proceed. After no agreement could be reached short of litigation, the eruv association brought suit against each of the municipalities. Mahwah's actions in passing a township ordinance to bar nonresidents of New Jersey from its parks, and the hostility of some residents and council members towards those who supported the eruv led to accusations of anti-Semitism, including by the successful Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy. The presiding judge in the lawsuits, John Michael Vazquez, in January 2018 made it clear he felt the municipalities did not have a strong case, and urged them to settle. The three municipalities have settled with the eruv association, allowing the eruv to remain, but Mahwah still faces a lawsuit from the New Jersey Attorney General accusing it of discrimination.
Nature photographer Ansel Adams. The camera is probably a Zeiss Ikon Universal Juwel. (created by J. Malcolm Greany and nominated by Pine)
Finnish soldiers raise the flag at the three-country cairn between Norway, Sweden and Finland on 27 April 1945 after the end of Lapland War and thus, the end of World War II in Finland. (created by Väinö Oinonen and nominated by Manelolo )
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