Featured articles

19 featured articles were promoted this month.

• The 1998 Football League First Division play-off Final (nominated by The Rambling Man) was an association football match played on 25 May 1998 at Wembley Stadium, London, between Charlton Athletic and Sunderland. The match was to determine the third and final team to gain promotion from the Football League First Division, the second tier of English football, to the Premier League for the 1998–99 season. The top two teams of the 1997–98 Football League First Division season gained automatic promotion, and the teams placed from third to sixth place in the table took part in play-off semi-finals; Sunderland had ended the season in third position and Charlton had finished fourth. The clubs won their semi-finals and competed for the final promotion place. Winning the game was estimated to be worth between five and ten million pounds to the successful team. Played in front of 78,000 spectators, Charlton won 7–6 on penalties.
• Evelyn Mase (nominated by Midnightblueowl) was a South African nurse. She was the first wife of the anti-apartheid activist and future president Nelson Mandela, to whom she was married from 1944 to 1958.
• Meghan Trainor (nominated by MaranoFan) is an American singer-songwriter and talent show judge. She rose to prominence after signing with Epic Records in 2014 and releasing her debut single "All About That Bass", which reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and sold 11 million copies worldwide, and drew criticism for its lyrical content. Trainor has released three studio albums with the label, and has received various awards and nominations, including the 2016 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
• Orangutans (nominated by LittleJerry) are great apes native to Indonesia and Malaysia. They are found in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. The most arboreal of the great apes, orangutans spend most of their time in trees. They have proportionally long arms and short legs and their hair is reddish-brown. Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates. All three orangutan species are considered critically endangered. Human activities have caused severe declines in populations and ranges. Threats to wild orangutan populations include poaching, habitat destruction because of palm oil cultivation, and the illegal pet trade. Several conservation and rehabilitation organisations are dedicated to the survival of orangutans in the wild.
• Portraits of Odaenathus (nominated by Attar-Aram syria): Odaenathus, the king of Palmyra from 260 to 267 CE, has been identified by modern scholars as the subject of sculptures, seal impressions, and mosaic pieces.
• Alfred Worden (nominated by Wehwalt) was an American test pilot and astronaut, and the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971. A former test pilot, he served on the support and backup crews for Apollo 9 and 12 before selection for Apollo 15. In lunar orbit, he became the individual who was the furthest from any other human being, a record he still holds. He also performed the first deep-space extravehicular activity, or spacewalk, in history. His career was effectively ended by a scandal over carrying postal covers to the Moon, and he retired in 1975.

• British nuclear tests at Maralinga (nominated by Hawkeye7) were conducted between 1956 and 1963 in the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia. A total of seven nuclear tests took place with approximate yields ranging from 1 to 27 kilotonnes of TNT (4 to 100 TJ). The site was also used for trials of neutron initiators and tests on the compression of nuclear weapon cores and the effects of fire on atomic weapons. The site was left contaminated with radioactive waste, and a clean-up was attempted in 1967. A further clean-up was completed in 2000. In 1994, the Australian government paid $13.5 million compensation to the traditional owners, the Maralinga Tjarutja people.

• The First Battle of Newtonia (nominated by Hog Farm) was fought on September 30, 1862, near Newtonia, Missouri, during the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers commanded by Colonel Douglas H. Cooper clashed with a Union column commanded by Brigadier General Frederick C. Salomon. Cooper's force consisted mostly of cavalry including a brigade of Native Americans. After a sharp skirmish in the morning, seesaw fighting took place during the afternoon. Shortly before nightfall, the Confederates made an all-out attack, causing Salomon to withdraw. The entire Union force advanced towards Newtonia in early October, and Cooper abandoned Missouri.

• Horseshoe bats (nominated by Enwebb) are bats in the family 'Rhinolophidae'. In addition to the single living genus, Rhinolophus, which has about 106 species, the extinct genus Palaeonycteris has also been recognized. Horseshoe bats are considered small or medium-sized microbats, weighing 4–28 g (0.14–0.99 oz), with forearm lengths of 30–75 mm (1.2–3.0 in) and combined lengths of head and body of 35–110 mm (1.4–4.3 in). Horseshoe bats are relevant to humans in some regions as a source of disease, as food, and traditional medicine. Several species are the natural reservoirs of SARS coronavirus, though masked palm civets were the intermediate hosts through which humans became infected. Some evidence suggests that some species could be the natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, which causes coronavirus disease 2019. They are hunted for food in several regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, but also Southeast Asia. Some species or their guano are used in traditional medicine in Nepal, India, Vietnam, and Senegal.
• Siamosaurus (nominated by PaleoGeekSquared) is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what is now Thailand during the Early Cretaceous period (Barremian to Aptian) and is the first reported spinosaurid from Asia. It is confidently known only from tooth fossils; the first were found in the Sao Khua Formation, with more teeth later recovered from the younger Khok Kruat Formation. Like in all spinosaurids, Siamosaurus' teeth were conical, with reduced or absent serrations. This made them suitable for impaling rather than tearing flesh, a trait typically seen in largely piscivorous (fish-eating) animals. Spinosaurids are also known to have consumed pterosaurs and small dinosaurs, and there is fossil evidence of Siamosaurus itself feeding on sauropod dinosaurs, either via scavenging or active hunting. Siamosaurus' role as a partially piscivorous predator may have reduced the prominence of some contemporaneous crocodilians competing for the same food sources. Isotope analysis of the teeth of Siamosaurus and other spinosaurids indicates semiaquatic habits. Siamosaurus lived in a semi-arid habitat of floodplains and meandering rivers, where it coexisted with other dinosaurs, as well as pterosaurs, fishes, turtles, and crocodyliforms.
• The Treaty of Lutatius (nominated by Gog the Mild) was the agreement of 241 BC between Carthage and Rome which ended the First Punic War after 23 years. Accepting defeat, the Carthaginian Senate ordered their commander on Sicily to negotiate a peace treaty. A treaty was agreed by which Carthage would hand over what it still held of Sicily, relinquish several groups of islands nearby, release all Roman prisoners without ransom, and pay large reparations over 10 years. In 237 BC Carthage prepared an expedition to recover the island of Sardinia, which had been lost to rebels. Cynically, the Romans announced that this an act of war and that their peace terms were the ceding of Sardinia and Corsica and the payment of an additional indemnity; these were added to the treaty as a codicil.

• Bob Mann (nominated by Gonzo fan2007 and Cbl62) was an American professional football player in the National Football League (NFL). A native of New Bern, North Carolina, Mann played college football at Hampton Institute in 1942 and 1943 and at the University of Michigan in 1944, 1946 and 1947. Playing the end position, he broke the Big Ten Conference record for receiving yards in 1946 and 1947. After not being selected in the 1948 NFL Draft, Mann signed his first professional football contract with the Detroit Lions, where he stayed for two seasons. He later played for the Green Bay Packers for parts of five seasons until 1954. Mann broke the color barrier for both teams.
• The 2010 Twenty20 Cup Final (nominated by Harrias) was a 20 overs-per-side cricket match between Hampshire County Cricket Club and Somerset County Cricket Club played on 14 August 2010 at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. It was the eighth final of the Twenty20 Cup.
• Al-Hafiz (nominated by Cplakidas) was the eleventh caliph of the Fatimids from 1132 to his death in 1149. Many Isma'ili followers abroad refused to recognize him and even in Egypt there were uprisings throughout his reign. He tried to restrain his over-mighty viziers, with mixed success. He was repeatedly forced to give way to the demands of various military factions, and ultimately was unable to halt the evolution of the vizierate into a de facto sultanate, independent of the caliph. His successors would be reduced to puppets at the hands of powerful viziers, until the end of the Fatimid Caliphate in 1171.

• Hurricane Willa (nominated by Hurricane Noah, KN2731, and Hurricanehink) was a powerful tropical cyclone that brought torrential rains and destructive winds to southwestern Mexico, particularly the states of Sinaloa and Nayarit, during late-October 2018. It was the twenty-fifth tropical cyclone, twenty-second named storm, thirteenth hurricane, tenth major hurricane, and record-tying third Category 5 hurricane of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season. Willa was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the Mexican state of Sinaloa since Lane in 2006.
• Infinity Science Fiction (nominated by Mike Christie) was an American science fiction magazine, edited by Larry T. Shaw, and published by Royal Publications. The first issue, which appeared in November 1955, included Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star", a story about a planet destroyed by a nova (an exploding star) that turns out to have been the Star of Bethlehem; it won the Hugo Award for that year. Shaw obtained stories from some of the leading writers of the day, including Brian Aldiss, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Sheckley, but the material was of variable quality. In 1958 Irwin Stein, the owner of Royal Publications, decided to shut down Infinity; the last issue was dated November 1958. The title was revived a decade later by Stein's publishing house, Lancer Books, as a paperback anthology series. Five volumes were published between 1970 and 1973, edited by Robert Hoskins; a sixth was prepared but withdrawn after Lancer ran into financial problems at the end of 1973.
• The qibla (nominated by HaEr48) is the direction towards the Kaaba in the Sacred Mosque, Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which is used by Muslims in various religious contexts, such as serving as the including the direction of the salah or ritual prayer.
• Yugoslav destroyer Beograd (nominated by Peacemaker67) was the lead ship of a class of destroyers built for the Royal Yugoslav Navy during the late 1930s. In World War II, she was captured and saw extensive service with the Royal Italian Navy, completing over 100 convoy escort missions, mainly on routes between Italy and the Aegean or North Africa. In September 1943, she was captured by the German Navy and redesignated TA43. She was sunk or scuttled at Trieste in 1945.
• The Roman withdrawal from Africa in 255 BC (nominated by Gog the Mild) was the attempt by the Roman Republic to rescue the survivors of their defeated expeditionary force to Carthaginian Africa (in what is now northeastern Tunisia) during the First Punic War. A force of 390 warships fought and defeated 200 Carthaginian vessels and the Roman survivors of the previous year's invasion were evacuated. While returning to Italy the Roman fleet encountered a storm off the south-east corner of Sicily: 384 ships were sunk and more than 100,000 men were lost.

Featured lists

20 featured lists were promoted this month.

• Cardiff City Football Club is a Welsh professional association football team based in Cardiff. The club was founded in 1899 and initially played in local amateur leagues before joining the English football league system. After spending a decade in the Southern Football League, Cardiff joined the Football League in 1920. A total of 123 players (nominated by Kosack) have won at least one cap in senior international football while playing for Cardiff, representing 25 nations. Chris Gunter is the youngest Cardiff player to win an international cap, having represented Wales in 2017 at the age of 16. Kenwyne Jones has scored more international goals than any other Cardiff player. He scored ten times for Trinidad and Tobago between 2014 and 2016.
• Hot Country Songs is a chart that ranks the top-performing country music songs in the United States, published by Billboard magazine. 13 different singles (nominated by ChrisTheDude) topped the chart in 1966 and 19 in 1965 (nominated by ChrisTheDude), which was published at the time under the title Hot Country Singles. Chart placings were based on playlists submitted by country music radio stations and sales reports submitted by stores.
• In baseball, a home run is credited to a batter when he hits a fair ball and reaches home safely on the same play, without the benefit of an error. One hundred and twenty-seven players (nominated by Bloom6132) have hit a home run in their first at bat of a Major League Baseball (MLB) game to date, the most recent being Keibert Ruiz of the Los Angeles Dodgers on August 16, 2020. George Tebeau and Mike Griffin both hit home runs in their first at bats on April 16, 1887. Both players are recognized as the first player to homer in his first major league at bat because the exact time when each home run was hit is unclear.
• Since July 2009, Israeli broadcast monitoring service Media Forest has been publishing four rankings which list the top ten most-broadcast Romanian and foreign songs on Romanian radio stations and television channels separately on a weekly basis. In 2009, eight and eleven singles (nominated by Cartoon network freak) were listed by Media Forest as the most-broadcast tracks on radio and television respectively.
• Sigourney Weaver is an American actor, playwright, and producer who first began acting in plays in the early 1970s. Throughout her career she has acted in nearly 40 stage productions (nominated by HAL333). She made her film debut with a minor role in the Woody Allen-directed Annie Hall (1977). Her breakthrough role was as Ellen Ripley in the Ridley Scott-directed Alien (1979). She reprised the role in Aliens (1986), this time helmed by director James Cameron. Her performance netted her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She would reprise the role in two more sequels: Alien 3 (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997), both of which were not as well-received. Although originally written as a man, Ripley is now regarded as one of the most significant female protagonists in cinema history, and consequently, Weaver is considered to be a pioneer of action heroines in science fiction films
• The Mandalorian, an American space Western web television series set in the Star Wars universe created by Jon Favreau and released on Disney+, features an extensive cast of characters (nominated by Hunter Kahn).
• The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites are places of importance to cultural or natural heritage as described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Lithuania accepted the convention on 31 March 1992, making its natural and historical sites eligible for inclusion on the list. The first site added to the list was the Vilnius Historic Centre, in 1994. Three further sites were added in 2000, 2004, and 2005. In total, there are four sites on the list (nominated by Tone), all of them cultural. Two sites are transnational: the Curonian Spit is shared with Russia and the Struve Geodetic Arc is shared with nine other countries. In addition to its World Heritage Sites, Lithuania also maintains two properties on its tentative list.
• The Boston Marathon, one of the six World Marathon Majors, is a 26.2-mile (42.2 km) race which has been held in the Greater Boston area in Massachusetts since 1897. It is the oldest annual marathon in the world. The event is held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Various factors meant that until 1957 the course varied in length, due to which the marathon recognizes several course records that are slower than previous records due to being run on longer courses. The first Boston Marathon included only 15 runners, all of whom were men, and was won by John McDermott. The race was cancelled for the first time in its history in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The winners (nominated by Harrias) have represented 27 different countries: Americans have won the marathon the most, doing so on 108 occasions; Kenyans have won 34 times; and Canadians 21 times. Ernst van Dyk is the most successful individual athlete, having won the men's wheelchair division ten times. The current course records are held by Geoffrey Mutai, Buzunesh Deba, Marcel Hug and Manuela Schär.
• The WCW Light Heavyweight Championship (nominated by Grapple X) was a professional wrestling championship that was contested in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) between 1991 and 1992. Conceived in 1991, the championship was first awarded as the result of a single-elimination tournament; its subsequent lineage ended when the final champion Brad Armstrong was stripped of the title due to injury. A second tournament to decide Armstrong's successor was announced, but never took place. The title was held by four different champions; the inaugural champion Brian Pillman was the only wrestler to win it on more than one occasion. The light heavyweight division which contested the championship had proved popular with fans, but its viability suffered as a result of WCW's creative decisions; in 1992, Bill Watts became the head booker, and implemented storyline changes in WCW's product which stymied the division's style. WCW would later introduce a similar title as the WCW Cruiserweight Championship; the two titles are now considered one and the same by the wrestling promotion WWE, which purchased WCW's assets in 2001.
• The Wikimedian of the Year (nominated by CAPTAIN MEDUSA) is an annual award that honors Wikipedia editors to highlight major achievements within the Wikimedia movement. The award was established in August 2011 by Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, who selects the recipients and honors them at Wikimania, an annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation. From 2011 to 2017 the award was named 'Wikipedian of the Year'. The award includes prize money, which as of 2020 is $5,000.
• Clark Gable (1901–1960) was an American actor and producer who appeared in over 70 feature films and several short films (nominated by HAL333). Gable first began acting in stage productions, before his film debut in 1924. After many minor roles, Gable landed a leading role in 1931, subsequently becoming one of the most dominant leading men in Hollywood. He often acted alongside reoccurring leading ladies: six films with Jean Harlow, six with Myrna Loy, eight with Joan Crawford, and four with Lana Turner, among many others. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors in cinematic history.
• The DHL Fastest Lap Award (nominated by MWright96) is given annually by the courier, Formula One global partner and logistics provider DHL "to recognise the driver who most consistently demonstrates pure speed, with the fastest lap at the highest number of races each season", and to reward the winning driver for "characteristics such as excellent performance, passion, can-do attitude, reliability and precision". First awarded in 2007 by DHL, the trophy's official naming patron, it is presented to the driver with the highest number of fastest laps over the course of the season, with one point awarded to the fastest lap holder of a Grand Prix.
• The Hennepin County Library, which serves Hennepin County, Minnesota, including the city of Minneapolis, consists of 41 branches (nominated by Bobamnertiopsis) in 24 cities and towns. Of these, 15 are in Minneapolis; collectively they made up the Minneapolis Public Library until they were absorbed by the Hennepin system in the merger. Four branches (Central, Franklin, Hosmer, and Sumner) were originally founded as Carnegie libraries. Several other libraries, separate from the system, also operate within the county's boundaries.
• The Roman Catholic archbishop of New York (nominated by Bloom6132) is the head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, who is responsible for looking after its spiritual and administrative needs. As the archdiocese is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province encompassing nearly all of the state of New York, the Archbishop of New York also administers the bishops who head the suffragan dioceses of Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Ogdensburg, Rochester, Rockville Centre and Syracuse. The current archbishop is Timothy M. Dolan.
• The NWA World Welterweight Championship (nominated by MPJ-DK) is an inactive professional wrestling championship governed by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and most recently promoted by NWA Mexico.
• Natalie Wood (1938–1981) was an American actress who started her career as a child by appearing in films directed by Irving Pichel. Wood's first credited role was as an Austrian war refugee in the Pichel-directed Tomorrow Is Forever (1946) with Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles. The following year, she played a child who does not believe in Santa Claus in the Christmas comedy-drama Miracle on 34th Street (1947) opposite Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, and Edmund Gwenn.She has since appeared in numerous films (nominated by Cowlibob), was the recipient of four Golden Globes, and received three Academy Award nominations.
• The John Arlott Cup for the PCA Young Player of the Year (nominated by Harrias) is an annual cricket award presented to the player who is adjudged to be the most promising young player in English county cricket. Only players that are aged under 24 on 1 April of the awarding year are eligible for the prize. Michael Atherton was the first winner of the award in 1990. Two players, Kabir Ali and Alastair Cook, have won the award twice, both doing so in successive years; Ali in 2002 and 2003, and Cook in 2005 and 2006. Representatives of thirteen of the eighteen first-class counties have won the award. Yorkshire players have collected the most awards, doing so on six occasions.
• Brad Pitt is an American actor and film producer who has received various awards and nominations (nominated by CAPTAIN MEDUSA), including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. He has been nominated for an additional five Academy Awards.
• Timeline of Mary Pickford (nominated by Jimknut) Mary Pickford (1892–1979) was a Canadian motion picture actress, producer, and writer. During the silent film era she became one of the first great celebrities of the cinema and a popular icon known to the public as "America's Sweetheart".
• The Archbishop of Montreal (nominated by Bloom6132)is the head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Montreal, who is responsible for looking after its spiritual and administrative needs. This archdiocese is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province encompassing the south-central part of the province of Quebec, and so the Archbishop of Montreal also administers the bishops who head the suffragan dioceses of Joliette, Saint-Jean-Longueuil, Saint-Jérôme, and Valleyfield. The current archbishop is Christian Lépine.

Featured topics

One featured topic was promoted this month.

• Operas by Claudio Monteverdi (nominated by Aza24): Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) composed ten operas, a genre which emerged while he was court musician in Mantua. His first opera, L'Orfeo, was premiered in 1607 and became the first opera still in today's repertoire. For seven opera projects the music is mostly lost. Four of these were completed and performed, while he abandoned the others at some point. Librettos have survived for some of them, and fragments of the music for L'Arianna and Proserpina rapita. Monteverdi composed operas for a theatre in Venice when he was master of music at San Marco there, including Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria in 1640 and L'incoronazione di Poppea in 1643, both of which also remain in the repertoire.