Category: 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 4, 2018 is Miriam Makeba.
Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008) was a South African singer, actor, and civil rights activist. She was a vocal opponent of apartheid and white-minority government, in South Africa and elsewhere. Associated with genres including afropop, jazz, and world music, she began singing professionally in the 1950s. She had a brief role in the anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa (1959), which led to performances in Venice, London, and New York City. Makeba moved to the United States, where her career flourished, and released several albums and songs, including the hit “Pata Pata” (1967). She and Harry Belafonte received a Grammy Award for their 1965 album An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba. Her 1968 marriage to Stokely Carmichael of the Black Panther Party was not well received in the US, and she moved to Guinea, where she wrote and performed music more explicitly critical of apartheid. Nicknamed Mama Africa, she was one of the first African musicians to receive worldwide recognition. Her music, in Nelson Mandela’s words, “inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us”.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/03/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-march-4.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 3, 2018 is HMS St Vincent (1908).
HMS St Vincent was the lead ship of her class of three dreadnought battleships, built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She was equipped with ten 12-inch (305 mm) guns in five gun turrets. After commissioning in 1910, her entire career was spent with the Home and Grand Fleets, often serving as a flagship. In the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, the ship discharged 98 shells from her main guns, firing first at the crippled German light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden. Targeting the battlecruiser SMS Moltke, her first hit wrecked the sickbay and slightly damaged the surrounding superstructure and hull, causing minor flooding. The second hit penetrated the rear armour of the superfiring turret at the rear of the ship. Apart from Jutland and the inconclusive Action of 19 August several months later, her service during World War I generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. Deemed obsolete after the war, the ship was reduced to reserve and used as a training ship. St Vincent was sold for scrap in 1921 and broken up the following year.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/03/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-march-3.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 2, 2018 is Indian Head cent.
The Indian Head cent is a penny ($0.01) that was produced by the U.S. Bureau of the Mint from 1859 to 1909. It was preceded by the large cent (1793–1857), a copper coin about the size of a half dollar, and the Flying Eagle cent. The large cent was discontinued after a rise in the price of copper in the wake of the California Gold Rush (1848–1855). The 1857 Flying Eagle is identical in diameter to the modern U.S. cent, but thicker, with a composition of 12% nickel and 88% copper. The Indian head cent, designed by James Barton Longacre, the Chief Engraver at the Philadelphia Mint, was initially the same size as the Flying Eagle. Cents were hoarded during the economic chaos of the American Civil War, when nickel was in short supply, and privately issued bronze tokens began to circulate until Congress authorized a thinner cent of bronze alloy. After the war the cent became popular, and even more so with the advent of coin-operated machines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1909, the Indian Head cent was replaced by Victor D. Brenner’s Lincoln cent.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/03/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-march-2.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for March 1, 2018 is Sheshi.
Sheshi was a ruler of parts of Ancient Egypt sometime between 1800 and 1550 BC, near the end of the Middle Kingdom or during the Second Intermediate Period. Based on the archaeological evidence, he is the best attested king in this timeframe; hundreds of scaraboid seals bearing his name have been found as far away as Carthage and throughout Canaan, Egypt, and Nubia. Nevertheless, historians cannot pin down basic facts about this ruler, such as his dynasty or the duration and extent of his reign. Three competing hypotheses have been put forth: he may have been Salitis, founder of the 15th Dynasty and king of the invading Hyksos, or a later Hyksos king or vassal of the second half of the 15th Dynasty, or a ruler of the 14th Dynasty, a line of kings of Canaanite descent ruling over the Eastern Nile Delta immediately before the arrival of the Hyksos.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/02/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-march-1.html