Category: 2018

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 27, 2018 is Olivia Manning.
Olivia Manning (1908–1980) was a British novelist, poet, writer and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in England, Ireland, Europe and the Middle East. Her first serious novel, The Wind Changes, was published in 1937. She lived in Bucharest, Romania, and in Greece, Egypt and Palestine, as Nazi Germany overran Eastern Europe. Her experiences helped form the six novels making up The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy, known collectively as Fortunes of War. The overall quality of her output was considered uneven by critics, but this series, published between 1960 and 1980, was described by Anthony Burgess as “the finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer”. Manning returned to London after the war, writing poetry, short stories, novels, non-fiction, reviews, and drama for the British Broadcasting Corporation. As she had feared, real fame only came after her death, when an adaptation of Fortunes of War was televised in 1987.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/02/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-february_26.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 26, 2018 is Stegoceras.
Stegoceras, a pachycephalosaurid (dome-headed) dinosaur, lived in what is now North America during the Late Cretaceous period, about 77.5 to 74 million years ago. (This genus is unrelated to Stegosaurus, which lived more than 70 million years earlier.) Small and bipedal, Stegoceras was about 2 to 2.5 metres (6.6 to 8.2 ft) long and weighed around 10 to 40 kilograms (22 to 88 lb). It had a rigid vertebral column and a stiffened tail. The pelvic region was broad, perhaps due to an extended gut. The skull was roughly triangular with a short snout, topped by a thick, broad, and relatively smooth dome. The skull jutted out in the back over the occiput, and had a thick ridge over the eyes. The teeth were small and serrated. The skull is thought to have been flat in juvenile animals, growing into a dome with age. The dome may have been used for combat, display, or recognition. Specimens have been found in the Dinosaur Park and Oldman Formations in Alberta, and the Fruitland and Kirtland Formations in the US.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/02/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-february_25.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 25, 2018 is USS West Bridge (ID-2888).
USS West Bridge (ID-2888) was a cargo ship during World War I, one of the steel-hulled West ships built for the U.S. Shipping Board on the West Coast. Launched in April 1918, the ship joined a convoy of cargo ships headed to France in August. After the convoy was attacked by two German submarines and West Bridge was torpedoed, a salvage crew from the American destroyer Smith and four tugs dispatched from France successfully brought the ship into port. After seven months of repair, West Bridge resumed Navy service until December 1919. The ship was laid up for nearly seven years from 1922 to 1929, when she was sold to an intercoastal cargo service under the name SS Barbara Cates. By 1938, the ship had been renamed Pan Gulf for service with a subsidiary of the Waterman Steamship Company. During World War II, Pan Gulf made nine round trips across the North Atlantic without incident in convoys. In May 1945, the ship was transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. Renamed SS Lermontov, the ship continued in civilian service for the Soviets until 1966.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/02/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-february_24.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 24, 2018 is Pyxis.
Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. The name comes from Pyxis Nautica, Latin for a mariner’s compass (as opposed to a draftsman’s compass, represented by the constellation Circinus). Introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century, Pyxis is counted among the 88 modern constellations. In the 19th century, astronomer John Herschel suggested renaming Pyxis to Malus, the mast, since it appears near the old constellation of the ship Argo Navis, but the suggestion was not followed. Pyxis is completely visible from latitudes south of 53 degrees north, with its best evening-sky visibility in February and March. The plane of the Milky Way passes through it. Its three brightest stars—Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis—are in a rough line; the brightest of these is Alpha (magnitude 3.68), a blue-white star around 22,000 times as luminous as the Sun. Near Alpha is T Pyxidis, a recurrent nova that has flared up to magnitude 7 every few decades. Three star systems have planets, all discovered by Doppler spectroscopy.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/02/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-february_23.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 23, 2018 is A Cure for Pokeritis.
A Cure for Pokeritis is an American short silent film starring John Bunny and Flora Finch, released on February 23, 1912. A domestic comedy, it depicts a woman who stops her husband’s gambling habit by having her cousin stage a fake police raid on his weekly poker game. It was one of many shorts produced by Vitagraph Studios, whose popularity made Bunny and Finch early film stars. Although its style of humor is dated, it is a historically important representative of its period and genre. The film was an early example of efforts to move beyond the conventions of stage plays: during the police raid, action took place in both the foreground and the background, with the actors moving between them. This cinematography technique improved the realism and pacing of the scene. A Cure for Pokeritis may be the first depiction of poker in film. Like Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s Dogs Playing Poker paintings, it reflects the early 20th-century perception of the game as a male-dominated social vice.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/02/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-february_22.html

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 22, 2018 is Æthelflæd.
Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (c. 870 – 918), ruled Mercia in the English Midlands from 911 until her death. The oldest daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex, she married Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, who ruled western Mercia when the eastern part was occupied by the Vikings. After her husband’s death, she ruled Mercia and played a leading role in recovering southern England from the Vikings in cooperation with her brother, King Edward the Elder. She fortified many towns, sent an army to capture Derby, and secured the surrender of Leicester without a fight. The Viking leaders of York offered her their loyalty, but she died before she could take up the offer. Her daughter Ælfwynn briefly ruled Mercia, but was seized by Edward, who took her into Wessex and brought Mercia under his direct rule. Historians disagree whether Mercia was an independent kingdom under Æthelred and Æthelflæd, but they agree that Æthelflæd played an important part in ending Viking rule in England. As a rare English warrior queen, and a successful one, she has captivated Medieval and modern writers.

Source http://handbookblogger.blogspot.com/2018/02/wikipedia-article-of-day-for-february_21.html