Article of the day for February 28, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 28, 2019 is Dark Angel (2000 TV series).
Dark Angel is an American cyberpunk television series that premiered in October 2000. Created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee, it starred Jessica Alba (pictured) in her breakthrough role. Set in 2019, the series chronicles the life of Max Guevara (Alba), a genetically enhanced super-soldier who escapes from a covert military facility as a child. In a post-apocalyptic Seattle, she tries to lead a normal life, while eluding capture by government agents and searching for her siblings scattered in the aftermath of their escape. The first season received mainly positive reviews and won several awards, including the People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama. The second (final) season received some criticism for new plot elements. A series of novels continued the storyline, and a video game adaptation was released. Dark Angel has gothic and female empowerment themes, and Max has been compared to other strong female characters in Cameron's work, including Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley.

Article of the day for February 27, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 27, 2019 is Battle of San Patricio.
The Battle of San Patricio was fought on February 27, 1836, between Mexican troops and Texians, rebellious settlers in the Mexican province of Texas. The battle marked the start of the Goliad Campaign, the Mexican offensive to retake the Texas Gulf Coast. By the end of 1835, all Mexican troops had been driven from Texas. Frank W. Johnson, the commander of the volunteer army in Texas, gathered volunteers for a planned invasion of the Mexican port town of Matamoros. After spending several weeks gathering horses, in late February Johnson and about 40 men led the herd to San Patricio. He assigned some of his troops to a ranch outside town to guard the horses. Unbeknownst to the Texians, on February 18 Mexican General José de Urrea (pictured) had led a large contingent of troops from Matamoros into Texas. Urrea's men easily followed the trail left by the horses, and surprised the sleeping Texians in San Patricio. After a fifteen-minute battle, all but six Texians had been killed or imprisoned.

Article of the day for February 26, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 26, 2019 is Waisale Serevi.
Waisale Serevi (born 1968) is a former Fijian rugby union footballer and coach. A member of the World Rugby Hall of Fame, he is widely considered to be the greatest rugby sevens player in the history of the game. In the 15-man game, he played for Fiji 39 times between 1989 and 2003, scoring 376 points and representing his country in the 1991, 1999, and 2003 Rugby World Cups. He also played professionally for the Mitsubishi, Leicester, Stade Montois, Stade Bordelais and Staines rugby teams. His representative sevens career started in 1989 when he played for Fiji at the Hong Kong tournament. Serevi also played in the 1993, 1997, 2001, and 2005 Rugby World Cup Sevens, winning the World Cup with Fiji in 1997 and 2005. He won silver at the Commonwealth Games in 1998 and 2002, and captured bronze in 2006. After winning the 2005 Rugby World Cup Sevens, Serevi was appointed player-coach of the Fiji Sevens national team, and led them to a 2005–06 World Sevens Series victory.

Article of the day for February 25, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 25, 2019 is Halo: Combat Evolved.
The Flood is a fictional parasitic alien life form. Flood-infected creatures, also called Flood, in turn infect other sentient hosts. They were introduced as a second enemy faction in the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in Bungie's Halo multimedia franchise. Their design and fiction was spearheaded by Bungie artist Robert McLees, with sound design led by Martin O'Donnell. The ringworld setting of the first Halo game was stripped of many of its large creatures for Halo 2 to make the Flood's surprise appearance more startling. For Halo 3, Bungie environment artist Vic DeLeon spent six months of pre-production time refining their fleshy aesthetic and designing the organic interiors of Flood-infested space ships. Reaction to the Flood has varied; while some reviewers found the creatures too derivative and a cliché element of science fiction, others ranked them among the greatest video game villains of all time.

Article of the day for February 24, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 24, 2019 is Plesiorycteropus.
Plesiorycteropus was a mammal from Madagascar that became extinct sometime after 200 BCE, as evidenced by radiocarbon dating. Upon its description in 1895 by French naturalist Henri Filhol, Plesiorycteropus was classified with the aardvark, but more recent studies have found little evidence for that linkage. Molecular evidence instead suggests that it is related to the tenrecs, in the order Afrosoricida. Two species are recognized, the larger P. madagascariensis and the smaller P. germainepetterae; subfossil remains of both species have been found in the same site. Only limb and partial pelvis and skull bones have been recovered to date. Plesiorycteropus was probably a digging animal that fed on insects such as termites and ants. It also shows adaptations for climbing and sitting. Estimates of its mass range from 6 to 18 kilograms (13 to 40 lb). Forest destruction by humans may have contributed to its extinction.

Article of the day for February 23, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 23, 2019 is Istanbul.
Istanbul, Turkey, known before 330 as Byzantium and between 330 and 1930 as Constantinople, is a transcontinental city of Europe and Asia, straddling the Bosporus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side; about a third of its residents live on the Asian side. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s to around 15 million, making Istanbul one of the world's most populous cities and the fourth-largest city proper. Founded on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city grew in size and influence. It was an imperial capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine (330–1204), Latin (1204–1261), Palaiologos Byzantine (1261–1453) and Ottoman (1453–1922) empires. Although Ankara was chosen as the new capital after the Turkish War of Independence, Istanbul remains Turkey's economic and cultural center.

Article of the day for February 22, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 22, 2019 is M-28 (Michigan highway).
M-28 is an east–west state trunkline highway that almost completely traverses the Upper Peninsula in the U.S. state of Michigan, from Wakefield to near Sault Ste. Marie. M-28 is the longest state trunkline with the "M-" prefix at 290 miles (467 km). Three sections of the highway are part of the Lake Superior Circle Tour, and two sections carry memorial highway designations. M-28 passes through forested woodlands, bog swamps, and urbanized areas. Sections of roadway cross the Ottawa National Forest and both sections of the Hiawatha National Forest. Other landmarks accessible from the highway include the Seney National Wildlife Refuge and several historic bridges. M-28 dates to the 1919 formation of the state's trunkline system, though the original highway was much shorter. It was expanded eastward to the Sault Ste. Marie area in the late 1920s.

Article of the day for February 21, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for February 21, 2019 is SMS Kronprinz.
SMS Kronprinz (Crown Prince) was the last battleship of the four-ship König class of the Imperial German Navy, laid down in 1911 and launched on 21 February 1914. The ship was armed with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns in five twin turrets and could steam at a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). Along with her three sister ships, König, Grosser Kurfürst and Markgraf, Kronprinz took part in most of the World War I fleet actions, including the 1916 Battle of Jutland. She was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS J1 in November 1916 during an operation off the Danish coast. Following repairs, she participated in Operation Albion, an amphibious assault in the Baltic, in October 1917. After Germany's defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, Kronprinz and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow, and later scuttled by their German crews.

Hurricane Juan (1985).

Hurricane Juan (1985).
Hurricane Juan was a large and erratic tropical cyclone that looped twice near the Louisiana coast, causing widespread flooding. It was the tenth named storm of the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season, forming in the central Gulf of Mexico in late October. Juan made landfall near Morgan City. Weakening to tropical storm status over land, it turned back to the southeast over open waters, crossing the Mississippi River Delta. Turning to the northeast, it made its final landfall just west of Pensacola, Florida. Juan was the last of three hurricanes to move over Louisiana during the season, after Danny in August and Elena in early September. Twelve people died in the storm, including nine in maritime accidents off Louisiana. Rainfall and a high storm surge flooded 50,000 houses and many communities in southern Louisiana, causing extensive agriculture losses. Juan directly inflicted about $1.5 billion in damage, making it among the costliest United States hurricanes.

Wales national rugby union team

Wales national rugby union team.
The Wales national rugby union team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. The governing body, the Welsh Rugby Union, was established in 1881, the same year that Wales played their first international against England, on 19 February. They have won the Six Nations and its predecessors 26 times outright, most recently in 2013. They had many dominant teams from 1900 to 1911 and from 1969 to 1980. Wales played in the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987 where they achieved their best ever result of third. After the sport started allowing professionalism in 1995, Wales hosted the 1999 World Cup. They won Six Nations Grand Slams in 2005, 2008 and 2012. Their home ground is the Millennium Stadium (pictured). Eight former Welsh players have been inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame; ten were inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame prior to its 2014 merger into the World Rugby Hall.

Lock Haven, Pennsylvania

Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.
Lock Haven is the county seat of Clinton County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Located near the confluence of the West Branch Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Creek, it is the principal city of the Lock Haven Micropolitan Statistical Area, in a combined statistical area that includes Williamsport. Its population in 2010 was 9,772. Built on a site long favored by pre-Columbian peoples, Lock Haven began in 1833 as a timber town and a haven for loggers, boatmen, and other travelers on the river or the West Branch Canal. Resource extraction and efficient transportation financed much of the city's growth through the end of the 19th century. In the 20th century, a light-aircraft factory, a college, and a paper mill contributed to the economy. The city has three sites on the National Register of Historic Places: Memorial Park Site, a significant pre-Columbian archaeological find; Heisey House, a Victorian-era museum; and Water Street District (courthouse pictured), with a mix of 19th- and 20th-century architecture.

Apus

Apus.
Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name (from Greek for "without feet") was chosen because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus Plancius in 1598, it was charted on a star atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria (pictured). The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave them Bayer designations in 1756. The five brightest stars are all reddish in hue. Shading the others at apparent magnitude 3.8 is Alpha Apodis, an orange giant that has around 48 times the diameter and 928 times the luminosity of the Sun. Marginally fainter is Gamma Apodis, another ageing giant star. Delta Apodis is a double star, the two components of which are 103 arcseconds apart and visible with the naked eye. Two star systems have been found to have planets.

Pseudoryzomys

Pseudoryzomys.
Pseudoryzomys is a rodent from south-central South America in the family Cricetidae. Found in lowland palm savanna and thorn scrub habitats, it is a medium-sized rat, weighing about 50 grams (1.8 oz). It has gray-brown fur, long and narrow hindfeet with small membranes between the toes, and a tail that is about as long as the head and body. Its conservation status has been assessed as least concern, although almost nothing is known of its diet or reproduction. Its closest living relatives are the large semiaquatic rats Holochilus and Lundomys. These three genera form an assemblage within the oryzomyine tribe, a diverse group including over one hundred species, mainly in South America. This tribe is part of the subfamily Sigmodontinae and family Cricetidae, which include many more species, mainly from Eurasia and the Americas. The species Pseudoryzomys simplex was first described in 1888 on the basis of subfossil cave specimens from Brazil (as Hesperomys simplex).

No Way Out (2004)

No Way Out (2004).
No Way Out (2004) was an American professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), held on February 15 at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California. Sponsored by THQ, it was the sixth event produced under the No Way Out name and starred wrestlers from the SmackDown! brand. In the main event, Eddie Guerrero (pictured) defeated WWE Champion Brock Lesnar to win the title, his sole world championship before his death in 2005. In the undercard, Kurt Angle defeated Big Show and John Cena in a Triple Threat match to earn a title match for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XX. In a separate storyline, Chavo Guerrero Jr. defeated Rey Mysterio. No Way Out grossed more than $450,000 in ticket sales from an attendance of approximately 11,000 and received 350,000 pay-per-view buys, contributing to WWE's increased pay-per-view revenue for the year. The event and its DVD received favorable reviews.

Chains of Love (TV series)

Chains of Love (TV series).
Chains of Love is an American dating game show that aired for six episodes in April and May 2001 on the United Paramount Network (UPN). Adapted from a Dutch television series, it presents a man or woman who is chained to four members of the opposite sex over four days and nights. This person, identified as the Picker, is given $10,000 and can remove three contestants one at a time. The Picker can give a portion of the money to each eliminated participant. When left with a single partner, the Picker can choose to either split the money or keep it. Madison Michele (pictured) hosted each episode. Originally ordered by NBC, UPN produced it as part of its campaign to run more unscripted programming to boost the network's ratings. Media outlets have identified Chains of Love as part of a renaissance in reality television. The show's premise divided television critics, who compared it in structure and tone to Blind Date and The Dating Game.

Hawaii Sesquicentennial half dollar

Hawaii Sesquicentennial half dollar.
The Hawaii Sesquicentennial half dollar was struck in 1928 by the United States Mint in honor of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Europeans. It depicts Captain James Cook on the obverse and a Hawaiian chieftain on the reverse. Only 10,000 coins were struck for the public, making them rare and valuable. In 1927, the legislature of the Territory of Hawaii passed a resolution calling on the U.S. government to produce a commemorative coin for the anniversary. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon thought the occasion important enough that, unusually for him, he was not opposed to the new coin. Sculptor Chester Beach made the plaster models for the coins from sketches by Juliette May Fraser. Approval for his designs was delayed by concerns raised by the Mint and by Victor S. K. Houston, Hawaii Territory's delegate to Congress. Although the issue price, at $2, was the highest for a commemorative half dollar to that point, the coins sold out quickly and have risen in value to over $1000.

Goldcrest

Goldcrest.
The goldcrest (Regulus regulus) is a very small bird in the kinglet family. Named for its colourful golden crest feathers, it is called the "king of the birds" in European folklore. Several subspecies are recognised across a very large distribution range that includes much of Eurasia and the islands of Macaronesia. This kinglet has greenish upper-parts and whitish under-parts, with two white wingbars. It has a bright head crest, orange and yellow in the male and yellow in the female, which is displayed during breeding. The song is a repetition of high thin notes. It breeds in coniferous woodland and gardens, building its compact, three-layered nest on a tree branch. Ten to twelve eggs are incubated by the female alone, and the chicks are fed by both parents; second broods are common. The bird is constantly on the move as it searches for insects to eat. Because of its large range and population, it presents no significant conservation concerns.

Characters of Final Fantasy VIII

Characters of Final Fantasy VIII.
The characters of Final Fantasy VIII include an elite group of mercenaries called SeeD, as well as soldiers, rebels, and political leaders of various nations and cities. Thirteen weeks after the 1999 North American release of Final Fantasy VIII, a role-playing video game by Square, it had earned more than $50 million in sales, making it the fastest selling Final Fantasy title at the time. The game's characters, created by Tetsuya Nomura under the direction of Yoshinori Kitase (pictured), are the first in the series to be realistically proportioned in all aspects of the game. This graphical shift, as well as the cast itself, have received generally positive reviews from gaming magazines and websites. The six main playable characters are the loner Squall Leonhart, the passionate Rinoa Heartilly, the instructor Quistis Trepe, the martial artist Zell Dincht, the cheerful pilot Selphie Tilmitt, and the marksman Irvine Kinneas.

Damageplan

Damageplan.
Damageplan was an American heavy metal supergroup from Dallas, Texas, formed in 2003. Following the demise of their previous group Pantera, brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul started a new band with bassist Bob Kakaha and vocalist Patrick Lachman, a guitarist formerly with Diesel Machine and Halford. They released their only studio album, New Found Power, in the United States on February 10, 2004; it debuted at number 38 on the Billboard 200. Later that year Damageplan was promoting the album at a concert at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, when a man climbed on stage, killed Darrell and three others, and wounded another seven before being fatally shot by a police officer. Some witnesses said that the assailant blamed the brothers for Pantera's breakup and believed that they had stolen his lyrics. Paul and Kakaha later joined the band Hellyeah (pictured). Damageplan has been inactive since the incident.

Radcliffe, Greater Manchester

Radcliffe, Greater Manchester.
Radcliffe is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, Greater Manchester, England. It lies in the Irwell Valley 2.5 miles (4 km) south-west of Bury and 6.5 miles (10 km) north-northwest of Manchester. The disused Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal bisects the town. Historically a part of Lancashire, the town and its surroundings show evidence of Mesolithic, Roman and Norman activity. A Roman road passes along the border between Radcliffe and Bury. In the High Middle Ages, the town was recorded in an entry of the Domesday Book as "Radeclive"; it formed a small parish and township centred on the Church of St Mary (current church pictured) and the manorial Radcliffe Tower, both of which are Grade I listed buildings. Coal was mined nearby during the Industrial Revolution, providing fuel for the cotton-spinning and papermaking industries. By the mid-19th century, Radcliffe was an important mill town with cotton mills and bleachworks.

Made In India Samsung Device "M10" , "M20"

Two of Samsung`s industry-first Galaxy `M` smartphones that were released on Amazon India  were sold out in a short span of time, making an "unprecedented" first day sale record, the South Korean tech giant claimed.

"The inaugural sale of Galaxy `M10` and `M20` saw millions of people logging into Amazon.in and Samsung.com to own these devices. We are delighted by the unprecedented consumer response and thank people for their love and support" Samsung said in a statement.

The India-first smartphones come with features like Infinity V display and massive battery power and 3x faster charging technology. 

While Galaxy M20 houses a 5,000mAh battery, M10 hosts a 3,400mAh battery.

The 2GB and 16GB version of "M10" is priced at Rs 7,990 and 3GB  and 32GB version costs Rs 8,990, whereas the 3GB and 32GB variant of "M10" costs Rs 10,990 and the 4GB and 64GB variant is priced at Rs 12,990.

The Samsung Galaxy M20 runs on Android 8.1 Oreo and features a 6.3-inch full-HD+ (1080x2340 pixels) Infinity-V Display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone is powered by the Exynos 7904 SoC paired with up to 4GB of RAM. In the imaging department, the Samsung M20 comes equipped with dual rear cameras comprising of a 13-megapixel primary sensor and a 5-megapixel ultra-wide sensor, while an 8-megapixel sensor takes care of selfies.

The smaller Samsung Galaxy M10, on the other hand, comes equipped with a 6.2-inch HD+ (720x1520 pixels) Infinity-V Display that has a 19:9 aspect ratio and runs on Android 8.1 Oreo. The Galaxy M10 is powered by an Exynos 7870 SoC, coupled with 2GB or 3GB of RAM. It sports a dual camera setup on the back that consists of a 13-megapixel primary sensor and a 5-megapixel secondary sensor, while there is a 5-megapixel sensor on the front.

The Samsung Galaxy M20 houses a 5,000mAh battery, whereas the Galaxy M10 hosts a 3,400mAh battery.