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).