Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 October 31b

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From today's featured article

Earth's air temperatures have increased substantially in recent decades.

Contemporary climate change involves rising global temperatures and significant shifts in Earth's weather patterns. Climate change is driven by emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. Emissions come mostly from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), and also from agriculture, forest loss, cement production and steel making. Climate change causes sea level rise, glacial retreat and desertification, and intensifies heat waves, wildfires and tropical storms. These effects of climate change endanger food security, freshwater access and global health. Climate change can be limited by using low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar energy, forestation, and shifts in agriculture. Adaptations such as coastline protection cannot by themselves avert the risk of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts. Limiting global warming in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement requires reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Feetloaf

... that parsnips serve as sawed-off tibiae in feetloaf (pictured)?
... that the account of the Haliurunas in the 6th century history of the Goths, the Getica, is a precursor to later Christian traditions that wise women had sex and orgies with demons and the Devil?
... that the New Amsterdam Theatre, once described as "a vision of gorgeousness", later had dead cats in the basement and mushrooms growing through the floor?
... that from 1960 to 1981, executions in East Germany took place in Leipzig Prison in the middle of a residential area?
... that the Battle of Saint Charles featured what is known as the deadliest shot of the American Civil War?
... that the Germanic seeress Waluburg is only known from a pot shard found on the island Elephantine in southern Egypt?
... that the opera The Devil and Daniel Webster features a jury of ghosts made up of famous historical American figures who are now residents of Hell; including the pirate Blackbeard?
... that Florissantia flowers were possibly pollinated by bats?

In the news

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan

A military coup in Sudan, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (pictured), deposes the government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev is re-elected President of Uzbekistan.
Ahead of Barbados becoming a republic, Sandra Mason is elected as the country's first president.
Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny is awarded the Sakharov Prize.

On this day

October 31: Halloween

Indira Gandhi

475 – Romulus Augustulus took the throne as the last effective ruling emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
1517 – According to one account, Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses onto the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, present-day Germany, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
1941 – Approximately 400 workers completed the 60-foot (18 m) busts of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
1984 – Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi (pictured) was assassinated by two of her own Sikh bodyguards, sparking riots that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Sikhs.
2015 – Shortly after takeoff, Metrojet Flight 9268 exploded and then crashed into the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board.

John Keats (b. 1795)
Juliette Gordon Low (b. 1860)
Larry Mullen Jr. (b. 1961)

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Today's featured picture

The over-the-shoulder shot is a camera angle used in film and television, in which the camera is placed above and behind one of the participants. In this lithographic colour poster, which advertised a show in 1896, it is used to show the scene from the perspective of an audience member watching images projected by a Vitascope, an early type of film projector.

Poster credit: Metropolitan Print Company; restored by Adam Cuerden

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