Wikipedia:Main Page history/2022 January 3

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From today's featured article

The teams' helmets and match tickets

The 2008 Orange Bowl was a bowl game between the college football teams Virginia Tech Hokies and Kansas Jayhawks on January 3, 2008, at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Tech was favored, but Kansas won 24–21 in a game dominated by defense. The Orange Bowl, part of the 2007–08 Bowl Championship Series, was the final game for both teams and was watched by more than eight million FOX viewers in the US. Tech qualified by being the ACC champion, while Big 12 team Kansas was selected by the Orange Bowl. Tech was designated as the home team at the neutral venue. This was the first Orange Bowl appearance for Kansas since 1969 and for Tech since 1996. Todd Reesing, quarterback for Kansas, completed 20 of his 37 passes for 227 yards, a touchdown, and an interception, and Tech quarterback Sean Glennon had 13 for 28 passing, earning 160 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Kansas cornerback Aqib Talib scored with an interception touchdown and won the Most Valuable Player award. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

40-foot radio telescope

... that the 40-foot radio telescope (pictured) at Green Bank Observatory was the first automated telescope?
... that Sandy Heribert was inspired to become a journalist after seeing coverage of the Gulf War when she was nine years old?
... that "the crowning achievement" of Francis Hopkinson Smith, the novel Felix O'Day, was not published until after his death?
... that the French lawyer and politician Francis Szpiner defended a former emperor in court before becoming a district mayor of Paris?
... that Marc Jacobs's fragrance Daisy is cottagecore?
... that orange sea grapes contain substances that have a cytotoxic effect?
... that even though Charles P. Adams meant to hire someone else, Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones remained at Grambling State University for 51 years?
... that the Chronicle of the 20th Century was so heavy that it was said to be "the first coffee table book seriously to threaten the well-being of coffee-tables"?

In the news

Betty White

American actress and comedian Betty White (pictured) dies at the age of 99.
In Hong Kong, Stand News closes down after its staff are arrested for sedition.
The Supreme Court of Russia orders the closure of Memorial, Russia's oldest human rights group, for violations of the foreign agent law.
In cricket, Australia retains the Ashes after winning the first three Tests against England.

On this day

January 3

James Lick telescope

1521 – Pope Leo X issued Decet Romanum Pontificem, excommunicating Martin Luther for refusing to retract 41 alleged errors found in his 95 Theses and other writings.
1888 – The 36-inch (91 cm) refracting telescope (pictured) at the Lick Observatory near San Jose, California, the largest in the world until 1897, was used for the first time.
1919 – Emir Faisal of Iraq signed an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East.
1976 – The multilateral International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, part of the International Bill of Human Rights, came into effect.
2002 – Israeli forces seized MV Karine A, which was carrying 50 tonnes of smuggled weapons on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority.

William Leslie (d. 1777)
Cyril Bassett (b. 1892)
Frenchy Bordagaray (b. 1910)

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From today's featured list

Title page of Recollections of Full Years by Helen Taft

Thirteen first ladies of the United States have written a total of twenty-two memoirs. The first lady is the hostess of the White House, and the position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, with some historical exceptions. Every memoir by a first lady published in the 20th and 21st centuries has been a bestseller, at times outselling those of their presidential husbands. In the early 1800s, Abigail Adams had her correspondence published as Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams, and Louisa Adams "made several attempts at an autobiography", although she never sought to publish them. Julia Grant was the first to write and attempt to publish her memoirs, writing The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant in the 1890s after the death of her husband, Ulysses S. Grant, but she never found a suitable publisher for them before her death in 1902. Helen Taft was the first to have memoirs (title page pictured) published during her lifetime, in 1914. Memoirs by presidential spouses were uncommon until the 1970s; most first ladies have written and published at least one memoir about their life since Betty Ford's publication of her first memoir in the late 1970s. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section is a thin slice of a rock, mineral, soil, pottery, bones, or even metal sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron microprobe. A thin sliver of rock is cut from the sample with a diamond saw and ground optically flat. It is then mounted on a glass slide and then ground smooth using progressively finer abrasive grit until the sample is only 30 micrometres (0.0012 in) thick. This image shows a thin section of Siilinjärvi apatite ore from Finland in cross-polarized transmitted light; the specimen depicted here is approximately 36.6 mm (1.44 in) wide by 20 mm (0.79 in) high.

Photograph credit: Kallerna

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