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Partisan arrangements, dodgy dollars, a mysterious union of strings, and a hole that became a monument

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 22 March through 28 March. Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; refer their page histories for attribution.

Four featured articles were promoted this week.

The 1804 dollar: A gift fit for a sultan, and literally for a sultan.
Deinocheirus hands
  • German–Yugoslav Partisan negotiations (nominated by Peacemaker67) During the redeployment of Josip Broz Tito's headquarters and partisans across the Nazi puppet state of Croatia in August 1942, a group of Germans from the Organisation Todt were captured. The leader of the group had been tasked by the German Abwehr with making contact with the partisans and a series of prisoner swaps were initiated. By March 1943, the partisans' military situation had deteriorated, and to forestall continuing German attacks they again entered into tentative negotiations regarding prisoner swaps and a possible truce. The Germans saw a possibility that the partisans may oppose a British landing, because this would have given support to the Royalist Chetniks. There was an exchange of "between 600 to 800 Partisans in total" by 1945. Tito stated in 1978 that the objective of the negotiations was "solely to obtain German recognition of belligerent status for the Partisans".
  • 1804 dollar (nominated by RHM22) The 1804 dollar is an odd bird. Despite the date, none with this date were minted until the 1830s, although silver dollars had actually been minted in 1804, but dated 1803. Large silver coins, such as the Maria Theresa thaler, were used worldwide as standard trade coins. The introduction of the US silver dollar in 1794 added another coin to the trade, and large numbers of dollars were exported by traders. From 1806, the production of silver dollars was officially halted (none had been struck since March 1804) in favour of the minting of smaller denominations; this meant that there was small change available to the US economy, but the exporting of coins stopped. The "1804" dollars were struck when Edmund Roberts, who headed a trade mission to the Far East, requested sets of coinage to be presented to kings and sultans as gifts. The date may have been chosen because the Chief Coiner thought that there had been coins minted with that date; he was anxious to avoid angering coin collectors!
  • Deinocheirus (nominated by FunkMonk and IJReid) Deinocheirus is a genus of ostrich dinosaur. They're called that as they have a superficial resemblance to the bird. Living about 70 million years ago, they were big- one specimen was about 11 m (36 ft) long and weighed 6.36 t (224,000 oz).
  • M-theory (nominated by Polytope24) M-theory is a unification of "all consistent versions of superstring theory." It's not yet been completely formulated, but it's reckoned that the theory "should describe two- and five-dimensional objects called branes and should be approximated by eleven-dimensional supergravity at low energies." M-theory was introduced by Edward Witten, whose "proposal was based on the observation that the five string theories can be mapped to one another by certain rules called dualities and are identified by these dualities."

Seven featured lists were promoted this week.

23 featured pictures were promoted this week.

Eight Bells, an 1886 oil painting by the American artist Winslow Homer which depicts two sailors determining their boat's position.
Blue petrel (Halobaena caerulea), east of the Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania, Australia. By User:JJ Harrison
Soyuz TMA-14M was a 2014 flight to the International Space Station. It transported three members of the Expedition 41 crew to the International Space Station


Good articles

This is a new feature, including a list of all the good articles promoted during the week covered in this report (22-28 March 2015). Please tell us what you think! This week, thirty-seven good articles were promoted.

The Larabanga Mosque in Ghana
Carolina Wren