Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 August 17

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From today's featured article

Paraceratherium was a hornless rhinoceros, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals that has ever existed. The genus lived during most of the Oligocene epoch (34–23 million years ago); its remains have been found across Eurasia between China and the Balkans. Its weight is estimated to have been 15 to 20 tonnes (33,000 to 44,000 lb); the shoulder height was about 4.8 metres (15.7 feet), and the length about 7.4 metres (24.3 feet). The legs were long and pillar-like. The long neck supported a skull that was about 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) long. It had large, tusk-like incisors and a nasal incision that suggests it had a prehensile upper lip or trunk. The lifestyle of Paraceratherium may have been similar to that of large mammals such as elephants and modern rhinoceroses. It was a browser, eating mainly leaves, soft plants, and shrubs. It lived in habitats ranging from arid deserts with scattered trees to subtropical forests. (Full article...)

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In the news

Typhoon Lekima

All 233 people on board Ural Airlines Flight 178 survive as the aircraft crashlands in a cornfield following a bird strike in both engines of the Airbus A321 operating the flight.
Typhoon Lekima (satellite image shown) impacts the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and East China, killing at least 80 people.
At least 75 people are killed and more than 50 others injured in a fuel tanker truck explosion in Morogoro, Tanzania.

On this day

August 17: Independence Day in Indonesia (1945)

Miles Davis

986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: The Bulgarians defeated Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan near present-day Ihtiman, with Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
1959 – Kind of Blue by Miles Davis (pictured), one of the best selling and most critically acclaimed jazz recordings of all time, was released.
1969 – Hurricane Camille struck the Mississippi coast of the United States, killing 259 people and causing $1.42 billion in damages.
1999 – A 7.6 M_w earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 people and leaving more than 250,000 homeless.
2009 – A turbine at Russia's Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia broke apart violently, flooding the power station, causing widespread power failures and killing 75 people.

Li Shouzhen (d. 949) · Matthew Boulton (d. 1809) · Dawn Mabalon (b. 1972)

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Today's featured picture

Gene Kranz (born August 17, 1933) is an American aerospace engineer, former fighter pilot, and retired flight director and manager for NASA. Kranz served as NASA's second chief flight director, directing missions of the Gemini and Apollo programs, including the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11. He is best known for directing the successful efforts by the Mission Control team to save the crew of Apollo 13; he was later portrayed in the major motion picture of the same name by actor Ed Harris. He is also noted for his close-cut flattop hairstyle and the dapper "mission" vests (waistcoats) of different styles and materials made by his wife, Marta Kranz, for his flight director missions.

This picture, taken in 1965, shows Kranz at his console in the Mission Operations Control Room, Mission Control Center, Houston, during a simulation to prepare for the Gemini 4 mission.

Photograph credit: NASA; restored by Adam Cuerden

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