Welcome to Wikipedia

,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

From today's featured article

The Helsinki University Observatory, where Finland's local mean time is measured

For timekeeping, Finland follows Eastern European Time (EET) during its winter as standard time and Eastern European Summer Time (EEST) in the summer as daylight saving time. EET is two hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time and EEST is three hours ahead. Finland adopted EET in 1921, and daylight saving time in its current form from 1981. Up to the 19th century, each locality used its own solar time, which could vary in Finland by up to 31 minutes. In 1862, a mean time was adopted as a single time zone for railway scheduling. Daylight saving time was first attempted in 1942, abandoned as not useful, and introduced again in 1981 to align with neighbouring countries. In 2017, the Finnish parliament voted to call on the European Union to abolish daylight saving time. Finland's time zone is maintained by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Centre for Metrology and Accreditation, using an atomic clock and hydrogen monitors. The 24-hour clock notation is used in Finland. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Kuappi

... that Kuappi (pictured) in Iisalmi, Finland, holds the Guinness world record for the world's smallest restaurant?
... that Chris Ernst stripped naked in 1976 with her Yale University teammates to protest the lack of showers for the women's rowing crew?
... that Polish courts processed 14.38 million cases in 2020 while having fewer than 10,000 judges?
... that conservationist Frank H. Wadsworth supported and worked with efforts to recover the endangered Puerto Rican parrot?
... that Olive Llewellyn, a character in the novel Sea of Tranquility, has been called a stand-in for Emily St. John Mandel, the novel's author?
... that Dominic Keegan refused a position on the New York Yankees to "go back and win another championship" for his college baseball team?
... that the McLaren MCL35 was the first McLaren race car to be wrapped?
... that baseball player Nick Solak was named after the sports bar where his parents first met?

In the news

Hugo Duminil-Copin

The Fields Medal for accomplishments in mathematics is awarded to Hugo Duminil-Copin (pictured), June Huh, James Maynard and Maryna Viazovska.
Uzbekistan declares a state of emergency after protests in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan.
Yair Lapid succeeds Naftali Bennett as Prime Minister of Israel.
In ice hockey, the Colorado Avalanche defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning to win the Stanley Cup.

On this day

July 7

Carlos Castillo Armas

1456 – Joan of Arc was declared innocent of heresy in a retrial twenty-five years after her death.
1798 – Outraged by the XYZ Affair, the United States rescinded its treaties with France, resulting in the undeclared Quasi-War, fought entirely at sea.
1954 – After the culmination of the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, Carlos Castillo Armas (pictured) was sworn in as president of Guatemala.
1963 – The secret police of Ngô Đình Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest during the Buddhist crisis.
1983 – After writing a letter to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov, American schoolgirl Samantha Smith visited the Soviet Union as Andropov's personal guest, becoming known as "America's Youngest Ambassador".

Gustav Mahler (b. 1860)
Teresa Hsu (b. 1898)
Syd Barrett (d. 2006)

More anniversaries:

Today's featured picture

Flora MacDonald Denison (1867–1921) was a Canadian activist, journalist, and businesswoman known for her leadership in the Canadian suffragist movement and her stewardship of Bon Echo Provincial Park in Ontario. She joined the Canadian Suffrage Association in 1906 when it was founded by Augusta Stowe-Gullen and became an active member and campaigner. In 1906, Denison traveled to Copenhagen as Canada's delegate to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. She also attended the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance convention in Budapest in 1913. After meeting the British activist Emmeline Pankhurst in London, she organized the latter's first trip to Canada in 1909. She served as president of the Canadian Suffrage Association from 1911 to 1914, until her controversial support for the militant tactics of the Women's Social and Political Union in England resulted in her forced resignation.

Photograph credit: Lyont E.; restored by Adam Cuerden

Recently featured:

Other areas of Wikipedia

Community portal – The central hub for editors, with resources, links, tasks, and announcements.
Village pump – Forum for discussions about Wikipedia itself, including policies and technical issues.
Site news – Sources of news about Wikipedia and the broader Wikimedia movement.
Teahouse – Ask basic questions about using or editing Wikipedia.
Help desk – Ask questions about using or editing Wikipedia.
Reference desk – Ask research questions about encyclopedic topics.
Content portals – A unique way to navigate the encyclopedia.

Wikipedia's sister projects

Wikipedia is written by volunteer editors and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other volunteer projects: