Wikipedia:Main Page alternatives/(Classic 2006)

Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

In this English version, started in 2001, we are currently working on 6,604,709 articles.

More main page alternatives

From today's featured article

Mounted Peloneustes fossil skeleton

Peloneustes is a genus of pliosaurid plesiosaur from the Middle Jurassic of England, known from the Oxford Clay Formation. Its sole species was originally named Plesiosaurus philarchus by Harry Govier Seeley in 1869 before Richard Lydekker gave it its own genus in 1889. It is known from many specimens, some very complete. It had a total length of 3.5 to 4 metres (11 to 13 ft), and a large, triangular skull elongated into a narrow snout with conical teeth. The two sides of its mandible (lower jaw) were fused into a long symphysis at the front. Its neck was short for a plesiosaur and its limbs were modified into flippers, with the back pair larger than the front. Peloneustes is classified in Thalassophonea with other short-necked pliosaurids. It was well-adapted to aquatic life, using its flippers for swimming, and its skull was reinforced against the stresses of feeding. Peloneustes's long, narrow snout could have been swung through the water to catch fish with its sharp teeth. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

On this day

January 18

Marion Barry

474 – The young child Leo II became the sole Byzantine emperor upon the death of his grandfather Leo I.
1535 – Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes (present-day Lima, Peru) as the capital of the lands he conquered for the Spanish crown.
1788 – The armed tender HMS Supply, the first ship of the First Fleet, arrived at Botany Bay, Australia.
1943 – World War II: In Operation Iskra, the Red Army established a narrow land corridor to Leningrad, partially easing the protracted German siege.
1958 – Willie O'Ree of the Boston Bruins played his first game in the National Hockey League, becoming the first black Canadian to compete in the NHL.
1990 – In a sting operation conducted by the FBI, Marion Barry (pictured), the mayor of Washington, D.C., was arrested for possession of crack cocaine.

Jobst of Moravia (d. 1411)
Jeanne Quinault (d. 1783)
Vinod Kambli (b. 1972)

More anniversaries:

In the news

The aircraft involved in the accident

A plane crash (aircraft pictured) in Pokhara, Nepal, kills all 72 people on board.
Constantine II, the last king of Greece, dies at the age of 82.
Supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro invade the National Congress, the Supreme Federal Court, and the Palácio do Planalto.
Michael Smith wins the PDC World Darts Championship.
Croatia adopts the euro and joins the Schengen Area.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at the age of 95.

Did you know...

Emblem in Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum

... that the title page of Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum shows an eagle atop a globe flanked by serpents (pictured), which symbolizes worldly triumph?
... that after Jim Sheddan ditched his Hawker Typhoon in the North Sea upon it being damaged by anti-aircraft fire, he spent 19 hours in an inflatable dinghy?
... that Bulkboeken ('bulk books') were cheap reprints of Dutch literary classics, published from 1971 to the late 1990s, and again from 2007?
... that the 2022 Yangtse clash saw Chinese and Indian troops fight hand-to-hand with melee weapons on a high-elevation ridgeline that formed their frontier in the area?
... that Elie Honig obtained the convictions of more than 100 members of the American Mafia, including members of the Genovese and Gambino crime families?
... that the New Zealand Geographic Board initially rejected the name of the Garden of Eden Ice Plateau for being biblical in origin?
... that Riddiculous riddlemaster Henry Lewis has appeared in The Play That Goes Wrong, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Magic Goes Wrong, and The Goes Wrong Show?
... that statistics for the roller coaster Steel Curtain were announced through a scratch card?

Wikipedia in other languages

You may read and edit articles in many different languages:

This Wikipedia is written in English. Many other Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.

1,000,000+ articles
- العربية
- Deutsch
- Español
- Français
- Italiano
- Nederlands
- 日本語
- Polski
- Português
- Русский
- Svenska
- Українська
- Tiếng Việt
- 中文
250,000+ articles
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Bahasa Melayu
- Bân-lâm-gú
- Български
- Català
- Čeština
- Dansk
- Esperanto
- Euskara
- فارسی‎
- עברית
- 한국어
- Magyar
- Norsk Bokmål
- Română
- Srpski
- Srpskohrvatski
- Suomi
- Türkçe
50,000+ articles

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:

Commons
Free media repository
MediaWiki
Wiki software development
Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia project coordination
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals
Wikidata
Free knowledge base
Wikinews
Free-content news
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations
Wikisource
Free-content library
Wikispecies
Directory of species
Wikiversity
Free learning tools
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus