User:Denizz

Tomorrow's featured article

Germany is a country in Western-Central Europe. It is bordered on the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea, on the east by Poland and the Czech Republic, on the south by Austria and Switzerland, the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Germany is a parliamentary federal republic of sixteen states. The capital city and seat of government is Berlin. The country was first unified as a nation-state amidst the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. After World War II, Germany was divided and became reunified in 1990. It is a founding member of the European Union and with over 82 million people it has the largest population among the EU member states. The Federal Republic of Germany is a modern great power, and a member state of the United Nations, NATO, the G8 and the G4 nations. Germany is the world's third largest economy by nominal GDP, the world's largest exporter of goods, and the world's second largest importer of goods. In 2007 it holds the rotating presidencies of both the European council and the G8 summits. (more...)

The Turk was a famous hoax that purported to be a chess-playing machine. Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by the Hungarian baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight's tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chess board once and only once. Publicly promoted as an automaton and given its common name based on its appearance, the Turk was a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master to hide inside and operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played. The apparatus was demonstrated around Europe and the United States of America for over 80 years until its destruction in 1854, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. (more...)

April 6: Good Friday in Christianity (2007); Tartan Day

• 1652 - Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck (pictured) established the first permanent European settlement in sub-Saharan Africa on what eventually became known as Cape Town.
• 1782 - Rama I succeeded King Taksin of Thailand, founding the Chakri Dynasty.
• 1830 - Joseph Smith, Jr., Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and others formally organized the Church of Christ, starting the Latter Day Saint movement.
• 1896 - The first modern Olympic Games opened in Athens.

• Recent days: April 5 – April 4 – April 3

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From Wikipedia's newest articles:

• ...that pattens (pictured) were wooden-soled overshoes worn from the 14th to 19th centuries to raise the wearer above mud and dirt?
• ...that Work, painted over 13 years from 1852 to 1865, is generally considered to be the most important painting by Ford Madox Brown?
• ...that the units of the Red Army and the Afghan army fought the Battles of Zhawar in 1985-86 to destroy a mujahideen supply base near the Pakistani border?
• ...that numerous common idioms feature one of the various slang meanings of 'dime'?
• ...that when Birmingham-based early-music choir Ex Cathedra founded its Baroque orchestra in its 1983–1984 season, this was the first period instrument orchestra to be established in an English city outside London?
• ...that Ngo Dinh Diem became president of South Vietnam after a fraudulent 1955 election run by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, polling 133% of registered voters in Saigon?
• ...that Sara Gruen’s historical novel Water for Elephants recounts that circus workers were sometimes thrown off the circus train in the middle of the night, a practice known as "redlighting"?
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