Welcome to Wikipedia

,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

278,390 active editors
7,165,611 articles in English

From today's featured article

CB-20 after restoration

Mališan was a CB-class midget submarine that served in the Yugoslav Navy (JRM) from 1953 to 1957. Laid down for the Italian Navy during World War II as CB-20, she was intended for harbour defence and anti-submarine warfare tasks, but was incomplete at the time of the Italian surrender in September 1943. The unfinished boat was captured by the Germans and completed by March 1944. Handed over to the navy of the Italian Social Republic – a wartime German puppet state – she was captured by Yugoslav forces at the end of the war. She was repaired and commissioned in a training role by the JRM. In 1959, she was donated to the Technical Museum in Zagreb as a museum ship, and was on display for almost 50 years before undergoing an extensive restoration between 2008 and 2010. The restored submarine (pictured) returned to public display on 8 April 2010. The decision to revert to its original Italian paint scheme and designation as part of the restoration has been criticised. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Old South Meeting House

... that British troops turned Boston's Old South Meeting House (pictured) into a horse-riding facility during the American Revolutionary War?
... that Ethiopian migrants have to stay in Malawi's overcrowded Maula Prison until they can fund their own deportation?
... that Fatahillah, billed as the saviour of the Indonesian film industry and at the time its most expensive domestic film, was a commercial failure?
... that a Russian Air Force pilot was convicted in absentia of war crimes after being exchanged in a prisoner swap?
... that a mobster was kidnapped for three days while helping the United States Virgin Islands recover from the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane?
... that, when the National Sporting Club introduced the Lonsdale Belt in 1909, it guaranteed permanent holders a pension of £1 a week from age 50?
... that a woman killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent wrote an award-winning poem?
... that Duos for Doris was Keith Rowe and John Tilbury's first exclusive collaboration despite having worked with each other for around forty years?
... that a Chinese activist jet-skied 300 kilometres (190 mi) over 14 hours to escape to South Korea?

In the news

Lauren Betts

In NCAA Division I basketball, the UCLA Bruins win the women's championship (Most Outstanding Player Lauren Betts pictured).
NASA's Artemis II performs its lunar flyby maneuver, becoming the farthest crewed mission from Earth.
In Mongolia, Nyam-Osoryn Uchral is sworn in as prime minister following the resignation of Gombojavyn Zandanshatar.
The Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, remain the largest party after the Danish general election, with no political bloc winning a majority of seats.

On this day

April 8

Venus de Milo

876 – Abbasid forces decisively defeated the Saffarid emir Ya'qub ibn Laith, forcing the latter to halt his advance into Iraq.
1630 – Kiliaen van Rensselaer purchased land near present-day Albany, New York, to establish Rensselaerswyck, which became the most successful patroonship under the Dutch West India Company.
1820 – The Venus de Milo (pictured), an ancient Greek statue of a woman with its arms missing, was discovered on the island of Milos.
1961 – A large explosion on board the MV Dara in the Persian Gulf killed 238 people.
2008 – On board Soyuz TMA-12, Yi So-yeon became the first Korean astronaut.

Thomas of Tolentino (d. 1321)
Marie Byles (b. 1900)
Shecky Greene (b. 1926)
Mirsada Burić (b. 1970)

More anniversaries:

From today's featured list

Aespa

In 2021, twenty-seven singles by eighteen acts ranked number one on the Inkigayo Chart, a music-program record chart on Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) that gives an award to the best-performing single of the week in South Korea. In 2021, the chart measured digital performance in domestic online music services (5,500 points), social media via YouTube views (3,000 points), album sales (1,000 points), network on-air time (1,000 points), and advanced viewer votes (500 points) in its ranking methodology, for a total of 11,000 points. Nine songs collected award trophies for three weeks and earned a Triple Crown. Five acts and three soloists had their first number-one song on the chart in 2021, including the girl group Aespa (pictured), which had two number ones including the highest-scoring single, "Savage", with 10,699 points. Seven other acts had multiple number-one singles on the chart in 2021. (Full list...)

Recently featured:

Today's featured picture

Seattle is the largest city in the US state of Washington. With an estimated population of 780,000, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States, while the wider Seattle metropolitan area exceeds four million residents. The city lies on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, and it is a major port and gateway for trade with the Asia-Pacific region. Founded in 1851 and named after Chief Seattle, a local Native American leader, the city grew through logging, maritime trade, and the Klondike Gold Rush. In the 20th and 21st centuries, it has been a center for aerospace and technology led by companies such as Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon. Today, Seattle is a major hub for trade and technology, and is known for its influence on music. This long-exposure photograph shows the skyline of Downtown Seattle at night, with Interstate 5 in the foreground.

Photograph credit: Daniel Lawrence Lu

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: