Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 2019

Today's featured article archive

September 1

Brendan Fraser, promoting the
film's second sequel in 2008

The Mummy is a 1999 American action horror film written and directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Fraser (pictured), Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Kevin J. O'Connor, and Arnold Vosloo. In this film, a loose remake of a film of the same name from 1932, adventurers accidentally awaken Imhotep, a high priest from Pharaoh Seti I's reign who has been cursed for eternity. Filming began in Marrakesh, Morocco, in May 1998; the crew had to endure dehydration, sandstorms, and snakes while filming in the Sahara. The visual effects were provided by Industrial Light & Magic, who blended film and computer-generated imagery to create the mummy. The film opened on May 7, 1999, and went on to gross $416 million worldwide. The box-office success led to two sequels, The Mummy Returns (2001) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), as well as an animated series, and a prequel, The Scorpion King. The film also inspired a roller coaster, Revenge of the Mummy, in three Universal Studios Theme Parks. (Full article...)

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September 2

Lawrence Weathers (1890–1918) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in battle that could be awarded to a member of the Australian armed forces at the time. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in early 1916, and joined the 43rd Battalion. His unit deployed to the Western Front in France and Belgium in late December. Weathers took part in the Battle of Messines in June 1917, and was wounded. Rejoining his unit in December, Weathers fought during the German Spring Offensive, but was gassed in May and did not return to his unit until the following month. He participated in the Battle of Hamel in July, the Battle of Amiens in August, and the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin in September. At Mont Saint-Quentin, he was recommended for the award of the Victoria Cross based on his actions on 2 September. He was mortally wounded by a shell on 29 September during the Battle of St Quentin Canal, never having been aware that he was to receive the Victoria Cross. (Full article...)

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September 3

Kelley Deal and Josephine Wiggs in 2009

The September 2014 tour by the alternative rock band the Breeders included thirteen concerts in the central and western United States. The tour featured the lineup from their 1993 album Last Splash, with Josephine Wiggs, Jim Macpherson, Kim Deal, and Kelley Deal (pictured with Wiggs in 2009). Invited to open for Neutral Milk Hotel's September 18 concert at the Hollywood Bowl, they planned a tour to lead up to this show, using the opportunity to practice some recent compositions. They performed in eleven cities, including St. Louis, Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. The group then played at the Hollywood Bowl concert, and finished the tour on September 20 at the Goose Island 312 Urban Block Party event in Chicago. As well as their new songs, they performed numerous selections from Last Splash and Pod (1990). Music critics commented that the performances were rousing, and that the band was as good as—or better than—in its heyday. (Full article...)

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September 4

Sasha (born 4 September 1969) is a Welsh DJ and record producer, best known for his live events, electronic music as a solo artist, and collaborations with British DJ John Digweed. He topped DJ Magazine's Top 100 DJs poll in 2000, and is a four-time International Dance Music Awards winner, four-time DJ Awards winner and Grammy Award nominee. He began his career playing acid house dance music in the late 1980s. In 1993 he partnered with Digweed, touring internationally. Sasha has remixed tracks for artists including Madonna, The Chemical Brothers and Hot Chip. He has produced three albums of original works: The Qat Collection in 1994, Airdrawndagger in 2002 and Scene Delete in 2016. His use of live audio engineering equipment helped popularise technological innovations among DJs who formerly relied on records and turntables. In 2007 he formed a record label with Renaissance Records called emFire. (Full article...)

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September 5

Richard Nixon in 1950

In the 1950 United States Senate election in California, Republican Richard Nixon (pictured) defeated Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas in a campaign characterized by accusations and name-calling. Democratic incumbent Sheridan Downey withdrew during the primary election campaign, after which publisher Manchester Boddy joined the race; both attacked Douglas as a leftist. Nixon and Douglas won the primaries, and at the time of the Red Scare, tried to paint each other as sympathetic to communism; Nixon had more success doing so. Democrats were slow to rally to Douglas, and some even endorsed Nixon, who defeated Douglas by almost 20 percentage points in the November 7 election. Though Nixon was later criticized for his tactics in the campaign, he defended his actions and stated that Douglas was too far to the left for California's voters. The campaign gave rise to two political nicknames, "the Pink Lady" for Douglas and "Tricky Dick" for Nixon. (Full article...)

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September 6

The effects of Hurricane Isabel in Delaware were compounded by flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Henri days before and resulted in a presidential disaster declaration for the U.S. state. Hurricane Isabel formed on September 6, 2003, in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and reached recorded peak winds of 165 mph (265 km/h) on September 11. It made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with recorded winds of 105 mph (165 km/h) on September 18. It quickly weakened over land and became extratropical over Pennsylvania the next day. Roughly six million people were left without electric service in the eastern United States from its strong winds. Sixteen deaths in seven states were directly related to the hurricane, with 35 deaths in six states and one Canadian province indirectly related, though none in Delaware. Overall damage totalled about $5.5 billion, of which $40 million was associated with Delaware. (Full article...)

Part of the Hurricane Isabel featured topic.

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September 7

George Hirst (7 September 1871 – 10 May 1954) was a professional English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Yorkshire, mainly between 1891 and 1921. He played in 24 Test matches for England, touring Australia twice. He was a left arm medium-fast bowler and right-handed batsman who completed the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season 14 times. He recorded 36,356 runs and 2,742 wickets taken in first-class cricket and 790 runs and 59 wickets in Tests. Hirst was regarded as a specialist batsman until around 1900, when he learned to make the ball swing in flight, making his bowling difficult to counter. He scored 341 runs in an innings against Leicestershire in 1905, and made a unique double of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets in 1906. He played in all England's home Test series between 1899 and 1909, although less successfully than for his county. He played occasionally for Yorkshire after the war, retiring to coach at Eton, while also training youths from other social backgrounds. (Full article...)

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September 8

Wipeout 3 is a racing video game developed by Psygnosis and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation console, first released on 8 September 1999. In this third game in the Wipeout series, players control extremely fast anti-gravity ships in a futuristic setting and use weapons to force other contenders out of the race. Psygnosis hired the British design studio Designers Republic to develop the game's look and feel, wanting a futuristic yet plausible setting. The game's soundtrack was assembled from electronica artists including The Chemical Brothers and Orbital, as well as other performers. Critics praised Wipeout 3's audiovisual presentation, with complaints leveled at the game's unforgiving learning curve and controls. Despite overall positive reception, the game was a financial disappointment. Wipeout 3 Special Edition, featuring additional content, was released in 2000, and the next entry in the series, Wipeout Fusion, was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2002. (Full article...)

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September 9

Lower jaw with three teeth

Ambondro mahabo is a mammal from the middle Jurassic (about 167 million years ago) of Madagascar. The only species of the genus Ambondro, it is known from a fragmentary lower jaw with three teeth (pictured), interpreted as the last premolar and the first two molars. The premolar consists of a central cusp with one or two smaller cusps and a cingulum (shelf) on the inner, or lingual, side of the tooth. The molars have a similar cingulum, three cusps at the front, and a talonid with a main cusp, a smaller cusp, and a crest at the back. Features of the talonid suggest that Ambondro had tribosphenic molars, the basic arrangement of molar features also present in marsupial and placental mammals. It is the oldest known mammal with putatively tribosphenic teeth; at the time of its discovery it antedated the second oldest example by about 25 million years. (Full article...)

Part of the Mesozoic mammals of Madagascar featured topic.

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September 10

John J. Crittenden (September 10, 1787 – July 26, 1863) was an American politician. He was the 17th governor of Kentucky, and represented the state in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He also served as United States Attorney General in the administrations of William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Millard Fillmore. Lame duck president John Quincy Adams nominated Crittenden to the U.S. Supreme Court on December 17, 1828, but supporters of president-elect Andrew Jackson in the Senate voted to allow Jackson to make his own nomination. While serving in the Senate in December 1860, he authored the Crittenden Compromise, a series of resolutions and constitutional amendments he hoped would avert the Civil War, but Congress would not approve them. One of his sons, George B. Crittenden, became a general in the Confederate Army. Another son, Thomas Leonidas Crittenden, became a general in the Union Army. (Full article...)

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September 11

The World Trade Center
is prominently featured
in the episode.

"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of The Simpsons' ninth season. The 179th episode of the show overall, it was originally broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on September 21, 1997. Written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, the episode features the Simpson family traveling to recover the family car, which Barney Gumble had abandoned in Manhattan with numerous parking tickets and a parking boot. Executive producers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein suggested that the car be found at the World Trade Center (pictured in 2001), as they wanted a location that would be widely known. The animators painstakingly replicated city landmarks. The episode received generally positive reviews, and has since been on accolade lists of The Simpsons episodes. It was taken off syndication in many areas following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, but had come back into syndication by 2006. (Full article...)

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September 12

Lancaster's chevauchée of 1346 was a large-scale mounted raid directed by Henry, Earl of Lancaster, in south western France during the Hundred Years' War. The main English army had defeated the larger French army at the Battle of Crécy in August, and French defences in the south west were left weak and disorganised. Lancaster took advantage by leading a raid between 12 September and 31 October 1346 while sending other forces into Quercy and the Bazadais. All three offensives were successful, with Lancaster's chevauchée, of approximately 2,000 English and Gascon soldiers, meeting no effective resistance from the French, penetrating 160 miles (260 kilometres) north and storming the rich city of Poitiers. His force then razed and looted large areas of Saintonge, Aunis and Poitou, capturing numerous towns, castles and smaller fortified places as they went. The offensives completely disrupted the French defences and shifted the focus of the fighting. (Full article...)

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September 13

The Tahiti rail (Gallirallus pacificus) is an extinct bird species from Tahiti. The rail was first recorded during James Cook's second voyage in 1772–1775, during which it was painted by Georg Forster and described by his father Johann. It may have also existed on nearby Mehetia. It appears to have been closely related to the buff-banded rail, and has been confused with that bird's Tongan subspecies. The Tahiti rail was 9 in (23 cm) long, with white on its underparts, throat, and "eyebrows". Its upper parts were black with white dots and bands, the hind neck was rust-coloured, the breast was grey, and it had a black band across its throat. The bill and iris were red, and the legs were pink. It was supposedly flightless, and nested on the ground. It frequented open areas, marshes, and coconut plantations, eating mainly insects and some coconut meat. Its extinction, after 1844 on Tahiti, and perhaps in the 1930s on Mehetia, was probably due to predation by humans and introduced cats and rats. (Full article...)

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September 14

Thomas F. Mulledy (1794–1860) was a Catholic priest from Virginia and a prominent leader of the American Jesuits. He twice served as President of Georgetown College in Washington, D.C., where he undertook a significant building campaign. After his first presidency, he was appointed provincial superior of the Jesuit Maryland province in 1837. The following year, Mulledy executed the sale of 272 slaves owned by the Maryland Jesuits in order to relieve the province's mounting debts. After an outcry from his fellow Jesuits over the immorality of the sale, church authorities in Rome exiled him to Nice for several years, for insubordination and promoting scandal. Following his return to the United States in 1843, he became the first President of the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, where he oversaw the construction of the college's first building. In his later years, he engaged in preaching and pastoral work, and assisted Holy Cross during investigations by the Know Nothing Party. (Full article...)

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September 15

Tirpitz in 1943 or 1944

Operation Paravane was a British air raid of World War II on the German battleship Tirpitz. The attack on 15 September 1944 by 21 Royal Air Force heavy bombers did irreparable damage, rendering the ship unfit for combat. A series of raids conducted from April to August by Royal Navy aircraft carriers had sought unsuccessfully to sink or disable the battleship at her anchorage in Kaafjord in the far north of German-occupied Norway, encountering formidable German defences. In September, Avro Lancaster bombers from two elite squadrons of RAF Bomber Command, flying from an airfield in the Soviet Union, attacked using heavy bombs and air-dropped mines. All of the British aircraft returned to base. The Allies were unable to confirm the extent of the battleship's damage, and conducted two further heavy bomber raids against her in late 1944 that sank the ship with considerable loss of life. (Full article...)

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September 16

Kevin Beattie (18 December 1953 – 16 September 2018) was an English footballer. Born into poverty, he played at both professional and international levels, mostly as a centre-half. He spent the majority of his playing career at Ipswich Town, with whom he won both the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup. He was named the inaugural Professional Footballers' Association Young Player of the Year at the end of the 1972–73 season. He suffered a variety of injuries, and his playing career included some controversy, such as when he went missing when selected for England's under-23 team. After retiring from playing, he descended into alcohol abuse before finding a new career in later life as a football commentator on television and radio. Beattie has been called Ipswich Town's best ever player by many pundits and polls. Former Ipswich (and later England) manager Bobby Robson called him the best England player he had seen. (Full article...)

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September 17

Harriet Tubman (1822–1913) was an African-American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped in 1849, then returned 13 times to rescue approximately 70 of her enslaved family and friends. Traveling by night, she used a network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped fugitives go farther north into British North America, and helped newly freed slaves find work. Tubman met John Brown in 1858, and helped him plan and recruit for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. When the Civil War began, she worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 slaves. Later in life she was an activist for women's suffrage. After her death, she was celebrated as an American icon. (Full article...)

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September 18

James Park Woods (1886–1963) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that could be awarded to members of the Australian armed forces at the time. Woods enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in September 1916, and joined the 48th Battalion in France in September 1917. He participated in the First Battle of Passchendaele the following month. In 1918, Woods was hospitalised twice, finally returning to his unit in mid-August. On 18 September, the 48th Battalion was involved in the attack on the Hindenburg Outpost Line. During this battle Woods led a four-man patrol in an attack on a strong German post, inflicting severe casualties and driving more than thirty Germans from the position. His actions during this assault and subsequent defence against German counter-attacks resulted in him being awarded the Victoria Cross. His medals are now displayed in the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial. (Full article...)

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September 19

Suillus bovinus, the Jersey cow mushroom, is a pored mushroom in the family Suillaceae. A common fungus native to Europe and Asia, it has been introduced to North America and Australia. It was initially described as Boletus bovinus by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, and given its current binomial name by Henri François Anne de Roussel in 1806. It is an edible mushroom, though not highly regarded. The fungus grows in coniferous forests in its native range, and pine plantations elsewhere. It is sometimes parasitised by the related mushroom Gomphidius roseus. S. bovinus produces spore-bearing mushrooms, often in large numbers, each with a convex grey-yellow or ochre cap reaching up to 10 cm (4 in) in diameter, flattening with age. As in other boletes, the cap has spore tubes extending downward from the underside, rather than gills. The pore surface is yellow. The stalk, more slender than those of other Suillus boletes, lacks a ring. (Full article...)

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September 20

Sutton Hoo Helmet is a 2002 sculpture by the English artist Rick Kirby. A representation of the Anglo-Saxon helmet of the same name found in the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, it was commissioned by the National Trust to hang outside the Sutton Hoo visitor centre. Together with the centre, the sculpture was unveiled by Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney on 13 March 2002. Weighing 900 kg (2,000 lb), it is 1.8 m (5.9 ft) high, 1.2 m (3.9 ft) wide and 1.6 m (5.2 ft) deep. It is made of mild steel plates that are coloured red. Designed to have a "fierce presence", it is inspired by the fragmentary appearance of the reconstructed helmet rather than the glistening replica made by the Royal Armouries. Steel is Kirby's favoured medium, allowing the sense of scale and dramatic impact found in Sutton Hoo Helmet. The sculpture is illustrative of Kirby's largely figural body of work, and its mask-like quality has been repeated in subsequent pieces. (Full article...)

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September 21

HH 32, one of the brightest
Herbig–Haro objects

Herbig–Haro objects are bright nebular patches formed when narrow jets of partially ionized gas ejected from newborn stars collide with clouds of gas and dust. Often aligned with a star's rotational axis, they are commonly found in star-forming regions. Most of them lie within a few light-years of the source. They are transient phenomena, lasting around a few tens of thousands of years. They can change visibly over just a few years, as they move rapidly away from their parent star. First observed in the late 19th century by Sherburne Wesley Burnham, Herbig–Haro objects were not recognized as distinct from other emission nebulas until the 1940s. The first astronomers to study them in detail were George Herbig and Guillermo Haro, who independently recognized that the objects were by-products of the star formation process. Although the objects emit visible wavelengths, many are hidden by dust and gas, and can only be detected at infrared wavelengths. (Full article...)

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September 22

Joseph B. Foraker (1846–1917) was an American politician. A Republican, he served as the 37th governor of Ohio (1886–1890) and a U.S. senator (1897–1909). Born in rural Ohio, Foraker enlisted in the Union Army at age 16 and fought in the Civil War. After the war, he was a member of Cornell's first graduating class, and became a lawyer; he was elected a judge in 1879. Although defeated in his first run for governor in 1883, he was elected in 1885. Foraker lost re-election in 1889, but was elected senator by the legislature in 1896. In the Senate, he supported the Spanish–American War and the annexation of the Philippines and Puerto Rico. He differed with President Theodore Roosevelt over the Brownsville affair, in which black soldiers had been accused of terrorizing a Texas town; Roosevelt had dismissed the entire battalion. Foraker fought unsuccessfully for their reinstatement, and Roosevelt helped defeat Foraker's re-election bid. In 1972, the Army reversed the dismissals and cleared the soldiers. (Full article...)

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September 23

Ohio State Reformatory served as
the fictional Shawshank prison.

The Shawshank Redemption is an American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, first released on September 23, 1994. Based on the 1982 Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, it tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary (prison pictured) for the murder of his wife and her lover, despite his claims of innocence. Over the following two decades, he befriends a fellow prisoner, contraband smuggler Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), and becomes instrumental in a money laundering operation led by the prison warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton). The film received positive reviews, but earned only $16 million during its initial theatrical run. After garnering seven Academy Award nominations, it was one of the top rented films of 1995, and totaled $58.3 million at the box office after a theatrical re-release. In 2015, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry. (Full article...)

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September 24

The Edmontosaurus mummy in the American Museum of Natural History is an exceptionally well-preserved fossil of a dinosaur, the first found to include a skeleton encased in skin impressions; almost two-thirds of the skin is preserved. Discovered in 1908 in the United States near Lusk, Wyoming, it is ascribed to the species Edmontosaurus annectens, a hadrosaurid (duck-billed dinosaur). It was discovered lying on its back, its neck twisted backwards and its forelimbs outstretched. After dehydration and burial of the carcass, bacteria consolidated the surrounding sediments, resulting in its excellent preservation. Skin impressions found in between the fingers were once interpreted as evidence for an aquatic lifestyle. The mummy was found by fossil hunter Charles Hazelius Sternberg and his three sons in the Lance Formation. Although Sternberg was working under contract to the British Museum of Natural History, Henry Fairfield Osborn managed to secure the mummy for the American museum. (Full article...)

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September 25

Display model of the similar
SOLRAD 1

SOLRAD 2 was a surveillance and scientific satellite developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Like the similar SOLRAD 1 satellite (model pictured), it was intended to measure solar X-rays and ultraviolet radiation while conducting a covert surveillance mission, mapping the Soviet Union's air defense radar network with its onboard Galactic Radiation and Background electronic surveillance package. SOLRAD 1, launched in June 1960, had been the first satellite to observe solar X-rays, confirming the connection between increased solar X-ray activity and radio fade-outs, and the first to conduct surveillance from orbit, revealing a Soviet network that was more extensive than had been expected. SOLRAD 2 was launched along with the Transit 3A satellite atop a Thor DM-21 Ablestar rocket on November 30, 1960, but both satellites failed to reach orbit when the booster flew off course and was destroyed. Debris rained down over Cuba, prompting protests from the Cuban government. (Full article...)

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September 26

The Louisiana Purchase (shown in white)

The Louisiana Purchase Sesquicentennial half dollar was a proposed United States commemorative coin. Intended for the 150th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, the coin was lobbied for by the Missouri Historical Society (MHS) and the Louisiana Purchase 150th Anniversary Association of New Orleans, led by Clay Shaw; they hoped to be able to buy the entire coin issue from the government and sell it at a profit. Numismatist Eric P. Newman advocated for the bill on behalf of the MHS. The House of Representatives passed authorizing legislation in April 1953, but the Senate was slower to act, passing it in January 1954. The Treasury Department strongly opposed the bill, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower vetoed it and two other commemorative coin bills on February 3, 1954; Congress made no attempt to override the vetoes. No commemorative coins were authorized or issued by the United States after 1954 until a new issue was authorized in 1981. (Full article...)

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September 27

Wizard Island in Crater Lake

Mount Mazama is a complex volcano in the American part of the Cascade Range whose collapsed caldera holds Crater Lake (pictured), the nation's deepest freshwater body, at 1,943 feet (592 m). In North America, only Great Slave Lake in Canada is deeper. Mount Mazama, within Crater Lake National Park, is in the Oregon segment of the Cascade Volcanic Arc. The mountain's elevation before its climactic eruption about 7,700 years ago was around 12,000 feet (3,700 m), but is now 8,157 feet (2,486 m). Mount Mazama formed as a group of overlapping volcanic edifices including shield volcanoes and small composite cones, becoming active intermittently until its big eruption. Mazama is dormant, but the United States Geological Survey says that eruptions on a smaller scale are likely, and that these could pose a threat to its surroundings. Indigenous people have inhabited the area around Mazama and Crater Lake for at least 10,000 years. (Full article...)

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September 28

Stocksbridge Park Steels in 2007

Stocksbridge Park Steels Football Club is an English association football club based in the Stocksbridge area of Sheffield. They currently compete in the Northern Premier League Division One East. The club was formed in 1986 from the merger of Stocksbridge Works, the works team of the local British Steel Corporation plant, with Oxley Park Sports. Sporting a yellow and blue home kit, they play at the Bracken Moor ground. They initially played in the Northern Counties East League, progressing through its divisions. They won promotion to Division One of the Northern Premier League in 1996, and reached its Premier Division in 2009, but were relegated back to Division One South in 2014. Due to league re-organisation, they now play in Division One South East. Steels have participated in the FA Cup every year since 1992, reaching the 4th qualifying round in 2003, and first entered the FA Trophy in 1996 after previously participating in the FA Vase. (Full article...)

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September 29

Chartwell is an English country house near the town of Westerham, Kent. For over forty years it was the home of Winston Churchill, who lived there until shortly before his death in January 1965. In the 1930s, when Churchill was excluded from political office, Chartwell became the centre of his world. At his dining table, he gathered those who could assist his campaign against German re-armament and the British government's response of appeasement; in his study, he composed speeches and wrote books; in his garden, he built walls, constructed lakes and painted. During the Second World War Chartwell was largely unused, until Churchill lost the 1945 election. In 1953, when he was again Prime Minister, the house became his refuge after a debilitating stroke. From the garden front, the house has extensive views over the Weald of Kent. It was opened to the public by the National Trust in 1966. (Full article...)

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September 30

IFF Mark II was the first operational identification friend or foe system, developed by the Royal Air Force just before World War II. The Mark I, its predecessor, amplified the signals of the British Chain Home radar systems, triggering a radar display blip. It required manual tuning, and operators could not always distinguish between an enemy aircraft and a friendly one with a maladjusted IFF. The Mark II, deployed at the end of the Battle of Britain in late 1940, fixed this problem with an automatic gain control and three automatic tuners that covered a wider selection of radars. The Mark II's frequencies were sufficient for the early war period, but by 1942 many more radars were in use, including incompatible ones based on the cavity magnetron. The IFF Mark III eliminated the multiple tuners and operated on a single frequency that could be used with any radar; it entered service in 1943 and quickly replaced the Mark II. (Full article...)

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