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Showing our Wörth

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By Ian Rose and Adam Cuerden
SMS Wörth is the latest featured article on pre-WWI German ships by Parsecboy. He recently made news in the Signpost for his work on the largest ever Good Topic in Wikipedia's history, which this article forms part of, and currently seems determined to raise it to the largest featured topic, with this being just the latest of his many, many featured articles.
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 15 June through 21 June.

Ten featured articles were promoted this week.

This image, The Kelpie by Herbert James Draper, isn't a particularly good depiction of the subject of our new featured article, kelpies: Kelpies generally appear as men, when in human shape, and are shape-shifters, usually appearing as horses, tempting riders onto them, at which point they drown them within nearby bodies of water.
Flotilla is a turn-based space combat strategy game, and the subject of a new featured article.
Paul Tibbets was pilot of the Enola Gay, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb.
While the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom)'s side may have won in court in the royal baccarat scandal, in which Sir William Gordon-Cumming was accused of cheating in baccarat and sued for slander, it ruined the prince's reputation for years to come.
A Liberty Head double eagle, a twenty-dollar American gold coin from about the last half of the nineteenth century.
Francis B. Spinola was the first Italian American to be elected to the United States House of Representatives.
  • SMS Wörth (nominated by Parsecboy) SMS Wörth was one of four German pre-dreadnought battleships of the Brandenburg class, built in the early 1890s. The class also included Brandenburg, Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, and Weissenburg. The ships were the first ocean-going battleships built by the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). Wörth was laid down in May 1890, launched on 6 August 1892 and commissioned into the fleet on 31 October 1893. She was named for the Battle of Wörth fought during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. Wörth served in the German fleet for the first decade of her career, participating in the normal peacetime routine of training cruises and exercises. She took part in the German naval expedition to China in 1900 to suppress the Boxer Rebellion, though by the time the fleet arrived the siege of Peking had already been lifted, and Wörth saw little direct action in China. She was placed in reserve in 1906 as newer, more powerful vessels had supplanted the Brandenburg class as front-line battleships. Obsolete by the start of World War I, Wörth and Brandenburg served in a limited capacity in the Imperial German Navy as coastal defense ships for the first two years of the war, though they did not see action. By 1916, Wörth was reduced to a barracks ship, a role in which she served until the end of hostilities. Despite plans to convert her into a freighter after the war, Wörth was scrapped in the port of Danzig in 1919.
  • New York Dolls (album) (nominated by Dan56) New York Dolls is the debut studio album by American hard rock band the New York Dolls, released on July 27, 1973, by Mercury Records. The band formed in 1971 and developed a following while playing regularly in lower Manhattan. They held little appeal for record companies because of their onstage cross-dressing and vulgarity, and most record producers were reluctant to work with them. After signing a two-album deal with Mercury, the New York Dolls recorded their first album at The Record Plant in New York City with producer Todd Rundgren, who was known for his sophisticated pop sound. The album features carefree rock and roll and Brill Building pop influences among its hard rock songs. Their lyrics were written by lead singer David Johansen and touch on themes such as urban youth, teen alienation, adolescent romance, and authenticity. For shock value, the band was photographed in exaggerated drag on the album cover. Upon its release, New York Dolls received very positive reviews from music critics, but sold poorly and only charted at number 116 on the Billboard 200. The band toured the US to promote the album, but were difficult to market and developed a reputation for excess. Despite its commercial failure, the album was an influential precursor to the 1970s punk rock movement and has since received acclaim from critics as one of the greatest debut albums in rock music.
  • Vannevar Bush (nominated by Hawkeye7) Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, whose most important contribution was as head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during World War II, coordinating almost all wartime military R&D, including initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He is also known in engineering for his work on analog computers, for founding Raytheon, and for the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer with a structure analogous to that of the World Wide Web. In 1945, Bush published As We May Think in which he predicted that "wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified". The memex influenced generations of computer scientists, who drew inspiration from its vision of the future. Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company now known as Raytheon in 1922. Starting in 1927, Bush constructed a differential analyzer, an analog computer with some digital components that could solve differential equations with as many as 18 independent variables. An offshoot of the work at MIT by Bush and others was the beginning of digital circuit design theory. Bush became Vice President of MIT and Dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938. He was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1938, and soon became its chairman. Bush was a well-known policymaker and public intellectual during World War II, when he was in effect the first presidential science advisor.
  • Kelpie (nominated by Sagaciousphil and Eric Corbett) Kelpie (or water kelpie) is the Lowland Scottish name given to a malevolent water spirit or demon inhabiting the lochs and pools of Scotland. It has usually been described as appearing as a horse, but is able to adopt human form. Some accounts state that the kelpie retains its hooves when appearing as a human, leading to its association with the Christian idea of Satan as alluded to by Robert Burns in his 1786 poem "Address to the Deil". Almost every sizeable body of water in Scotland has an associated kelpie story, but the most extensively reported is that of Loch Ness, first recorded in the 6th century. The kelpie has counterparts across the world, such as the wihwin of South America, the Scandinavian bäckahästen and the Australian bunyip. The origin of the belief in malevolent water horses may lie in the human sacrifices once made to appease the gods of water, but it also served a practical purpose in keeping children away from dangerous stretches of water, and warning young women to be wary of handsome strangers.
  • Flotilla (video game) (nominated by Hahc21 ) Flotilla is a turn-based strategy space combat video game developed by Brendon Chung's studio, Blendo Games. It was released in March 2010 on Steam for Microsoft Windows and on Xbox Live Indie Games for the Xbox 360. The game was designed with Microsoft's XNA tools, and its development was influenced by animals as well as board games such as Axis and Allies and Arkham Horror. The game takes the player in an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy. Chung began developing Flotilla immediately after the closure of Pandemic Studios, where he had worked as a designer. The new game used assets imported from Chung's early space combat prototype, Space Piñata. Flotilla incorporates several pieces of classical music in its score, such as Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude. It received mixed reviews from video game media outlets, scoring 72 out of 100 on review aggregate website Metacritic, and was included in Mike Rose's book 250 Indie Games You Must Play.
  • Paul Tibbets (nominated by Reedmalloy and Hawkeye7) Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. (1915–2007) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force, best known as the pilot of the Enola Gay, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in the history of warfare. Code-named Little Boy, the bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Tibbets enlisted in the US Army in 1937 and qualified as a pilot in 1938. In February 1942, he became the commanding officer of the 340th Bombardment Squadron of the 97th Bombardment Group, which was equipped with the Boeing B-17. He flew the lead plane in the first American daylight heavy bomber mission against Occupied Europe on August 17, 1942, and the first American raid of more than 100 bombers in Europe on October 9, 1942. After flying 43 combat missions, he became the assistant for bomber operations on the staff of the Twelfth Air Force. Tibbets returned to the US in February 1943 to help with the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. In September 1944, he was appointed the commander of the 509th Composite Group, which would conduct the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, he participated in the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapon tests at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946, and was involved in the development of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet in the early 1950s. He commanded the 308th Bombardment Wing and 6th Air Division in the late 1950s, and was military attaché in India from 1964 to 1966. After leaving the Air Force in 1966, he worked for Executive Jet Aviation, serving as its president from 1976 until his retirement in 1987.
  • Royal baccarat scandal (nominated by SchroCat ) The royal baccarat scandal (also known as the Tranby Croft affair) was a British gambling scandal of the late 19th century involving the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. The scandal started during a house party in September 1890, when Sir William Gordon-Cumming, a decorated lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards, was accused of cheating at baccarat. Edward had been invited to stay at Tranby Croft, Yorkshire, the home of Arthur Wilson and his family. Gordon-Cumming was seen to be acting in a suspicious manner, and was subsequently pressured into signing a document that stated he would never play cards again, in exchange for the silence of the guests. The secret was not kept for long, and Gordon-Cumming demanded a retraction from the Wilson family, who he considered to blame for divulging the news. They refused and he filed a writ for slander in February 1891. Despite the efforts of the prince's courtiers to have the matter dealt with by a military court, the case was heard in June 1891. The atmosphere at trial was described as being like a theatre, and Edward was called as a witness, the first time the heir to the throne had been compelled to appear in court since 1411. Gordon-Cumming was found guilty, dismissed from the army, and ostracised from society for the rest of his life. Public opinion was on his side, and the prince was at his most unpopular for several years afterwards.
  • Liberty Head double eagle (nominated by Wehwalt ) The Liberty Head double eagle (or Coronet double eagle) is an American twenty-dollar gold piece struck as a pattern coin in 1849, and for commerce from 1850 to 1907. It was designed by Mint of the United States Chief Engraver James B. Longacre. The largest denomination of United States coin authorized by the Mint Act of 1792 was the eagle, or ten-dollar piece. The large amount of bullion being brought east after the discovery of gold in California in the 1840s caused Congress to consider new denominations of gold coinage. The gold dollar and double eagle were the result. After considerable infighting at the Philadelphia Mint, Chief Engraver James B. Longacre designed the double eagle, and it began to be issued for commerce in 1850. Only one 1849 double eagle is known to survive; it rests in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian. The coin was immediately successful; merchants and banks used it in trade. It was struck until replaced by the Saint-Gaudens double eagle in 1907, and many were melted when President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled gold coins from the public in 1933. Millions of double eagles were sent overseas in international transactions throughout its run to be melted or placed in bank vaults. Many of the latter have now been repatriated to feed the demand from collectors and those who desire to hold gold.
  • Israel the Grammarian (nominated by Dudley Miles ) Israel the Grammarian (c. 895 – c. 965) was one of the leading European scholars of the mid-tenth century. Probably a Breton, he was at the court of King Æthelstan of England in the 930s. After Æthelstan's death, Israel successfully sought the patronage of Archbishop Rotbert of Trier and became tutor to Bruno, later the Archbishop of Cologne. In the late 940s, he is recorded as a bishop, and at the end of his life he was a monk at the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Maximin in Trier. An accomplished poet, Israel was a disciple of the ninth-century Irish philosopher John Scottus Eriugena and one of the few scholars of his time to understand Greek. He wrote theological and grammatical tracts, and commentaries on the works of other philosophers and theologians.
  • 1988 Giro d'Italia (nominated by Disc Wheel) The 1988 Giro d'Italia was the 71st running of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tour races. The Giro started in Urbino, on 23 May, with a 9 km (5.6 mi) individual time trial and concluded in Vittorio Veneto, on 12 June, with a 43 km (26.7 mi) individual time trial. A total of 180 riders from 20 teams entered the 21-stage race, which was won by American Andrew Hampsten of the 7-Eleven–Hoonved team. The second and third places were taken by Dutchman Erik Breukink and Swiss Urs Zimmermann, respectively. It was the third time – and second successive year – in the history of the Giro that the podium was occupied solely by non-Italian riders. Hampsten became the first American, and non-European, to win the Giro. He also won the secondary mountains and combination classifications, as well as the special sprints classification. In the other classifications, Fanini-Seven Up rider Stefano Tomasini of Italy placed ninth overall to finish as the best neo-professional in the general classification; Johan van der Velde of the GIS-Ecoflam-Jolly team was the winner of the points classification, and Carrera Jeans–Vagabond finished as the winners of the team classification.

Eleven featured pictures were promoted this week.

Lacerta, Cygnus, Lyra, Vulpecula and Anser, plate 14 from Urania's Mirror, is one of the four illustrations from that set of star charts promoted this week. This completes a six-month project to raise to featured status every single one of the plates from that publication available from the Library of Congress.
Altoona, Pennsylvania in 1895.
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Gotta say that this weeks issue was beneficial for Featured Topics. After reading that SMS Wörth became a Featured Article (read it before it was published), I found out that Battleships of Germany reached 50% featured content, turning it from a Good Topic to a Featured Topic. Let it not be said that the newsletter is useless. GamerPro64 04:01, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost needs your help putting together the next issue.
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