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History, gaming and multifarious topics

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Featured articles

Twenty-two featured articles were promoted this week.

• Elcor, Minnesota (nominated by DrGregMN) is a ghost town in the U.S. state of Minnesota which existed between 1897 and 1956. In November 1890, the seven Merritt brothers discovered ore on the Mesabi Range, and a new iron rush began. An influx of people of many ethnicities from many nations followed, and Elcor became a microcosm of U.S. immigration, mirroring the cultural assimilation of the time. At its peak around 1920, Elcor had two churches, a post office, a mercantile, a primary school, a railroad station, its own law enforcement, and housed a population of nearly 1,000.
• The golden jackal (nominated by William Harris) is a wolf-like canid that is native to Southeast Europe, Southwest Asia, South Asia, and regions of Southeast Asia. Compared with the Arabian wolf, which is the smallest of the gray wolves, (Canis lupus), the jackal is smaller and possesses shorter legs, a shorter tail, a more elongated torso, a less-prominent forehead, and a narrower and more pointed muzzle. The golden jackal's coat can vary from a pale creamy yellow in summer to a dark tawny beige in winter. It is listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List due to its widespread distribution and high density in areas with plenty of available food and optimum shelter.
• The British hydrogen bomb programme (nominated by Hawkeye7) was the ultimately successful British effort to develop hydrogen bombs between 1952 and 1958. Operation Grapple involved Britain's first airdrop of a thermonuclear bomb. Although hailed as a success at the time, the first test of the Green Granite design was a failure. The second test validated Orange Herald as a usable design of a megaton weapon, but it was not a thermonuclear bomb, and the core boosting did not work. A third test attempted to correct the Green Granite design, but was another failure. In the Grapple X test in November 1957, they successfully tested a thermonuclear design. The Grapple Y test the following April obtained most of its yield from nuclear fusion, and the Grapple Z test series later that year demonstrated a mastery of thermonuclear weapons technology. An international moratorium on nuclear tests commenced on 31 October 1958, and Britain ceased atmospheric testing for good. The successful development of the hydrogen bomb, along with the Sputnik crisis, resulted in the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, in which the nuclear Special Relationship was restored.
• RSPB Minsmere (nominated by Jimfbleak) is a nature reserve owned and managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) at Minsmere, Suffolk. The 1,000-hectare (2,500-acre) site has been managed by the RSPB since 1947 and covers areas of reed bed, lowland heath, acid grassland, wet grassland, woodland and shingle vegetation. The nature reserve is managed primarily for bird conservation, particularly through control and improvement of wetland, heath and grassland habitats. The reserve has a visitor centre, eight bird hides and an extensive network of footpaths and trails. Entry is free for RSPB members. Potential future threats to the site include flooding or salination as climate change causes rising sea levels, coastal erosion and possible effects on water levels due to the construction of a new reactor at the neighbouring Sizewell nuclear power stations.
• The More Hall Annex (nominated by SounderBruce) was a building on the campus of the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, that once housed a functional nuclear research reactor. It was inaugurated in 1961 and shut down in 1988, operating at a peak of 100 kilowatts thermal, and was officially decommissioned two decades later in 2007. The reactor was housed in a reinforced concrete building designed in the Brutalist architectural style by UW faculty members. They designed the reactor room with large windows which allowed observation from the outside, in an attempt to demonstrate the safety of nuclear energy. The Nuclear Reactor Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, after a campaign led by an architecture student in response to the proposed demolition of the building. Despite concerns from preservation groups and the City of Seattle, the UW Board of Regents had the building demolished in July 2016. It will be replaced by a new computer science building that is expected to open in January 2019.
• The Rhode Island Tercentenary half dollar (nominated by Wehwalt) is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936. The coin was designed by John Howard Benson and Arthur Graham Carey. Members of Rhode Island's congressional delegation sought a coin for the 300th anniversary of Providence, and Senator Jesse Metcalf added authorization for one to a bill for another commemorative coin that had already passed the House of Representatives. The amended bill was approved by both houses of Congress, and was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A total of 50,000 coins were struck at the three mints then in operation. When the coins went on sale on March 5, 1936, the quantity made available to the public sold out in a matter of hours. Rhode Island insiders were holding back quantities for later sale once prices rose. That conduct incensed coin collectors, and the abuses led Congress to move toward banning commemorative coins. The coins are listed for hundreds of dollars today, depending on condition.
• Knuckles' Chaotix (nominated by Joebro64) Is a 1995 side-scrolling platform game developed and published by Sega for the 32X. A spin-off of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the game features Knuckles the Echidna and four other characters collectively known as the Chaotix. Critical reception to Knuckles' Chaotix has been mixed. Critics found the tethering physics cumbersome, although some appreciated it as an attempt by Sega to innovate in the series. It is seen as the last in the "classic" 2D style of Sonic games before the series moved to 3D. Some characters and concepts introduced in the game were featured in later Sonic games and media. Despite interest from fans, it has not been re-released beyond a brief period through GameTap in the mid-2000s.
• Chains of Love (TV series) (nominated by Aoba47) is an American dating game show that aired for six episodes in April and May 2001 on United Paramount Network (UPN). Adapted from a Dutch television series, it revolves around a man or woman being chained to four members of the opposite sex over four days and nights. This person, identified as the "Picker", is given $10,000 and can remove three contestants one at a time. The Picker can give a portion of the money to each eliminated participant. When left with a single partner, the Picker can choose to either split the money or keep it. American television personality Madison Michele hosted each episode.
• Segundo Romance (nominated by Erick) is the tenth studio album by Mexican singer Luis Miguel, released on 30 August 1994 through WEA Latina. Like Miguel's 1991 album Romance, Segundo Romance comprises cover versions of boleros (Latin ballads) written between 1934 and 1993. It was produced by Miguel with Juan Carlos Calderón, Kiko Cibrian and Armando Manzanero and recorded in early 1994 at the Record Plant in Los Angeles.
• Cragside (nominated by KJP1 and DBaK) is a Victorian country house near the town of Rothbury in Northumberland, England. It was the home of William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Whitworth armaments firm. The original building was a small shooting lodge which Armstrong built between 1862 and 1864. In 1869, he employed the architect Richard Norman Shaw to enlarge Cragside. The result was described by the architect and writer Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel as "one of the most dramatic compositions in all architecture". Armstrong filled the house with a significant art collection; he and his wife were patrons of many 19th-century British artists. Cragside became an integral part of Armstrong's commercial operations: honoured guests under Armstrong's roof, including the Shah of Persia, the King of Siam and two future Prime Ministers of Japan, were also customers for his commercial undertakings. In 1971 the National Trust asked the architectural historian Mark Girouard to compile a gazetteer of the most important Victorian houses in Britain which the Trust should seek to save should they ever be sold. Girouard placed Cragside at the top of the list; in 1977, the house was acquired by the Trust with the aid of a grant from the National Land Fund. A Grade I listed building since 1953, Cragside has been open to the public since 1979.
• The 2006 Bank of America 500 (nominated by MWright96) was the 31st stock car race of the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the fifth in the ten-race season-ending Chase for the Nextel Cup. It was held on October 14, 2006, before a crowd of 175,000 in Concord, North Carolina, at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The circuit is one of ten intermediate tracks to hold NASCAR races. The 334-lap race was won by Kasey Kahne of the Evernham Motorsports team, who started from second position. Jimmie Johnson finished second and Jeff Burton came in third.
• Super Mario World (nominated by Jaguar) is a 1990 side-scrolling platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The story follows Mario's quest to save Princess Toadstool and Dinosaur Land from the series' antagonist, Bowser, and his children, the Koopalings. Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development developed the game led by director Takashi Tezuka and producer and series creator Shigeru Miyamoto. It is the first entry in the Super Mario series developed for the SNES. Super Mario World was a critical and commercial success, and is often considered one of the greatest video games of all time. It sold over 20 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling game on the SNES.
• The Greek battleship Salamis (nominated by Parsecboy and Ed) was a partially constructed capital ship, referred to as either a dreadnought battleship or battlecruiser, that was ordered for the Greek Navy from the AG Vulcan shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, in 1912. She was ordered as part of a Greek naval rearmament program meant to modernize the fleet, in response to Ottoman naval expansion after the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. Salamis and several other battleships—none of which were delivered to either navy—represented the culmination of a naval arms race between the two countries that had significant effects on the First Balkan War and World War I.
• Nigel Williams (conservator) (nominated by Usernameunique) was a British conservator and expert on the restoration of ceramics and glass. From 1961 until his death he worked at the British Museum, where he became the Chief Conservator of Ceramics and Glass in 1983. There his work included the successful restorations of the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Portland Vase.
• The Tottenham outrage (nominated by SchroCat) of 23 January 1909 was a wages theft in Tottenham, north London, that resulted in a two-hour chase between the police and armed criminals over a distance of six miles (10 km), with an estimated 400 rounds of ammunition fired by the thieves. The robbery, from the Schnurmann rubber factory, was carried out by Paul Helfeld and Jacob Lepidus, Jewish Latvian immigrants. Of the twenty-three casualties, two were fatal and several others serious, among them seven policemen. The two thieves committed suicide at the end of the pursuit.
• The Lancashire Fusiliers War Memorial (nominated by HJ Mitchell) is a First World War memorial originally dedicated to members of the Lancashire Fusiliers killed in that conflict. Located in Gallipoli Gardens in Bury, Greater Manchester (historically in Lancashire), in north-west England, it was unveiled in 1922—on the seventh anniversary of the landing at Cape Helles, part of the Gallipoli Campaign in which the regiment suffered particularly heavy casualties. It originally sat outside the Lancashire Fusiliers' headquarters in Wellington Barracks but was relocated when the barracks closed in the 1970s. It was moved again in 2009, this time to sit in a public park renamed Gallipoli Gardens, outside the Fusilier Museum, which moved at the same time. The memorial was designated a Grade II listed building in 1992. It was upgraded to Grade II* in 2015 (on the centenary of the Cape Helles landing), along with two other memorials related to the Gallipoli Campaign; later that year it was recognised as part of a national collection of Edwin Lutyens' war memorials.
• Kate Winslet (nominated by Krimuk2.0) is an English actress. She is known for her portrayals of angst-ridden women, typically in period dramas and tragedies. Winslet is the recipient of several accolades, including three British Academy Film Awards, and is among the few performers to have won Academy, Emmy, and Grammy Awards.
• The southern boobook (nominated by Cas Liber) is a species of owl native to mainland Australia, southern New Guinea, Timor and the Sunda Islands. The smallest owl on the Australian mainland, the southern boobook is 27 to 36 cm (10.5 to 14 in) long, with predominantly dark brown plumage with prominent pale spots. It has grey-green or yellow-green eyes. It is generally nocturnal, though is sometimes active at dawn and dusk, retiring to roost in secluded spots in the foliage of trees. The southern boobook feeds on insects and small vertebrates, hunting by pouncing on them from tree perches. Breeding takes place from late winter to early summer, using tree hollows as nesting sites. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed the southern boobook as being of least concern on account of its large range and apparently stable population.
• Arthur Sullivan (nominated by Ssilvers and Tim riley) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord".
• The Rogožarski IK-3 (nominated by Peacemaker67) was a 1930s Yugoslav monoplane single-seat fighter, designed by Ljubomir Ilić, Kosta Sivčev and Slobodan Zrnić as a successor to the Ikarus IK-2 fighter. Its armament consisted of a hub-firing 20 mm (0.79 in) autocannon and two fuselage-mounted synchronised machine guns. It was considered comparable to foreign aircraft such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109E and came into service in 1940. The prototype crashed during testing; a total of twelve production aircraft had been delivered by July 1940. Six IK-3s were serviceable when the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941. All six were in service with the 51st Independent Fighter Group at Zemun near Belgrade. Pilots flying the IK-3 claimed 11 aircraft shot down during the 11-day conflict. According to one account, to prevent them from falling into German hands, the surviving aircraft and incomplete airframes were destroyed by their crews and factory staff. Another account suggests that one aircraft survived the invasion and was later destroyed by sabotage. The IK-3 design was the basis for the post-war Yugoslav-built Ikarus S-49 fighter.
• Valley View (Romney, West Virginia) (nominated by West Virginian) Is a mid-19th-century Greek Revival residence and farm overlooking the South Branch Potomac River northwest of Romney, West Virginia. Valley View is atop a promontory where Depot Valley joins the South Branch Potomac River valley.
• Ho Ho Ho (nominated by Aoba47) is a 1997 Christmas album and the third studio album by American singer and drag queen RuPaul. Released on October 28, 1997, by the record label Rhino, it is RuPaul’s first album featuring Christmas music and consists of thirteen tracks. Music critics frequently described the album as an example of camp though RuPaul clarified that it included several more serious covers, specifically "All Alone on Christmas" and "Hard Candy Christmas". Ho Ho Ho was praised by critics following its release and during retrospective reviews; its cheerful and humorous compositions were frequently cited as the album's highlights, though some commentators responded negatively to the record's use of humor and the lack of clarity in its overall message. It was included in a 2016 parody list discussing the alt-right, the "War on Christmas", and the bathroom bill. The album peaked at number 27 on the Heatseekers Albums Billboard chart, selling a little more than 4,000 copies in one week. To support the record, RuPaul filmed a television special as part of his VH1 talk show The RuPaul Show (1996).

Featured lists

Nine featured lists were promoted this week.

• Quantico (season 2) (nominated by Krish)
• Steve McQueen filmography (nominated by Ssven2)
• List of protected cruisers of Italy (nominated by Parsecboy)
• List of Red Bull Air Race World Championship winners (nominated by The Rambling Man)
• List of Presidents of India (nominated by Force Radical)
• Laureus Sport for Good Award (nominated by The Rambling Man)
• Laureus World Sports Award for Action Sportsperson of the Year (nominated by Harrias and The Rambling Man)
• List of World Heritage Sites in Serbia (nominated by Tone)
• List of BioWare video games (nominated by The1337gamer )

Featured pictures

Four featured pictures were promoted this week.

• Shimano Hyperglide 8-speed cassette
  (created and nominated by PetarM)
• Paxillus involutus (brown roll-rim fungus) in Golovec forest, near Ljubljana, Slovenia
  (created and nominated by PetarM)
• Gaillardia pulchella (firewheel) in Aspen, Colorado
  (created and nominated by Rhododendrites)
• Cirsium vulgare (common thistle)
  (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich)

Featured topics

One featured topic was promoted this week.

• Amy Adams (nominated by Krimuk2.0), an American actress known for both her comedic and dramatic performances. As of 2017, she is among the highest-paid actresses in the world and has received several awards, including two Golden Globe Awards, and has been nominated for five Academy Awards and six British Academy Film Awards..

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