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Anning, depicted with her dog

Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector and palaeontologist. She made discoveries of Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis, which changed the scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth. Her discoveries included the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton, the first two nearly complete plesiosaur skeletons, and the first pterosaur skeleton outside Germany. Her observations helped prove that coprolites were fossilised faeces and that belemnite fossils contained ink sacs. As a woman, Anning could not join the Geological Society of London and struggled to receive credit for her contributions. Henry De la Beche painted Duria Antiquior based on fossils Anning had found and sold its prints for her benefit. After her death, an article about her life was published in Charles Dickens's literary magazine All the Year Round. A statue of Anning was erected in 2022, and she has been depicted in film and in manga. (Full article...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 22, 2024 (edit | [[Talk:Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 22, 2024|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) The oyster dress is a high fashion gown created by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his Spring/Summer 2003 collection Irere. McQueen's design is a one-shouldered dress in bias-cut beige silk chiffon with a boned upper body and a full-length skirt consisting of hundreds of individual circles of organza sewn in dense layers to the base fabric, resembling an oyster shell. The dress originated as a reinterpretation of the "shellfish dress" designed by John Galliano in 1987, which McQueen had long admired and sought to emulate. Contemporary critical responses to McQueen's oyster dress were positive and it is considered an iconic piece of McQueen's work. Only two copies are known to exist, one held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and one by media personality Kim Kardashian. McQueen returned to the oyster dress concept several times over his career, most prominently in his Autumn/Winter 2006 collection The Widows of Culloden. (Full article...)

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The Mount Edziza volcanic complex (MEVC) is a group of volcanoes and associated lava flows in northwest British Columbia, Canada. Located on the Tahltan Highland, the MEVC has a broad, steep-sided lava plateau; its highest summit is 2,786 metres (9,140 feet). Its volcanoes formed over the last 7.5 million years during five cycles of magmatic activity which spanned four epochs; the most recent eruptions took place in the last 11,000 years. Current activity occurs in the form of hot springs. The MEVC has warm summers and cold, snowy winters; snow and ice remain on the highest peaks year-round. Indigenous peoples have lived adjacent to the MEVC for thousands of years. Historically, the local Tahltan people used volcanic glass from the MEVC to make tools and weaponry. Animal species such as birds, rodents, bears, sheep, goats, moose and caribou inhabit the area. A large provincial park dominates the MEVC, which can only be accessed by aircraft or by a network of footpaths. (Full article...)

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Skyline of George Town

George Town is the capital of the Malaysian state of Penang, encompassing Penang Island and surrounding islets. With a population of 794,313 as of the 2020 census, it is the core city of Malaysia's second-largest metropolitan area, which has a population of 2.84 million. George Town serves as the commercial centre for northern Malaysia. Its technological sector, anchored by hundreds of multinational companies, has made the city the top exporter in the country. George Town was the first British settlement in Southeast Asia, and its proximity to maritime routes along the Strait of Malacca attracted an influx of immigrants from various parts of Asia. In 1974, the city was merged with the rest of the island, throwing its administrative status into doubt until 2015, when its jurisdiction was reinstated and expanded to cover the entire island and adjacent islets. UNESCO designated the city centre of George Town as a World Heritage Site in 2008. (Full article...)

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Kevin De Bruyne, man of the match

The 2019 FA Cup final was an association football match between Manchester City and Watford for the 138th FA Cup final. In the 21st minute, Abdoulaye Doucouré's shot struck Vincent Kompany's arm; the referee declined to award a penalty and showed Doucouré the first yellow card of the game for his protests. David Silva scored the first goal from a header and Gabriel Jesus side-footed the ball for the second goal. At 61 minutes City extended their lead with a goal from substitute Kevin De Bruyne (pictured), and seven minutes later Jesus scored on the counter-attack. Sterling scored twice at the 81st and the 87th minutes and the match ended 6–0 to Manchester City. De Bruyne was named the man of the match. It was only the third time that a team has scored six goals in an FA Cup final and the margin of victory is the joint-largest in an FA Cup final. The win completed a domestic treble for Manchester City, who already won the League Cup and the Premier League that season. (Full article...)

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Ursula K. Le Guin

"The Day Before the Revolution" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin (pictured). First published in Galaxy in August 1974, it was republished in Le Guin's The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975). Set in her fictional Hainish universe, the story has strong connections to her novel The Dispossessed (also 1974), and is sometimes referred to as a prologue to the novel. The story follows Odo, an aging anarchist, who over the course of a day relives memories of her life as an activist as she learns of plans for a general strike the next day. The strike is implied to be the start of the revolt leading to the idealized anarchist society based on Odo's teachings depicted in the novel. The story was critically well-received. It won the Nebula and Locus Awards for Best Short Story in 1975, and was also nominated for a Hugo Award. Multiple scholars commented that it represented a shift in Le Guin's writing toward non-linear narrative structures and works infused with feminism. (Full article...)

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SMS Lothringen

SMS Lothringen was the last of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the Braunschweig class built for the Imperial German Navy. Launched in May 1904, she was named for the then-German province of Lothringen. The ship was armed with a battery of four 28 cm (11 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph). She was to be replaced in July 1914 by dreadnought battleships but World War I prevented her retirement. The ship and the rest of II Squadron joined the dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet to support a raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby in December 1914. She primarily served as a guard ship in the German Bight; in poor condition by 1916, she was withdrawn from fleet service in February. She thereafter patrolled the Danish straits until replaced by the battleship Hannover in September 1917. After the war, she was converted into a depot ship for F-type minesweepers and placed in reserve in March 1920. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battleships of Germany.)

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