Wikipedia:Main Page history/2023 December 31b

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From today's featured article  The masked booby (Sula dactylatra) is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. First described by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1831, the species is one of six in the genus Sula. It has a long pointed yellowish bill, long neck, aerodynamic body, long slender wings and pointed tail. The adult is bright white with black wings, a black tail and a dark face mask; at 75 to 85 cm (30 to 33 in) long, it is the largest species of booby. The sexes have similar plumage. The species is not threatened; it ranges across tropical oceans, except in the eastern Atlantic and eastern Pacific. Nesting takes place in colonies, generally on islands and atolls far from the mainland and close to the deep water required for foraging. Potential and mated pairs engage in courtship and greeting displays. The female lays two chalky white eggs in a shallow depression on flat ground away from vegetation. These birds are spectacular high-speed plunge divers, preying mainly on flying fish. (Full article...)

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Ongoing:  Recent deaths&#58;   On this day December 31: Saint Sylvester's Day (Western Christianity)  Parliament Hill, Ottawa <templatestyles src="Hlist/styles.css"> <ul><li>Ahmad Maymandi ( d. 1032)</li><li>Aleksis Kivi  ( d. 1872)</li><li>Simon Wiesenthal  ( b. 1908)</li><li>C. D. Howe  ( d. 1960)</li></ul> More anniversaries: <templatestyles src="Hlist/styles.css"/> <templatestyles src="Hlist/styles.css"/>
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 * Pope Francis (pictured) approves a declaration that allows Catholic clergy to bless same-sex couples.
 * After weeks of earthquakes, a volcanic eruption occurs near Grindavík, Iceland.
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 * 1857 – Queen Victoria announced the choice of Ottawa (pictured), then a small logging town, to be the capital of the British colony of Canada.
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 * 1993 – Brandon Teena, an American trans man, was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska; his death led to increased lobbying for hate crime laws in the United States.
 * 1998 – The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the exchange rates of the legacy currencies in the eurozone, establishing the value of the euro.
 * 2006 – War in Somalia: Transitional Federal Government forces attacked the last stronghold of the Islamic Courts Union in the town of Jilib.
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<h2 id="mp-tfp-h2" class="mp-h2">Today's featured picture <h2 id="mp-other" class="mp-h2">Other areas of Wikipedia <h2 id="mp-sister" class="mp-h2">Wikipedia's sister projects <templatestyles src="Wikipedia's sister projects/styles.css" /> 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:
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