Wikipedia:Main Page history/2011 October 9

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Today's featured article
Waddesdon Road railway station was a small halt in open countryside in Buckinghamshire, England. It was opened in 1871 as part of a short horse-drawn tramway to assist with the transport of goods from and around the Duke of Buckingham's extensive estates in Buckinghamshire and to connect the Duke's estates to the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway at Quainton Road. In 1872 the line was expanded and converted for passenger use, becoming known as the Brill Tramway. In 1899 the operation of the line was taken over by the London-based Metropolitan Railway. In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership to become the Metropolitan Line of the London Underground, and despite its rural setting Waddesdon Road station became a part of the London Transport system. The new management could not see a future for the line as a financially viable passenger route, and Waddesdon Road, along with the rest of the former Brill Tramway, was closed in late 1935. (more...) Recently featured: Triton – "Just Like Heaven" – Telopea speciosissima Archive – By email – More featured articles...
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From Wikipedia's newest content: ... that Philip A. Payton, Jr. (pictured), called the "Father of Harlem", would evict white tenants and replace them with black ones? ... that the North geomagnetic pole is not the same as the magnetic North Pole, and that a compass points at neither? ... that Bill Lange led the North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball program to its first ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 1941? ... that Bach included stanzas from four funeral hymns in his cantata Christus, der ist mein Leben, BWV 95 (Christ, he is my life)? ... that Somerset all-rounder Craig Meschede's first wicket in first-class cricket was that of Sachin Tendulkar? ... that David M. Friedman's book A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis was described as "embarrassingly europhallocentric"? Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

In the news
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (pictured), Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakel Karman share the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to advance women's rights. Tomas Tranströmer becomes the 108th winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs dies at the age of 56. Dan Shechtman wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals. Russia restores the full satellite constellation of global satellite navigation system GLONASS. Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...
On this day...
October 9: Hangul Day in South Korea (1446); Leif Erikson Day in the United States 1446 – Scholars in the court of Sejong the Great promulgated the new Korean alphabet, now known as Hangul. 1514 – Mary Tudor (pictured), sister of Henry VIII of England, became queen consort of France. 1874 – The Universal Postal Union, then known as the General Postal Union, was established with the signing of the Treaty of Bern to unify disparate postal services and regulations so that international mail could be exchanged freely. 1888 – The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., at the time the world's tallest building, officially opened to the general public. 1983 – South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan survived an assassination attempt in Rangoon, Burma. More anniversaries: October 8 – October 9 – October 10 Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries It is now October 9, 2011 (UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture

An animated geometric proof of the Pythagorean theorem, which states that among the three sides of a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, written as a² b² = c². A large square is formed with area c², from four identical right triangles with sides a, b and c, fitted around a small central square. Then two rectangles are formed with sides a and b by moving the triangles. Combining the smaller square with these rectangles produces two squares of areas a² and b², which must have the same area as the initial large square.

Image: Joaquim Alves Gaspar

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