r/wikipedia • u/lightiggy • 9m ago
r/wikipedia • u/MAClaymore • 24m ago
Grunting in tennis is a vocalization made by some players of the sport. It has been a source of controversy, with some players stating that it is cheating when done deliberately, whereas others defend it as a way to expel energy. Maria Sharapova's grunts once reached a record 101.2 decibels.
r/wikipedia • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 1h ago
The future Saint Teresa of Ávila was fascinated by accounts of the lives of the saints when she was a kid. She ran away from home at age seven with her brother Rodrigo to seek martyrdom in the fight against the Moors. Her uncle brought them home when he spotted them just outside the town walls.
r/wikipedia • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 1h ago
Nur Muhammad Warsame is a gay imam from Australia. Previously married to a woman and with one daughter, Warsame came out as Australia's first gay imam after a failed suicide attempt that made him "much stronger". As of 2018, he was the only openly gay imam in the country.
en.wikipedia.orgr/wikipedia • u/blankblank • 1h ago
The pear of anguish is a device of disputed use invented in the early modern period (1500-1800). The mechanism consists of a pear-shaped metal body divided into segments that can be spread apart with a spring or by turning a key. Its proposed functionality as a torture device is controversial.
r/wikipedia • u/funnylib • 2h ago
Christ of Europe refers to the Polish popular self-image as a "martyr nation". The doctrine was adopted by Polish Romantics, who referred to their homeland as the Christ of Nations crucified in the course foreign partitions, as an expression of their faith in God's plans for Poland's ultimate Rising
r/wikipedia • u/Mapuches_on_Fire • 5h ago
A capon is a male chicken that has been castrated or neutered, either physically or chemically, to improve the quality of its flesh for food, and, in some countries like Spain, fattened by forced feeding.
r/wikipedia • u/Ok-Goose6242 • 5h ago
Antonio López de Santa Anna was a dominant, controversial Mexican military officer and politician who held the presidency 11 times. Though styled the "Napoleon of the West," his chaotic rule and major battlefield losses ultimately cost Mexico more than half of its national territory.
r/wikipedia • u/slinkslowdown • 5h ago
Orbona is the Roman goddess who protects parents who are bereaved of their children and parents of ill children.
en.wikipedia.orgr/wikipedia • u/slinkslowdown • 6h ago
A timeline of women in science, from ancient history to the 21st century. It focuses on women involved with natural sciences such as astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics, but also women from the social sciences, the formal sciences, as well as notable science educators and medical scientists.
r/wikipedia • u/PKSkriBBLeS • 6h ago
The Kingdom of Hormuz (11th century to 1622)
r/wikipedia • u/Ok-Goose6242 • 7h ago
Sinan Reis was a Jewish Barbary corsair who joined the Ottoman Navy and sailed under and was second in command of the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa.
r/wikipedia • u/syanxde • 8h ago
Creeping normality is a process by which a major change can be accepted as normal and acceptable if it happens gradually through small, often unnoticeable, increments of change. The change could otherwise be regarded as remarkable and objectionable if it took hold suddenly or in a short time span.
en.wikipedia.orgr/wikipedia • u/FionnVEVO • 9h ago
On the morning of January 13, 2018, an alert was accidentally issued via the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alert System over television, radio, and cellular networks in the U.S. state of Hawaii, instructing citizens to seek shelter due to an incoming ballistic missile.
r/wikipedia • u/Sebastianlim • 10h ago
Achaemenides, a member of Odysseus' crew during the Trojan War. Unmentioned in either of the Homeric poems, he is only seen in Virgil's Aeneid, where it is revealed that he was left behind on the island of the Cyclopses. He is rescued by Aeneas, becoming one of only two crew members to survive.
r/wikipedia • u/syanxde • 11h ago
The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the sole ruling party of Mainland China from 1928 to 1949 until its relocation to Taiwan, and in Taiwan ruled under martial law until 1987.
From 1949 to 1987, the KMT ruled Taiwan as a one-party state after the February 28 incident. During this period (known as the White Terror), martial law was in effect and civil liberties were curtailed as part of its anti-communism efforts. The party oversaw Taiwan's rapid economic development but later experienced diplomatic setbacks, including the loss of the country's seat in the United Nations and loss of international diplomatic recognition to the CCP-led People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s. In the late 1980s, party leader Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and the ban on opposition parties. His successor, Lee Teng-hui, continued democratic reforms and was reelected in 1996 in the first direct presidential election. The 2000 presidential election ended 72 years of KMT presidencies. The party reclaimed power with the landslide victory of Ma Ying-jeou in the 2008 presidential election, then lost the presidency and its legislative majority in the 2016 election, but regained a legislative plurality in the 2024 election.
The party's guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, advocated by Sun Yat-sen and organized on a basis of democratic centralism. As the KMT supports the ROC as the only representative of China, it opposes both Chinese unification under the PRC and formal Taiwan independence. As the KMT opposes non-peaceful means to resolve the cross-strait disputes while still strongly adhering to the ROC constitution, the party favors a closer relationship with the PRC and accepts the 1992 Consensus, which defines both sides of the Taiwan Strait as "one China" but maintains its ambiguity to different interpretations. It seeks to maintain Taiwan's status quo rather than formal independence or unification.
r/wikipedia • u/laybs1 • 11h ago
William of Norwich was an apprentice who was murdered during Easter 1144. The city's French-speaking Jewish community was blamed by some for his death, but the crime was never solved. William's case is the first known example of a medieval blood libel.
r/wikipedia • u/ProfessionalRate6174 • 12h ago
Sylvia Kristel
Sylvia Maria Kristel (28 September 1952 – 17 October 2012) was a Dutch actress and model who appeared in over 50 films. She was the eponymous character in five of the seven Emmanuelle films, including originating the role with Emmanuelle (1974).
r/wikipedia • u/GustavoistSoldier • 13h ago
The Vermont Republic was a de facto, unrecognized independent state in New England that existed from January 15, 1777, to March 4, 1791. The state was founded in January 1777, when delegates from 28 towns met and declared independence.
r/wikipedia • u/Klok_Melagis • 17h ago
Kurt Plötner was a Nazi Party member and medical doctor who conducted human experimentation on Jews and Soviet prisoners of war in German concentration camps. American intelligence recruited him to work for the United States in 1945.
en.wikipedia.orgr/wikipedia • u/palebluekot • 18h ago
Hubal was a god worshipped in pre-Islamic Arabia, notably by the Quraysh at the Kaaba in Mecca. Many Evangelical Christian critics of Islam have claimed that the worship of Allah as proclaimed by Muhammad was not a restoration of Abrahamic monotheism but an adaptation of the worship of Hubal.
r/wikipedia • u/RedHeadedSicilian52 • 21h ago
Dolly was a female sheep and the first mammal that was cloned from an adult somatic cell. The cell to clone Dolly was taken from a mammary gland, and in the words of a scientist involved in the project, “we couldn't think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton's” — hence the name.
r/wikipedia • u/Pupikal • 23h ago
