User:Allard

Hello and a warm welcome to all my fellow Wikipedians. How nice of you to drop in to see who I am!

Morning>

Wikipedia & me:

How I discovered Wikipedia, I do not remember. But from being a reader I slowly became a contributor. Although I don't work that much on Wikipedia I do see myself as a Wikipedian. I don't go searching on Wikipedia what I can edit next, I edit what I find and want to do. This means I add and mainly improve a lot of small things and only rarely I make large edits.

My work:

My list of contributions

Articles I've started on Wikipedia:

Images I made for Wikipedia:

Article guide:

A list of articles worth looking at, if one can find them:

And there's always the Random article

And to all citizens of the European Union, please read this: Oneseat.eu

News

Riek Machar and Angelina Teny

A magnitude-7.7 earthquake leaves more than 2,600 people dead in Myanmar and Thailand.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition unilaterally voids the 2018 peace agreement after the arrest of South Sudanese vice president Riek Machar and his wife, interior minister Angelina Teny (both pictured).
The Sudanese Armed Forces recapture Khartoum from the Rapid Support Forces after almost two years of fighting.

Selected anniversaries

March 31: Cesar Chavez Day in various U.S. states (1927); International Transgender Day of Visibility

Woodcut picture of Matthew C. Perry

1854 – U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry (Japanese depiction pictured) and the Tokugawa shogunate signed the Convention of Kanagawa, forcing the opening of Japanese ports to American trade.
1959 – After a two-week escape journey from Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama reached the Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh in India.
1964 – The Brazilian Armed Forces overthrew President João Goulart, establishing a military dictatorship that lasted 21 years.
2004 – The Old National Library Building in Singapore was closed to make way for a tunnel, despite widespread protests.

Guru Angad (b. 1504)
J. P. Morgan (d. 1913)
Ewan McGregor (b. 1971)
Ahmad Sayyed Javadi (d. 2013)

More anniversaries:

Did you know...

Schafer at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival

... that aged 17, Hunter Schafer (pictured) was a plaintiff in a successful lawsuit against an act preventing trans people from using the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity?
... that players on the Laos national baseball team helped construct the country's first baseball stadium in 2019?
... that accountant Dan Busby studied with a minor-league umpire in hopes of becoming one himself?
... that QuizKnock created puzzle games for the Imperial Palace East Garden?
... that while filming a music video for her debut album at a motel, Underscores had the police called on her by the motel staff because they thought she was shooting a pornographic film?
... that the family drama film Little Red Sweet revolves around red bean soup, as red beans symbolize "longing for family" in Chinese culture?
... that the author of If It's You, I Might Try Falling in Love made the main characters unfamiliar with each other so that she could draw all sorts of scenarios between them?
... that singer-songwriter SZA was a hijabi as a child, but stopped wearing one due to Islamophobia after 9/11?
... that in an effort to reclaim "the most offensive word in the English language" as aspirational, some people describe being "powerful in an unapologetic and feminine manner" as "serving cunt"?

Today's featured article

Unauthorized postal cover carried on Apollo 15

The Apollo 15 postal covers incident involved the crew of NASA's Apollo 15, who in 1971 carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers (example pictured) to the Moon's surface. American astronauts David Scott, Alfred Worden and James Irwin agreed to receive about $7,000 each for transporting the covers, which were inside the Lunar Module Falcon as Scott and Irwin walked on the Moon. The covers were postmarked both prior to liftoff from Kennedy Space Center and after splashdown. Though the astronauts returned the money, they were reprimanded by NASA for poor judgment and were called before a closed session of a Senate committee. They were removed as the backup crew for Apollo 17 and never flew in space again; by 1977, all had left NASA. In 1983, Worden sued for the return of covers that had been impounded by NASA in 1972, and the three men received them in an out-of-court settlement. One of the covers provided to West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger sold for more than $50,000 in 2014. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Picture of the day

The ArtScience Museum is a building within the integrated resort of Marina Bay Sands in the Downtown Core of Singapore. Opened in 2011, it features exhibitions in art, science, culture and technology. The museum was designed by Moshe Safdie and features an exterior made of fibre-reinforced plastic supported internally by a steel lattice. It is anchored by a round base in the middle, with ten extensions referred to as "fingers" in the shape of a flower. This photograph shows the ArtScience Museum with other buildings of Singapore's Central Business District in the background.Photograph credit: Basile Morin

Archive – More featured pictures...