Main Page

 

Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. 4,048,353 articles in English

Arts Biography Geography

History Mathematics Science

Society Technology All portals

Today's featured article Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587) was queen regnant of Scotland from 14 December 1542 to 24 July 1567 and queen consort of France from 10 July 1559 to 5 December 1560. The only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland, she was six days old when he died. She was crowned on 9 September 1543. In 1558, she married Francis, Dauphin of France. Mary was briefly queen consort of France, until she was widowed on 5 December 1560. Mary then returned to Scotland. Four years later, she married her first cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, but in February 1567, he was found murdered in his garden. Following an uprising against Mary and her third husband, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle. On 24 July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, James. (more...) Recently featured: Hurricane Gustav – Pedro I of Brazil – Avery Brundage Did you know... From Wikipedia's newest content: ... that early mycologists classified species from the class Myxogastria (random species pictured) as "fungus animals"? ... that blind athlete Robert Matthews won eight Paralympic gold medals for middle and long distance running and now competes as a cyclist? ... that the 1969 Greensboro uprising started with a student council election? ... that the Umayyad military leader Abdallah al-Battal became a popular hero in medieval Arabic and Turkish tradition for his exploits against the Byzantines? ... that a California casino is putting up a million dollars to save the Chukchansi language, which has eight fluent speakers? ... that 2012 Australian Paralympic wheelchair basketball player Amber Merritt was named the MVP at the 2012 Gliders and Rollers World Challenge? ... that in 2008, the only songs to spend two weeks at number one on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Songs chart were Madonna's "4 Minutes", featuring Justin Timberlake, and Donna Summer's "Stamp Your Feet"? ... that Michelin starred chef Lisa Allen has an allergy to shellfish?

In the news South Korean director Kim Ki-duk wins the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his film Pietà. A series of earthquakes in Yunnan, China, leaves at least 89 people dead and 800 injured. Canada severs diplomatic ties with Iran. NASA's Dawn probe (artist's concept pictured) leaves the orbit of asteroid Vesta, en route to the dwarf planet Ceres. The ENCODE project announces the creation of an "encyclopedia" of the human genome, publishing a coordinated series of 30 papers in Nature, Genome Biology, and Genome Research. On this day... September 9: Independence Day in Tajikistan (1991) 337 – After disposing of all relatives who possibly held a claim to the throne, Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans jointly became Roman emperors. 1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: James IV of Scotland (pictured) was killed at the Battle of Flodden in Northumberland while leading an invasion of England. 1968 – The remainder of the area donated to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Morris County, New Jersey, was dedicated and it became the United States' first refuge to receive wilderness designation. 1990 – Sri Lankan Civil War: The Sri Lankan Army massacred at least 184 Tamil refugees in the Batticaloa District. 2009 – The Dubai Metro, the first urban train network in the Arabian Peninsula and the world's longest fully automated metro network, was ceremonially inaugurated at 9:09:09 PM. More anniversaries: September 8 – September 9 – September 10 It is now September 9, 2012 (UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture Destruction caused by a natural gas pipeline explosion, which took place on September 9, 2010, in San Bruno, California, a suburb of San Francisco. Defective welds in the pipeline caused the gas to leak, which then caused the explosion. The resulting fire was fed by the natural gas, hampering emergency efforts, and the fire was not contained until the following day. Photo: Mbz1 Recently featured: Engadin, Switzerland – Battle of Malakoff – Dhow

Other areas of Wikipedia

• Community portal – Bulletin board, projects, resources and activities covering a wide range of Wikipedia areas.
• Help desk – Ask questions about using Wikipedia.
• Local embassy – For Wikipedia-related communication in languages other than English.
• Reference desk – Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects.
• Site news – Announcements, updates, articles and press releases on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.
• Village pump – For discussions about Wikipedia itself, including areas for technical issues and policies.

Wikipedia's sister projects

Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects:

	Commons Free media repository		Wikinews Free-content news		Wikispecies Directory of species
	Meta-Wiki Wikimedia project coordination		Wikiquote Collection of quotations		Wikiversity Free learning materials and activities
	Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals		Wikisource Free-content library		Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus

Wikipedia languages

This Wikipedia is written in English. Started in 2001 (2001), it currently contains 4,048,353 articles. Many other Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.

• More than 750,000 articles: Deutsch · español · français · italiano · Nederlands · 日本語 · polski · português · русский
• More than 150,000 articles: العربية · Bahasa Indonesia · català · česky · dansk · Esperanto · فارسی · 한국어 · lietuvių · magyar · ‪norsk (bokmål)‬ · română · slovenčina · српски / srpski · suomi · svenska · Tiếng Việt · Türkçe · українська · 中文
• More than 50,000 articles: Bahasa Melayu · български · eesti · Ελληνικά · English (simple) · euskara · galego · עברית · hrvatski · ‪norsk (nynorsk)‬ · slovenščina · srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски · ไทย

Complete list of Wikipedias