Welcome to Wikipedia

,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

From today's featured article

Maya Angelou, the author, in 1993

Gather Together in My Name is the second of seven memoirs by Maya Angelou (pictured). Published in 1974, the book begins just after the events of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and follows Angelou from the ages of 17 to 19. Written three years after Caged Bird, the book "depicts a single mother's slide down the social ladder into poverty and crime." She expands upon many themes that she started discussing in her first autobiography, including motherhood and family, racism, identity, education and literacy. Gather Together received mostly positive reviews; it was not as critically acclaimed as Caged Bird, but was recognized as being better written. The book's structure, consisting of a series of episodes tied together by theme and content, parallels the chaos of adolescence, which some critics felt makes it an unsatisfactory sequel. The title, taken from the Bible, conveys how one black woman lived in white-dominated American society after World War II. (This article is part of a featured topic: Maya Angelou autobiographies.)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Pizza maker in Naples, 1830s

... that Alexandre Dumas's travel book Le Corricolo, published in 1843, contains one of the earliest literary accounts of Neapolitan pizza (pizza maker pictured)?
... that Narita Viliamu Tahega has won 38 medals in international weightlifting competitions, the most in the history of Niue athletics?
... that the Canadian Night Watchman was the first operational radar system in North America?
... that John Goldmark brought a libel suit that did "to the Red Scare what the Scopes monkey trial had ... done to Creationism"?
... that during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, Boxer rebels destroyed the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Taiyuan, and 26 members of the clergy were killed?
... that the Toronto Star estimated that Meron Estefanos may have helped save 16,000 refugees with her phone?
... that although four far-right groups claimed responsibility for the killing of Fausto and Iaio, no one was convicted of the crime?
... that Consequence selected Carly Rae Jepsen's "Talking to Yourself" as song of the week and declared her music speaks for the "delightfully unhinged"?

In the news

Jonathan Marchessault

In Uganda, the Allied Democratic Forces kill 42 people at a school in Mpondwe.
In Canada, 15 people die after a bus collides with a semi-truck along the Trans-Canada Highway near Carberry, Manitoba.
At least 78 people are killed and hundreds of others are missing after a migrant boat sinks off the coast of Pylos, Greece.
In ice hockey, the Vegas Golden Knights defeat the Florida Panthers to win the Stanley Cup Finals (Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Marchessault pictured).
Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi dies at the age of 86.

On this day

June 19: Juneteenth in the United States (1865)

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

1718 – An earthquake on the Tibetan Plateau led to the deaths of more than 73,000 people.
1838 – The Jesuits' Maryland province contracted to sell 272 slaves to buyers in Louisiana in one of the largest slave sales in American history.
1953 – Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (pictured) were executed as spies for passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union.
1965 – Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, the commander of the South Vietnam Air Force, was appointed prime minister at the head of a military regime.
1987 – Basque separatist group ETA detonated a car bomb at the Hipercor shopping centre in Barcelona, killing 21 people and injuring 45 others.

Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall (d. 1312)
Wallis Simpson (b. 1896)
Doris Sands Johnson (b. 1921)
Jörg Widmann (b. 1973)

More anniversaries:

From today's featured list

Pete Docter

The 2015 American computer-animated film Inside Out won 63 awards from 124 nominations. It was directed by Pete Docter (pictured) and stars the voices of Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Richard Kind, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Kaitlyn Dias, Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan. The film follows the inner workings inside the mind of a young girl named Riley, who adapts to her family's relocation, as five personified emotions administer her thoughts and actions. It won Best Animated Feature Film at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards. The film won ten of fourteen nominations at the 43rd Annie Awards. At the 88th Academy Awards, it received two Oscar nominations, including Best Original Screenplay, and won for Best Animated Feature. Inside Out was named one of the ten best films of 2015 by the National Board of Review (where it also won Best Animated Film) and the American Film Institute. Various critic circles have also picked it as the best animated feature film of the year. (Full list...)

Recently featured:

Today's featured picture

Tannhäuser is an 1845 opera in three acts, with music and text by Richard Wagner. It is based on two German legends: Tannhäuser, the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and the tale of the Wartburg song contest. The story centres on the struggle between sacred and profane love, as well as redemption through love, a theme running through most of Wagner's work. This undated set design for Act III of a production of Tannhäuser was produced by Max Brückner and his brother Gotthold, and printed by Otto Henning AG in Greiz.

Set design credit: Max and Gotthold Brückner; restored by Adam Cuerden

Recently featured:

Other areas of Wikipedia

Community portal – The central hub for editors, with resources, links, tasks, and announcements.
Village pump – Forum for discussions about Wikipedia itself, including policies and technical issues.
Site news – Sources of news about Wikipedia and the broader Wikimedia movement.
Teahouse – Ask basic questions about using or editing Wikipedia.
Help desk – Ask questions about using or editing Wikipedia.
Reference desk – Ask research questions about encyclopedic topics.
Content portals – A unique way to navigate the encyclopedia.

Wikipedia's sister projects

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: