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From today's featured article

Humberto near peak strength west of Bermuda

Hurricane Humberto was a large and powerful tropical cyclone that caused extensive wind damage in the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda during September 2019. It was the eighth named storm and third hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season. Humberto formed on September 13, then paralleled the eastern coastline of Florida until September 16, when it turned sharply northeastward and became a hurricane. It reached peak intensity as a Category 3 hurricane on September 18. After its center passed within 65 miles (100 km) of Bermuda on September 19, the storm transitioned the next day to a potent extratropical cyclone. Rip currents killed one person in Florida and another in North Carolina. In Bermuda, peak surface winds of around 110 mph (180 km/h), with higher gusts, caused widespread damage to trees, roofs, crops, and power lines. About 600 buildings had roof damage, and L.F. Wade International Airport and the Bermuda Weather Service campus suffered property damage. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

TD-2 tower in the Mojave National Preserve, California

... that Bell Labs' TD-2 microwave-relay system (tower pictured) was used to carry television signals and telephone calls across North America?
... that when conductor Hans Drewanz, a personal assistant to Georg Solti at the Oper Frankfurt, became Generalmusikdirektor in Darmstadt, he was the youngest GMD in Germany?
... that music producer Mylo briefly posted two of his rejected tracks for Kylie Minogue's tenth studio album X online, before the album release?
... that Cornelia Chase Brant was one of the first women to be appointed to the staff of a public hospital in New York City?
... that the scarlet-and-white tanager swallows small berries whole, but eats larger fruit piece by piece?
... that OpenAI Codex's use of licensed code as training data has raised questions about the copyright status of machine learning models?
... that social psychologist Lotte Bailyn, the first woman faculty member at the MIT Sloan School of Management, is an expert in work and family dynamics?
... that some music scholars have suggested that the Chaconne in G minor, widely attributed to Tomaso Antonio Vitali, is a musical hoax?

In the news

Emma Raducanu

SpaceX launches Inspiration4, the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight.
British tennis player Emma Raducanu (pictured) wins the US Open, becoming the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title.
In Gaelic football, Tyrone win the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, defeating Mayo in the final.
The National Rally of Independents, led by Aziz Akhannouch wins the most seats in the Moroccan general election.
A prison fire in Tangerang, Indonesia, kills at least 46 inmates and injures 75 others.

On this day

September 17: Constitution Day in the United States (1787)

Harriet Tubman

1793 – War of the Pyrenees: Forces from the French Army of the Eastern Pyrenees defeated two divisions of the Army of Catalonia, ending the furthest Spanish encroachment in their invasion of Roussillon.
1849 – Harriet Tubman (pictured) escaped from slavery in the U.S. state of Maryland, and later orchestrated the rescues of other slaves via the Underground Railroad.
1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen days after Nazi Germany's attack on the country from the west.
1980 – Solidarity, a Polish trade union, was founded as the first independent labor union in an Eastern Bloc country.
2011 – Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, organized a protest against corporate influence on democracy at Zuccotti Park in New York City that became known as Occupy Wall Street.

Robert Bellarmine (d. 1621)
Vera Yevstafievna Popova (b. 1867)
Red Skelton (d. 1997)

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From today's featured list

World map showing the medal achievements of each country

Eighty-six nations received at least one medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and 55 of them won at least one gold medal. The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially were a summer multi-sport event held in London, the capital of the United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August. A total of 10,768 athletes from 204 nations participated in 302 events in 26 sports across 39 different disciplines. Athletes from the United States won the most medals overall with 104 and the most gold medals with 46. The latter record was the largest gold medal haul for that country at a non-US hosted Olympics at the time. Host nation Great Britain won 29 gold medals and 65 overall medals making it the most successful Olympics performance for that nation since the 1908 edition. Michael Phelps and Missy Franklin won the most gold medals at the games with four each. Phelps also won the greatest number of medals overall winning six in total. Bahrain, Botswana, Cyprus, Gabon, Grenada, Guatemala, and Montenegro all won their first Olympic medals with Bahrain and Grenada winning their nation's first Olympic gold medal. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Grand Ayatollah Mirza Mohsen Koochebaghi Tabrizi (9 January 1924 – 3 August 2011) was an Iranian Marja' (religious authority) of the Twelver Shia branch of Islam. This photograph of Tabrizi was taken in 2010, the year before his death, at his home in Tabriz, Iran.

Photograph credit: Mehrdad

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