Welcome to Wikipedia

,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

108,161 active editors
7,032,017 articles in English

From tomorrow's featured article

Value theory studies the nature, sources, and types of values. Value is the worth of something, usually understood as covering both positive and negative degrees corresponding to the terms good and bad. Values influence many human endeavors related to emotion, decision-making, and action. Value theorists distinguish between intrinsic and instrumental value. An entity has intrinsic value if it is good in itself, independent of external factors. An entity has instrumental value if it is useful as a means leading to other good things. Various debates examine whether pleasure, desire, or something else is the source of intrinsic value. Value realists state that values have objective existence. Anti-realists reject this, with some seeing values as subjective human creations and others viewing value statements as meaningless. Value theory is an interdisciplinary field and its methods range from reliance on intuitions and thought experiments to the analysis of language and surveys. Its roots lie in antiquity as reflections on the highest good that humans should pursue. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Zhou Enshou

... that Zhou Enshou (pictured) was arrested during the Cultural Revolution on the orders of his own brother?
... that viewers complained that the 2023 Coronation Street Christmas Day episode was only 30 minutes long?
... that Wilf Pine, manager of Black Sabbath, had his arm dislocated by a vibrating bed because Ozzy Osbourne kept feeding it quarters?
... that the wreck of SS Virago, which sank off Alderney in 1882 with the loss of all crew members, was not discovered for 127 years?
... that João Barrento had been a distinguished equestrian in Portugal since he was a teenager, but only made his Olympic debut in his forties?
... that Kylie Minogue released "Timebomb" after attracting 25,000 tweets in less than 45 minutes?
... that a community mural inspired by John Jonik's pet duck was destroyed by a cleanup crew who mistook it for graffiti?
... that the British Army deliberately kept conditions at Blargies prison camp poor to prevent soldiers on the Western Front from viewing it as a "soft" alternative to combat?
... that Terry Brown is reported to have founded an escort service using helicopters for remote rural areas?

In the news (For today)

Hannah Hampton

An 8.8-magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, triggering tsunami warnings across the Pacific Ocean.
In association football, the UEFA Women's Euro concludes with England defeating Spain in the final (player of the match Hannah Hampton pictured).
In cycling, Tadej Pogačar wins the Tour de France.
American professional wrestler Hulk Hogan dies at the age of 71.

On the next day

August 2: Roma Holocaust Memorial Day

Drawing of the interior of the Tower Subway

1870 – One of the world's earliest underground tube railways opened in the Tower Subway (interior depicted), a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London.
1923 – Calvin Coolidge became the 30th president of the United States after Warren G. Harding suffered a fatal heart attack.
1932 – At the California Institute of Technology, American physicist Carl David Anderson proved the existence of antimatter with the discovery of the positron, for which he would receive the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics.
1971 – The English rock band the Who released Who's Next, their only album to top the UK charts.
2007 – Raúl Iturriaga, a former deputy director of the Chilean secret police, was captured in Viña del Mar after having been on the run following a kidnapping conviction.

Thomas Grey (d. 1415)
Bertha Lutz (b. 1894)
Jean-Pierre Melville (d. 1973)
JD Vance (b. 1984)

More anniversaries:

Tomorrow's featured picture

Lamium purpureum, commonly known as the red dead-nettle, among other names, is an annual herbaceous flowering plant. Native to Eurasia, it can also be found in North America, and frequently occurs in meadows, forest edges, roadsides and gardens. It grows with square stems to 5 to 20 centimetres (2 to 8 inches) in height, and occasionally up to 40 centimetres (16 inches). The leaves have fine hairs, are green at the bottom and shade to purplish at the top, while the zygomorphic flowers are bright reddish purple. The pollen is crimson red in colour and thus very noticeable on the heads of the bees that visit its flowers. The plant contains various oils and is characterized by its high contents of germacrene D. Young plants have edible tops and leaves, which are used in salads or stir fries as a spring vegetable. The plant has also been used for many years in folk medicine and herbal remedies. This L. purpureum inflorescence was photographed in Tutermaa, Estonia. The picture was focus-stacked from 101 separate images.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

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: