First page

The Wikipedia Main Page

Welcome to the Wikipedia tour. My name is Denis, and I will be your guide. This trip will show you the diversity of the content on Wikipedia, some of its most unusual articles, the inner workings of the project, its policies and debates, and everything you need to know to become a contributor. Don't worry about getting lost - I will be with you during the whole trip.

What you see below is the Main Page of Wikipedia. You've probably seen it before, but pay a closer look. Much of the content below is updated daily by our open community of editors. The featured article, for example, is picked from the list of featured articles. These are pages which have undergone a community review process. The Did you know section in the lower right comes exclusively from our latest article additions. Also take a look at all the other languages Wikipedia is available in!

Welcome to Wikipedia

,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

122,987 active editors
6,944,513 articles in English

From today's featured article

Lemmy, lead singer of Motörhead

The new wave of British heavy metal began in the late 1970s and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. Encompassing diverse mainstream and underground styles, the music often infused 1970s heavy metal music with the intensity of punk rock to produce fast and aggressive songs. The do-it-yourself ethic of the new metal bands led to the spread of raw-sounding, self-produced recordings and a proliferation of independent record labels. Song lyrics were usually about escapist themes from mythology, fantasy, horror or the rock lifestyle. The movement involved mostly young, white, male musicians and fans of the heavy metal subculture, whose behavioural and visual codes were quickly adopted by metal fans worldwide after the spread of the music globally. The movement spawned perhaps a thousand bands, but only a few survived the rise of MTV and glam metal. Among them, Motörhead (singer pictured) and Saxon had considerable success, and Iron Maiden and Def Leppard became international stars. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Sam Kee Building

... that the Sam Kee Building (pictured), recognized by Guinness World Records as the narrowest commercial building in the world, was built on a bet between two businessmen?
... that a group of 25 women disfigured by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima traveled to the United States in the 1950s to receive reconstructive surgery?
... that Mary Sheffield is the youngest elected member and the youngest president in the Detroit City Council's history?
... that fans speculated that Charli XCX wrote "Sympathy Is a Knife" about Taylor Swift and her relationship with Matty Healy?
... that the capture of the crusader Bertrand of Toulouse by Muslims was blamed by an anonymous monk on the "treachery" of Queen Melisende and Countess Hodierna?
... that the Chinook Indian Nation became a federally recognized tribe in 2001, but had its status revoked the following year?
... that Liang Sishun published an anthology of Chinese poetry in 1908, when she was about fifteen years old?
... that Eoscorpius, despite living hundreds of millions of years ago, has been noted for its similarity to modern scorpions?
... that a Greek academic compared the Frankish Tower in Athens with the droppings of birds of prey?

In the news

Grand Kartal Hotel in 2007

A fire at a ski resort hotel (pictured) in Kartalkaya, Turkey, leaves at least 78 people dead and 51 others injured.
A series of attacks by the National Liberation Army in the Catatumbo region of Colombia leaves more than 80 people dead.
A ceasefire agreement suspends the Israel–Hamas war, involving the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
Two Supreme Court judges are assassinated in a shooting at the Supreme Court of Iran in Tehran.

On this day

January 25: Feast day of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (Eastern Christianity) and Dwynwen (Wales); Tatiana Day (Russia)

Nellie Bly

1515 – Francis I, a great-great-grandson of Charles V, was crowned king of France in the Reims Cathedral.
1725 – Privateer Amaro Pargo was declared a hidalgo, a member of the Spanish nobility.
1765 – Port Egmont, the first British colony in the Falkland Islands, was founded.
1890 – American journalist Nellie Bly (pictured) completed a circumnavigation of the globe by land and sea in a then-record-breaking 72 days.
1998 – The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam detonated a truck bomb at the sacred Buddhist Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, killing 17 people.

Mihrimah Sultan (d. 1578)
Anna Gardner (b. 1816)
Jane Bathori (d. 1970)
Seunghee (b. 1996)

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Today's featured picture

The Monarch of the Glen is an oil-on-canvas painting of a red deer stag completed in 1851 by the English painter Sir Edwin Landseer. It was commissioned as part of a series of three panels to hang in the Palace of Westminster in London. As one of the most popular paintings throughout the 19th century, it sold widely in reproductions in steel engraving, and was finally bought by companies to use in advertising. The painting had become something of a cliché by the mid–20th century, as the "ultimate biscuit tin image of Scotland: a bulky stag set against the violet hills and watery skies of an isolated wilderness", according to the Sunday Herald. The work is now in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.

Painting credit: Edwin Landseer

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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: