Welcome to Wikipedia

,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

278,463 active editors
7,191,798 articles in English

From today's featured article

Razor clamshell dress from Voss

Voss is the seventeenth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, made for the Spring/Summer 2001 season of his fashion house. Voss drew on imagery of madness and nature to question beauty standards and critique the fashion industry, with showpiece designs made from unusual materials such as razor clam shells (dress pictured), an antique Japanese screen, and microscope slides. The runway show was staged on 26 September 2000 in London, inside a room-sized mirrored glass cube, the audience seated outside. The interior was styled to look like an insane asylum and models were directed to act unwell. In the finale, a glass cube inside shattered to reveal Michelle Olley, fat, nude, and covered in moths. Critical response was positive, especially towards the showpieces and the performance art aspect. The show is regarded as one of McQueen's best, and has attracted a large amount of academic analysis. Several ensembles appeared in the retrospective Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Burmese hare

... that populations of the Burmese hare (example pictured) may be increasing due to deforestation in Laos?
... that Saudi Arabia were invited to play at two CONCACAF Gold Cups only eight days after the country was confirmed as the host of the 2034 FIFA World Cup?
... that trans porn star Angelina Please was credited with saving a life shortly before losing hers at the age of 24?
... that reviewers of Star Reach found it an uninspired mix of several contemporaneous video games?
... that Gelu Voican Voiculescu, an esotericist, took pride in securing a death sentence for Romania's last communist leader?
... that an AI version of "The Fate of Ophelia" reached number 85 on the Brasil Hot 100?
... that the Ottenby Bird Observatory has continually conducted bird observations for 80 years?
... that Horizon Call of the Mountain includes a movement scheme requiring the player to physically swing their arms to simulate walking?
... that a letter saved Rome from becoming a "sheep-pasture" in 546?

In the news

Virat Kohli

In Myanmar, an explosion at a Ta'ang National Liberation Army base leaves 43 people dead.
In Twenty20 cricket, the Indian Premier League concludes with Royal Challengers Bengaluru defeating Gujarat Titans in the final (player of the match Virat Kohli pictured).
Following the collapse of Evika Siliņa's coalition, Andris Kulbergs is appointed prime minister of Latvia.
Pope Leo XIV issues his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, which expresses concerns about artificial intelligence.

On this day

June 7

Surinam Airways Flight 764

421 – Roman emperor Theodosius II married Aelia Eudocia, who later helped to protect Greek pagans and Jews from persecution.
1832 – The Reform Act, which is widely credited with launching modern democracy in the United Kingdom, received royal assent.
1900 – American temperance activist Carrie Nation entered a saloon in Kiowa, Kansas, and destroyed its stock of alcoholic beverages with rocks.
1929 – The Lateran Treaty was ratified to bring Vatican City into existence, thus ending the "Roman question".
1989 – Surinam Airways Flight 764 (pictured) crashed while approaching Johan Adolf Pengel International Airport, in Zanderij, killing 178 people, including members of the football team known as the Colourful 11.

Joseph von Fraunhofer (d. 1826)
Amelia Edwards (b. 1831)
Emily Ratajkowski (b. 1991)
Uriah Rennie (d. 2025)

More anniversaries:

Today's featured picture

The Astronomer is an oil painting on canvas by the Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer, completed in 1668. The work depicts an astronomer studying a celestial globe beside a copy of Adriaan Metius's Institutiones Astronomicae Geographicae. Closely related to Vermeer's The Geographer, it is thought to portray the same sitter, possibly Antonie van Leeuwenhoek; a 2017 study showed that both paintings were made from canvas cut from the same bolt. The painting was seized by the Nazis from the Rothschild family during the Second World War, returned to them when the war concluded, and acquired by the French state in 1983. It is now in the collection of the Louvre in Paris.

Painting credit: Johannes Vermeer

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: