Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Archive
|
Featured picture tools: |
These featured pictures, as scheduled below, appeared as the picture of the day (POTD) on the English Wikipedia's Main Page in the last 30 days.
You can add an automatically updating POTD template to your user page using {{Pic of the day}} (version with blurb) or {{POTD}} (version without blurb). For instructions on how to make custom POTD layouts, see Wikipedia:Picture of the day.
June 23
|
Geraldine Ulmar (June 23, 1862 – August 13, 1932) was an American soprano and actress known for her performances in Savoy operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. In 1879, she made her debut in Boston as Josephine in Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore and soon joined the Boston Ideal Opera Company, where she remained as leading soprano for six years. From 1885 to 1886, Ulmar played Yum-Yum in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's first American production of The Mikado in New York. Over the next two years she played further Gilbert and Sullivan roles in New York, Germany and England. In London, she was the first to play the leading characters of Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen of the Guard (1888) and Gianetta in The Gondoliers (1889) before leaving D'Oyly Carte in 1890. She remained in Britain to play leading roles in other works, such as O Mimosa San in the musical comedy The Geisha. In 1904 she retired from the stage and taught singing. Ulmar was married to composer Ivan Caryll for a time. The photo shows Ulmar as Yum-Yum in New York in 1886. Poster credit: Benjamin Joseph Falk; restored by Adam Cuerden
Recently featured:
|
June 22
|
|
The Shah Mosque, officially known as the Imam Khomeini Mosque, is located on the south side of Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, Iran. The mosque was commissioned by Abbas the Great to a design by the architect Ali Akbar Isfahani. Its construction began in 1611, during the Safavid Empire, and was completed c. 1630. The photograph shows the Persian blue tiling of the entrance iwan, looking up at the muqarnas above. Photograph credit: Diego Delso
Recently featured:
|
June 21
_in_flight_Kangaroo_Island_2.jpg)
|
|
The Cape Barren goose (Cereopsis novaehollandiae) is a species of goose endemic to southern Australia. It was first formally described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801. Adult Cape Barren geese are large birds, typically measuring 75 to 100 centimetres (30 to 39 inches) long and weighing between 3.7 to 5.2 kilograms (8.2 to 11.5 pounds), with males generally being larger than females. The plumage is mostly pale grey with a slight brown tint. The head is somewhat small in proportion to the body and mostly grey in colour, save for a pale whitish patch on the forehead and crown. Cape Barren geese are largely terrestrial, only occasionally swimming. They predominantly graze on grasses, sedges, legumes, herbs, and succulents. This group of Cape Barren geese in flight was photographed near Hanson Bay, on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
Recently featured:
|
June 20
|
This famous design, by Roger Kastel, of a shark with a mouth filled with jagged teeth, rising towards an unsuspecting female swimmer, was completed in 1974. Its first appearance was as a book cover (illustrated as the image accompanying Today's Featured Article) with publication of the paperback edition of the novel by Peter Benchley, on January 1, 1975. Later that year, it formed the basis for one of the most iconic film posters in history (shown here) with the release of the movie on June 20, 1975. In 2014, the Review Board of the United States Copyright Office upheld the denial of a copyright for the artwork as there was no proper notice of copyright, since the only copyright notice in the paperback was that of Benchley's 1974 copyright of the text. Illustration credit: Roger Kastel; courtesy of the Everett Collection; retouched by Crisco 1492
Recently featured:
|
June 19
.jpg)
|
Dred Scott (c. 1799 – 1858) was an enslaved African American who, along with his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, unsuccessfully sued for the freedom of themselves and their two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, in the 1857 legal case Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Scotts claimed that they should be granted freedom because Dred had lived for four years in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was illegal, and laws in those jurisdictions said that slave holders gave up their rights to slaves if they stayed for an extended period. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Scott in a landmark decision that held the Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges that the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. The Dred Scott decision is widely considered the worst in the Supreme Court's history, being widely denounced for its overt racism, judicial activism, poor legal reasoning, and crucial role in the events that led to the American Civil War four years later. The ruling was later superseded by the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery, in 1865, followed by the Fourteenth Amendment, whose first section guaranteed birthright citizenship for "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof", in 1868. This posthumous oil-on-canvas portrait of Scott was painted by Louis Schultze, after an 1857 photograph by John H. Fitzgibbon, and now hangs in the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis. Painting credit: Louis Schultze, after John H. Fitzgibbon
Recently featured:
|
June 18
|
|
The Garni Temple is a classical colonnaded structure in the village of Garni, in central Armenia, around 30 km (19 mi) east of Yerevan. Built in the Ionic order, it is the best-known structure and symbol of pre-Christian Armenia. It has been described as the "easternmost building of the Greco-Roman world" and the only largely preserved Hellenistic building in the former Soviet Union. It is conventionally identified as a pagan temple built by King Tiridates I in the first century AD as a temple to the sun god Mihr (Mithra). It collapsed in a 1679 earthquake, but much of its fragments remained on the site. Renewed interest in the 19th century led to excavations in the early and mid-20th century. It was reconstructed in 1969–75, using the anastylosis technique. It is one of the main tourist attractions in Armenia and the central shrine of Hetanism (Armenian neopaganism). This aerial photograph shows the Garni Temple in the winter. Photograph credit: Yerevantsi
Recently featured:
|
June 17
|
Igor Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor, considered to be one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. He studied under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov until his death in 1908. Soon after, Stravinsky met the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned the composer to write three ballets for Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913), the last of which caused a near-riot at its premiere in Paris. His compositional style varied greatly, being influenced at different times by Russian folklore, neoclassicism, and serialism. His ideas influenced Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Béla Bartók, and Pierre Boulez, who were all challenged to innovate beyond traditional tonality, rhythm, and form. This photograph of Stravinsky in the early 1920s is from the collection of the American photojournalist George Grantham Bain. Photograph credit: Bain News Service; restored by MyCatIsAChonk
Recently featured:
|
June 16
.jpg)
|
|
Sabella pavonina, commonly known as the peacock worm, is a species of marine polychaete worm in the family Sabellidae. It can be found along the coasts of western Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, in shallow, tidal waters with a bed of mud, sand or gravel. The worm is 10 to 25 centimetres (4 to 10 inches) in length, with its body divided into 100 to 600 small segments. The head has two fans of 8 to 45 feathery radioles arising from fleshy, semi-circular lobes. The body is mostly grey-green while the radioles are brown, red or purple with darker bands. This group of S. pavonina worms was photographed with a short-snouted seahorse in a protected marine natural area near Porto Cesareo, Italy. Photograph credit: Romano Gianluca
Recently featured:
|
June 15
|
Magna Carta (An Embroidery) is a 2015 work by English installation artist Cornelia Parker. The artwork is an embroidered representation of the complete text and images of an online encyclopedia article for Magna Carta, as it appeared in English Wikipedia on 15 June 2014, the 799th anniversary of the document. The hand-stitched embroidery is 1.5 metres (5') wide and nearly 13 metres (42') long. The embroidery formed part of an exhibition celebrating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta on 15 June 2015. It was displayed in the Entrance Hall of the British Library from 15 May to 24 July 2015. Embroidery credit: Cornelia Parker; Scanned by British Library; edited by Bammesk
Recently featured:
|
June 14
.jpg)
|
The raspberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus Rubus of the rose family, most of which are in the subgenus Idaeobatus. The name also applies to the plant itself. Raspberry plants are perennial with woody stems. It is an aggregate fruit, developing from the numerous distinct carpels of a single flower. Originally occurring in East Asia, the raspberry is now cultivated across northern Europe and North America and is eaten in a variety of ways including as a whole fruit and in preserves, cakes, ice cream and liqueurs. Raspberries are a rich source of vitamin B, manganese, and dietary fiber. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
Recently featured:
|
June 13
|
|
The Challenger 2 is a third-generation British main battle tank. As of 2025, it is in service with the British Army, the Royal Army of Oman, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The tank was designed by Vickers Defence Systems in 1986 as an extensive redesign of the company's earlier Challenger 1. More than 400 Challenger 2 tanks were built between 1990 and 2002. This photograph, taken in 2014, shows a Challenger 2 tank firing a practice squash-head round at the Castlemartin Training Area in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Photograph credit: Si Longworth
Recently featured:
|
June 12
_Caldas.jpg)
|
The grey-breasted mountain toucan (Andigena hypoglauca) is a near-threatened species of bird in the toucan family, Ramphastidae, and a member of the genus Andigena, the mountain toucans. Found in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, grey-breasted mountain toucans are 41 to 48 centimetres (16 to 19 inches) long and weigh 244 to 370 grams (8.6 to 13 ounces). The species inhabits wet temperate montane forest, including cloud, elfin, and secondary forest, generally between 2,200 and 3,650 metres (7,200 and 12,00 feet) in elevation. This grey-breasted mountain toucan of the subspecies A. h. hypoglauca was photographed perching on a branch in the mountains of the Cordillera Central near Manizales, Colombia. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
Recently featured:
|
June 11
|
|
Auricularia auricula-judae, commonly known as the wood ear, the jelly ear, or historically the Jew's ear, is a species of fungus in the order Auriculariales. The basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are brown, gelatinous, and have a noticeably ear-like shape, normally up to 90 millimetres (3.5 inches) across and up to 3 millimetres (0.12 inches) thick. It is edible but not widely consumed, and has been used as a medicinal fungus by herbalists. It grows on wood, especially elder, and is widespread throughout Europe, but is not known to occur elsewhere. The specific epithet is derived from the belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from an elder tree after his betrayal of Jesus. These A. auricula-judae basidiocarps were photographed on a log in the London Borough of Enfield. Photograph credit: Stuart Phillips
Recently featured:
|
June 10
|
|
Batalha Monastery is a Dominican convent in the municipality of Batalha in Portugal. Originally and officially known as the Monastery of Saint Mary of the Victory, it was erected in commemoration of the 1385 Battle of Aljubarrota and would serve as the burial church of the 15th-century Aviz dynasty of Portuguese royalty. It is one of the best and original examples of Late Flamboyant Gothic architecture in Portugal, intermingled with the Manueline style. The monastery is a historic and cultural monument and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. This photograph of the main facade of Batalha Monastery was taken in 2021. Photograph credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar
Recently featured:
|
June 9
_-_Kulna.jpg) _-_Kulna.jpg) |
Lestes dryas is a species of damselfly in the family Lestidae, the spreadwings. Its common names include emerald spreadwing, scarce emerald damselfly, and robust spreadwing. This species is native to the Holarctic realm, especially northern parts of Eurasia and North America, and relictual in North Africa. It is about 35 to 42 millimetres (1.4 to 1.7 in) long, with the males generally longer than the females. The males have a wingspan of about 45 millimetres (1.8 in), and the females of about 47 millimetres (1.9 in). Both sexes of L. dryas have largely metallic green bodies with a bronze iridescence, with blue pruinescence developing as they age. This male emerald spreadwing was photographed in Kulna, Estonia. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
Recently featured:
|
June 8
|
|
Set design for Act III of the opera Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué, composed by Daniel Auber with a libretto by Eugène Scribe. Created for the première performance at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opera on 27 February 1833. The opera concerns some aspects of the real-life assassination of Gustav III, King of Sweden. Its libretto was used as the original basis for Giuseppe Verdi's later Un ballo in maschera, though Italian censorship forced numerous changes to that version. Set design credit: Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri; restored by Adam Cuerden
Recently featured:
|
June 7
|
|
Mount Rundle is a mountain in Banff National Park that overlooks the towns of Banff and Canmore in the Canadian province of Alberta. Geologically, it consists of limestones, dolomitic limestones, dolomites and shales of Paleozoic age. In ascending order, they belong to the Palliser, Exshaw and Banff Formations, topped by the Rundle Group, which was named after the mountain. Mount Rundle could be considered a small mountain range as the mountain extends for more than 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) on the south side of the Trans-Canada Highway eastward from Banff to Canmore, and has seven distinct peaks. The southeasternmost of these peaks is the East End of Rundle, pictured here from the trail to Ha Ling Peak, with Whitemans Pond in the foreground. Photograph credit: The Cosmonaut
Recently featured:
|
June 6
_Photo_by_Giles_Laurent.jpg)
|
The bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) is a very large bird of prey in the monotypic genus Gypaetus. It is vernacularly known as the Homa, a bird in Iranian mythology. The bearded vulture is the only known vertebrate whose diet consists of 70 to 90 per cent bone. It lives and breeds on crags in high mountains in Iran, southern Europe, East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Tibet, and the Caucasus. The bearded vulture population is thought to be in decline; since 2014, it has been classified as near threatened on the IUCN Red List. Bearded vultures are 94 to 125 centimetres (37 to 49 inches) long, with a wingspan of 2.31 to 2.83 metres (7.6 to 9.3 feet). This bearded vulture was photographed carrying a piece of carrion in the Alps in Switzerland, where the species was reintroduced in the late 20th century after having become locally extinct in the early 20th century. Photograph credit: Giles Laurent
Recently featured:
|
June 5
|
|
London King's Cross railway station is a passenger railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, on the edge of Central London. It is in the London station group, one of the busiest railway stations in the United Kingdom, and the southern terminus of the East Coast Main Line to Yorkshire and the Humber, North East England and Scotland. The station was opened in King's Cross in 1852 by the Great Northern Railway, and has been expanded and redeveloped several times since. This panoramic photograph shows the western departures concourse of King's Cross station, which was designed by John McAslan and opened in March 2012 as part of a major renovation project. McAslan said that the roof was the longest single-span station structure in Europe; the semi-circular structure has a radius of 59 yards (54 metres) and more than 2,000 triangular roof panels, half of which are glass. Photograph credit: Colin
Recently featured:
|
June 4
|
|
Daft Punk were a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter (left) and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. They achieved popularity in the late 1990s as part of the French house movement, combining house music, funk, disco, techno, rock and synth-pop. They are regarded as one of the most influential acts in dance music. From 1999, Daft Punk assumed robot personas for public appearances, with helmets, outfits and gloves to disguise their identities, and made few media appearances. In 2013, the band released their fourth and final album, Random Access Memories, to acclaim. The lead single, "Get Lucky", reached the top 10 in the charts of 27 countries. The album won five Grammy Awards in 2014, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for "Get Lucky". This promotional photograph shows Daft Punk in 2013 after the release of Random Access Memories. Photograph credit: Sony Music; edited by W.carter
Recently featured:
|
June 3
_fawn_morph_Esk_Valley.jpg)
|
|
The eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus) is a medium-sized carnivorous marsupial in the dasyurid family, and one of six extant species of quolls. Endemic to Australia, the species occurs on the island of Tasmania, and was formerly found across much of southeastern mainland Australia before becoming functionally extinct there in the 1960s. Eastern quolls are about the size of a small domestic cat and have a thick, light fawn or near-black, coat with white spots. They are solitary predators, hunting at night for their prey of insects, small mammals, birds, and reptiles. This fawn-morph eastern quoll was photographed in Upper Esk, Tasmania. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
Recently featured:
|
June 2
.jpg)
|
|
The Battle of Diamond Rock was a naval battle that took place between 31 May and 2 June 1805 during the Trafalgar campaign of the War of the Third Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars. A Franco-Spanish force dispatched under Captain Julien Cosmao retook Diamond Rock, on the approach to Fort-de-France on the Caribbean island of Martinique, from the British forces that had occupied it more than a year before. This oil-on-canvas painting depicting the battle, titled Taking of the Rock Le Diamant, near Martinique, 2 June 1805, was painted in 1837 by Auguste Étienne François Mayer, and measures 80 cm (31.4 in) high and 128 cm (50.3 in) wide. The painting now hangs in the Palace of Versailles. Painting credit: Auguste Étienne François Mayer
Recently featured:
|
June 1
|
Drosera capensis, commonly known as the Cape sundew, is a perennial rosette-forming carnivorous plant in the family Droseraceae. It is endemic to the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. As in all sundews, the leaves are covered in stalked, mucilage-secreting glands (or 'tentacles') that attract, trap, and digest arthropod prey. When prey is captured, the tentacles bend inward and the leaves curl around it, preventing escape and enhancing digestion by increasing the surface area of the leaf in contact with the prey. This time-lapse video shows a D. capensis leaf curling up around a Mediterranean fruit fly over a period of approximately six hours. Video credit: Scott Schiller
Recently featured:
|
May 31
|
Cucumis metuliferus, the African horned cucumber, is an annual vine in the cucumber and melon family, Cucurbitaceae. Its fruit has horn-like spines, hence the name "horned melon". The ripe fruit has orange skin and lime-green, jelly-like flesh. It is native to Southern Africa, where it is a traditional food. Along with the gemsbok cucumber and the citron melon, it is one of the few sources of water during the dry season in the Kalahari Desert. This photograph, which was focus-stacked from 25 separate images, shows two C. metuliferus fruits, one whole and the other in cross-section. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus
Recently featured:
|
May 30
.jpg)
|
Ignace Tonené (1840 or 1841 – 15 March 1916), also known as Nias or by his Ojibwe name Maiagizis ('right/correct sun'), was a Teme-Augama Anishnabai chief, fur trader, and gold prospector in Upper Canada. He was a prominent employee of the Hudson's Bay Company. Tonené was the elected deputy chief before being the lead chief and later the life chief of his community. In his role as deputy, he negotiated with the Canadian federal government and the Ontario provincial government, advocating for his community to receive annual financial support from both. His attempts to secure land reserves for his community were thwarted by the Ontario premier Oliver Mowat. Tonené's prospecting triggered a 1906 gold rush and the creation of Kerr Addison Mines Ltd., although one of his claims was stolen from him by white Canadian prospectors. This photograph shows Tonené in 1909. Photograph credit: William John Winter; restored by Adam Cuerden
Recently featured:
|
May 29
_Sydney.jpg)
|
The Australian white ibis (Threskiornis molucca) is a wading bird of the ibis family, Threskiornithidae. It is widespread across much of Australia, and has a predominantly white plumage with a bare, black head, long downcurved bill, and black legs. While it is closely related to the African sacred ibis, the Australian white ibis is a native Australian bird. Due to its increasing presence in the urban environment and its habit of rummaging in garbage, the species has acquired a variety of colloquial names such as "tip turkey" and "bin chicken". This Australian white ibis was photographed at the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney. Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp
Recently featured:
|
May 28
.jpg)
|
|
The Hell Gate Bridge is a railroad bridge in New York City, United States. The bridge carries two tracks of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and one freight track between Astoria, Queens, and Port Morris, Bronx, via Randalls and Wards Islands. Its main span is a 1,017-foot (310 m) steel through arch across Hell Gate, a strait of the East River that separates Wards Island from Queens. The New York Connecting Railroad began construction of the bridge in 1912, and it opened in 1917. The main span, a two-hinged arch flanked by stone towers on either bank of Hell Gate, was the world's longest steel arch bridge until the Bayonne Bridge opened in 1931. It is one of the few rail connections from Long Island, of which Queens is part, to the rest of the United States. This panoramic photograph shows the main span of the Hell Gate Bridge. The photograph was taken in 2023 looking northeast from the neighboring Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, with Wards Island on the left of the image and Astoria on the right. A tugboat tows a barge in the foreground towards the Hell Gate Bridge. Photograph credit: Rhododendrites
Recently featured:
|
May 27
-20230407-RM-124525.jpg)
|
Anemonoides blanda, the Balkan anemone, Grecian windflower, or winter windflower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ranunculaceae. The species is native to southeast Europe and the Middle East. It grows up to 10 to 15 centimetres (4 to 6 inches) tall and is valued for its daisy-like flowers, which appear in early spring, a time when little else is in flower. The flowers are found in various colors and are radially symmetrical, containing seven or more sepals and petals. This purple A. blanda flower was photographed in Bamberg, Germany. Photograph credit: Reinhold Möller
Recently featured:
|
May 26
,_mar_Rojo,_Egipto,_2023-04-14,_DD_64.jpg)
|
The bluespotted ribbontail ray (Taeniura lymma) is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae. Found from the intertidal zone to a depth of 30 m (100 ft), this species is common throughout the tropical Indian and western Pacific Oceans in nearshore, coral reef-associated habitats. It is a fairly small ray, not exceeding 35 cm (14 in) in width, with a mostly smooth, oval pectoral fin disc, large protruding eyes, and a relatively short and thick tail with a deep fin fold underneath. It can be easily identified by its striking color pattern of many electric blue spots on a yellowish background, with a pair of blue stripes on the tail. This bluespotted ribbontail ray was photographed in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt. Photograph credit: Diego Delso
Recently featured:
|
May 25
.jpg)
|
|
Many artworks related to the Black Lives Matter movement have been created. These works are seen as a direct tribute to those who have died or more broadly to the movement. Often the pieces are created in the streets as to be more publicly visible. This mural in Greenpoint, Brooklyn lists the names of African Americans killed by law enforcement officers in the United States, ending with George Floyd, whose murder on May 25, 2020 sparked global protests that raised the visibility of the Black Lives Matter movement. Mural credit: unknown; photographed by Rhododendrites
Recently featured:
|
Picture of the day archives and future dates