Welcome to Wikipedia

,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

113,534 active editors
7,070,359 articles in English

From today's featured article

Licancabur is a prominent, 5,916-metre-high (19,409 ft) stratovolcano on the Bolivia–Chile border in the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes. It is capped by a 400–500-metre (1,300–1,600 ft) wide summit crater which contains Licancabur Lake, a crater lake that is among the highest lakes in the world. There are no glaciers owing to the arid climate. Numerous plant and animal species live on the mountain. The volcanoes Sairecabur and Juriques are north and east of Licancabur, respectively. Licancabur formed on top of ignimbrites produced by other volcanoes and was active during the Holocene. Although no historical eruptions of the volcano are known, lava flows extending into Laguna Verde have been dated to 13,240 ± 100 before present and there may be residual heat in the mountain. The volcano has primarily erupted andesite, with small amounts of dacite and basaltic andesite. Several archaeological sites have been found on the mountain, possibly constructed by the Inca or Atacama people. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know ...

Launch of Apollo 11 on a Saturn V

... that the force developed by the engines of the Saturn V (pictured) during testing shattered the windows of nearby houses?
... that voice actress Niina Hanamiya taught herself to read and write Egyptian hieroglyphs?
... that the editors of The Eastern Miscellany refused to cooperate with a British-imposed media blackout following the 1925 Shanghai massacre?
... that the Ibnu duo, Ibnu Said and Ibnu Wahyutomo, were two diplomats who carried out bureaucratic reforms within Indonesia's foreign ministry?
... that Lynch Fragments sculptures are made with metal scraps and objects like axes, barbed wire, chains, nails, padlocks, spikes, and wrenches?
... that Queen Eschiva and her children were kidnapped by the pirate Kanakes after her husband put a bounty on him?
... that the Holden Special Vehicles Maloo set the Guinness World Record for the fastest production utility or pickup truck in 2006?
... that Gorillaz's upcoming album is scheduled to feature at least six dead musicians?
... that Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu said he had "completed football" after the 2023 EFL Championship play-off?

In the news

Fred Ramsdell

The Nobel Prize in Medicine is awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell (pictured), and Shimon Sakaguchi for "their fundamental discoveries relating to peripheral immune tolerance".
The ANO party, led by Andrej Babiš, wins the most seats in the Czech parliamentary election.
Sarah Mullally is announced as the next archbishop of Canterbury, which will make her the first female leader of the Anglican Communion.
Guillaume V succeeds his father Henri as Grand Duke of Luxembourg after the latter's abdication.

On this day

October 7: First day of Sukkot (Judaism, 2025)

Landslide in Mameyes, Puerto Rico

1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: A Venetian army under Bartolomeo d'Alviano was decisively defeated by the Spanish army commanded by Ramón de Cardona and Fernando d'Ávalos.
1780 – American Revolutionary War: Patriots and Loyalist militias engaged each other at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina.
1868 – Ōdate, the last castle of the Satake clan in Japan's Tōhoku region, was captured during the Boshin War.
1985 – During severe floods in Puerto Rico, about 130 people died as a result of the deadliest single landslide (pictured) on record in North America.
2023 – The military wing of the Palestinian nationalist Islamist political organization Hamas massacred people attending an open-air music festival in the Eshkol Regional Council, Israel.

Stanisław Żółkiewski (d. 1620)
Niels Bohr (b. 1885)
Tang Wei (b. 1979)
Miki Matsubara (d. 2004)

More anniversaries:

Today's featured picture

The Nobel Prize in Physics is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to those who have made the most outstanding contributions to humanity through physics. It is widely regarded as the most prestigious award that a scientist can receive in that field. One of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded since 1901, when the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen was recognised for the discovery of X-rays. As of 2024, there have been 226 Nobel laureates in Physics. The prize consists of a medal (whose obverse bears a profile of Nobel), a diploma, and a monetary award. This 1931 group photograph includes three Nobel laureates in Physics in the front row – from left to right, Albert A. Michelson (1907), Albert Einstein (1921), and Robert Millikan (1923) – each of whom autographed the image. The photograph is in the collection of the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian Institution.

Photograph credit: unknown; scanned by the Smithsonian Institution; restored by Bammesk

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: