Welcome toWikipedia
From today's featured article
Thehippocampus is a major component of thebrain ofhumans and many othervertebrates. It plays important roles in theconsolidation of information fromshort-term memory tolong-term memory, and inspatial memory that enablesnavigation. In humans and other primates, the hippocampus is located in thearchicortex, one of the three regions ofallocortex, in eachhemisphere. The hippocampus is a structure found in all vertebrates. InAlzheimer's disease (and other forms ofdementia), the hippocampus is one of the first regions of the brain to suffer damage;short-term memory loss anddisorientation are included among the early symptoms. Damage to the hippocampus can also result from oxygen starvation,encephalitis ormedial temporal lobe epilepsy. Since differentneuronal cell types are neatly organized into layers in the hippocampus, it has frequently been used as amodel system for studyingneurophysiology. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
- ... that a stepped pyramid atHorvat Midras(pictured) has been identified as the remnant of a monumental family tomb fromSecond Temple Judea?
- ... that American poetGladys Cromwell took her own life alongside her twin sister by jumping off a ship while returning home from World War I?
- ... thatattempted crimes with no chance of success are still punishable by law in Germany?
- ... that the developers ofClair Obscur: Expedition 33 added an easy mode so thatJennifer English could play it?
- ... that as of 2023 only about 150 people had been diagnosed withSkraban–Deardorff syndrome?
- ... thatJohann Voldemar Jannsen was rebuked by the Estonian nationalist movement that he helped to found, only fora song he wrote to become Estonia's national anthem?
- ... that the head of a labor union was jailed during the1979 New York prison guards' strike and guarded by members of his union?
- ... thatDan Muse was a history teacher before becoming a hockey coach?
- ... thatFrench drag queens carried the Olympic flame in 2024?
In the news
- A fighter jet(pictured in 2021)crashes into a college inDhaka, Bangladesh, killing at least 25 people.
- A tourist boatcapsizes during a thunderstorm inHạ Long Bay, Vietnam, leaving at least 36 people dead.
- American singerConnie Francis, the first woman to reach the top of theBillboard Hot 100, dies at theage of 87.
- A fire at a shopping mall inKut,Wasit Governorate, Iraq, kills at least 69 people.
On this day
July 22:Feast day ofSaint Mary Magdalene (Christianity)
- 1802 –Gia Long conqueredHanoi and unified modern-day Vietnam, which had experienced centuries of feudal warfare.
- 1817 –Windham William Sadler made the first successful aerial crossing of theIrish Sea, which he accomplished by balloon.
- 1975 –Stanley Forman(pictured) took thePulitzer Prize–winning photoFire Escape Collapse, which spurred action to improve the safety offire escapes across the United States.
- 1997 – Written and illustrated byEiichiro Oda,One Piece, thebest-selling manga series in history, debuted inWeekly Shōnen Jump.
- 2002 – TheIsrael Defense Forces bombed the home ofSalah Shehade, the leader ofthe military arm ofHamas, killing him, his family and neighboring civilians.
Today's featured picture
![]() |
TheAtari video game burial was a 1983 mass burial of unsoldvideo game cartridges, consoles, and computers, undertaken by the American video game and home computer companyAtari, Inc., at a landfill site in the U.S. state ofNew Mexico. The burial occurred amid thevideo game crash of 1983, at the end of a disastrous fiscal year that saw Atari being sold off by its parent companyWarner Communications. It included 700,000 cartridges of various games, including unsold copies ofE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), one of thelargest video game failures in history. For several decades after the burial was first reported, there were doubts as to its veracity and scope, and it was frequently dismissed as anurban legend. In 2013 and 2014, an excavation was carried out byFuel Industries,Microsoft, the New Mexico government and others, which revealed discarded games and hardware. Only a small fraction, about 1,300 cartridges, were recovered, with a portion reserved for curation and the rest auctioned to raise money for a museum to commemorate the burial. This photograph showspackaging for cartridges of the video gamesE.T. andCentipede in situ at the excavation site. Photograph credit: taylorhatmaker 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 theWikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other volunteerprojects:
- Commons
Free media repository - MediaWiki
Wiki software development - Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia project coordination - Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals - Wikidata
Free knowledge base - Wikinews
Free-content news - Wikiquote
Collection of quotations - Wikisource
Free-content library - Wikispecies
Directory of species - Wikiversity
Free learning tools - Wikivoyage
Free travel guide - Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
Wikipedia languages
This Wikipedia is written inEnglish. Manyother Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.
- 1,000,000+ articles
- 250,000+ articles
- 50,000+ articles