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Today's featured article The Nyon Conference was a diplomatic conference held in Nyon, Switzerland, in September 1937 to address attacks on international shipping in the Mediterranean Sea during the Spanish Civil War. The conference was convened in part because Italy had been carrying out unrestricted submarine warfare, although the final conference agreement did not accuse Italy directly; instead, the attacks were referred to as "piracy" by an unidentified body. Italy was not officially at war, nor did any submarine identify itself. The conference was designed to strengthen non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War. The United Kingdom and France led the conference, which was also attended by Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Romania, Turkey, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The first agreement, signed on 14 September, included plans to counterattack aggressive submarines. Naval patrols were established; the United Kingdom and France were to patrol most of the western Mediterranean and parts of the east, and the other signatories were to patrol their own waters. Italy was to be allowed to join the agreement and patrol the Tyrrhenian Sea if it wished. A second agreement followed three days later, applying similar provisions to surface ships. Italy and Nazi Germany did not attend, although the former did take up naval patrols in November. In marked contrast to the Non-Intervention Committee and the League of Nations, this conference did succeed in preventing attacks by submarines. (more...) Recently featured: St Nicholas – Texas Tech University – New York State Route 28 Did you know... From Wikipedia's newest content: ... that Sir Peter Lely's depiction of naval officer Sir Jeremiah Smith (pictured) has been called "one of the finest portraits of the age"? ... that Benito Mussolini admitted that one of the causes of the Italian defeat at the Battle of Himara was the high morale of the Greek troops? ... that prosimian primates like lemurs and slow lorises have a "second tongue" called a sublingua, which they use to clean their toothcomb? ... that the Samut Prakan radiation accident resulted from old teletherapy heads left lying around in a car park? ... that unlike all modern Thoroughbreds, the 1785 Derby winner Aimwell was not descended in the male line from either the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian, or the Byerley Turk? ... that findings of Cylindroteuthis and other belemnites in Greenland suggest that an early form of the Gulf Stream existed as early as the Valanginian (Early Cretaceous)?

In the news Scientists reportedly regenerate specimens of Silene stenophylla from placental tissue frozen approximately 32,000 years ago. At least 44 people are killed during a prison riot in Apodaca, Mexico. Caesar Must Die wins the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. President of Germany Christian Wulff (pictured) resigns following allegations of corruption during his tenure as Prime Minister of Lower Saxony. A fire at a prison in Comayagua, Honduras, kills more than 380 people. Indonesian airline Lion Air orders 230 aircraft from Boeing in a US$22.4 billion deal, a commercial aviation record. On this day... February 22: Ash Wednesday/Start of Lent in Western Christianity (2012); Tsagaan Sar in Mongolia (2012); Independence Day in Saint Lucia (1979); 500th anniversary of the death of Amerigo Vespucci 1632 – Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, in which he advocated Copernican heliocentrism, was delivered to his patron, Grand Duke Ferdinando. 1876 – The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland (Johns Hopkins Hospital pictured), named after philanthropist Johns Hopkins, opened. 1958 – Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli signed a union pact to form the United Arab Republic. 1983 – The play Moose Murders opened and closed on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, becoming the standard of "awfulness" against which all Broadway failures are judged. 2006 – At least six men staged Britain's biggest cash robbery ever at a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent. More anniversaries: February 21 – February 22 – February 23 It is now February 22, 2012 (UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture An editorial cartoon from the New York Herald depicting (left to right) Uncle Sam, George Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt on a pier welcoming the Great White Fleet back into port. Roosevelt had ordered the fleet, which consisted of 16 battleships and various escort ships, to circumnavigate the globe as a demonstration of growing American military power and blue-water navy capability. Artist: William Allen Rogers; Restoration: Lise Broer Recently featured: Nicholas Kratzer – Black morel – Postman butterfly

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