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From today's featured article

Methanol (left) looks and smells like ethanol (right).

More than 70 people died of methanol poisoning in the Russian city of Irkutsk in December 2016. Caused by the consumption of adulterated surrogate alcohol, it was the deadliest such incident in Russia's post-Soviet history. Russian consumption of surrogate alcohol rose rapidly in the early 2010s amid worsening economic conditions because they were commonly available and cost less than government-regulated vodka. In the Irkutsk incident, people drank hawthorn-scented bath oil which was typically made with and labeled as containing drinkable ethanol. At least one batch was made instead with a toxic amount of methanol (pictured with ethanol), causing injuries and deaths among residents of Novo-Lenino, a neighborhood in Irkutsk. An investigation found that the surrogate alcohol's producer sourced the methanol from an employee of a local windshield washer fluid production facility. The Russian government increased punishments for illegally producing and selling alcohol, and they made it more difficult to acquire surrogate alcohol. (Full article...)

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Sam Matlock

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In the news

Klaus Iohannis

President of Romania Klaus Iohannis (pictured) resigns from office, and is succeeded by Ilie Bolojan in an acting capacity.
The Baltic states complete synchronization of their power grids with continental Europe's, disconnecting from Russia's.
The ruling Vetëvendosje party, led by Albin Kurti, wins the most seats in the Assembly of Kosovo.
The Patriotic Union, led by Brigitte Haas, wins the most seats in the Landtag of Liechtenstein.

On this day

February 17: Presidents' Day in the United States (2025)

Helicopter stolen in the 1974 White House incident

1859 – Cochinchina campaign: French Navy forces captured the Citadel of Saigon, defended by 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers of the Nguyễn dynasty.
1904 – Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in Milan to poor reviews, forcing him to revise the opera.
1964 – Gabonese military officers overthrew President Léon M'ba, but French forces, honouring a 1960 treaty, forcibly reinstated him two days later.
1974 – A U.S. Army soldier stole a Bell UH-1 helicopter (pictured) and landed it on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C.
2011 – Arab Spring: Bahraini security forces killed four protesters in a pre-dawn raid at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, while the "Day of Rage" took place in Libya with nationwide protests against Muammar Gaddafi's government.

Joseph Favre (b. 1849)
María de las Mercedes Barbudo (d. 1849)
Don Tallon (b. 1916)
Hung Liu (b. 1948)

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From today's featured list

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was a prolific writer under the variant of his full name 'Winston S. Churchill', in addition to his careers as a soldier and politician. After being commissioned into the 4th Queen's Own Hussars in 1895, Churchill gained permission to observe the Cuban War of Independence, and sent war reports to The Daily Graphic. He continued his war journalism in British India, at the Siege of Malakand, then in the Sudan during the Mahdist War and in southern Africa during the Second Boer War. Churchill's fictional output included one novel and a short story, but his main output comprised non-fiction. Churchill received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values". (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) was an American actress of film, stage, and television. Known for her headstrong independence and spirited personality, Hepburn's career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned more than 60 years. She won a record four Academy Awards, and in 1999 was named as Hollywood's top female legend by the American Film Institute. Hepburn began acting in college, and spent four years in the theatre before entering films in 1932. She became an instant star, but after a series of unsuccessful films was named "box office poison". The Philadelphia Story revived her career, and she subsequently formed a popular alliance with Spencer Tracy that lasted 25 years. In middle age, Hepburn found a niche playing spinsters, such as in The African Queen, and became a Shakespearean stage actress. She continued to work into old age, making her final screen appearance in 1994 at the age of 87. Hepburn is remembered as an important cultural figure, as she came to epitomize the "modern woman" in 20th-century America and helped change perceptions of women. This publicity photograph of Hepburn was taken around 1941.

Photograph credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, restored by Adam Cuerden

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