Author: Håkan Dahlström

The Wikipedia article of the day for June 23, 2021 is Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created and owned by Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. In addition to video games, Sonic incorporates printed media, animations, a 2020 feature film, and merchandise. The first Sonic game, released for the Sega Genesis on June 23, 1991, was developed after Sega requested a mascot character to compete with Nintendo’s mascot Mario. Sonic’s success helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during the fourth generation of video game consoles in the early 1990s. When Sega exited the console market and shifted…

The Wikipedia article of the day for June 22, 2021 is Discovery of nuclear fission. Nuclear fission was discovered in December 1938 by physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, and chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. Fission is a nuclear reaction and process of radioactive decay in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller, lighter nuclei. The fission process releases a very large amount of energy. The discovery that a nuclear chain reaction was possible led to the development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Hahn and Strassmann bombarded uranium with slow neutrons, and discovered that barium had been produced (illustration pictured). Meitner and her nephew Frisch theorised, and then proved, that the uranium nucleus had…