Wikipedia:Picture of the day/March 2025

Actress Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) in a publicity photo taken c. 1941. Hepburn was known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, cultivating a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly played strong-willed, sophisticated women. She worked in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, which earned her various accolades, including four Academy Awards for Best Actress.

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

Apollo 9 (March 3–13, 1969) was the third crewed mission in the United States Apollo program. Launched by a Saturn V rocket and flown in Low Earth Orbit, the mission flight-qualified the Lunar Module (LM), showing that its crew could fly it independently, then rendezvous and dock, as would be required for Apollo 11, the first crewed lunar landing. Commander James McDivitt, Command Module Pilot David Scott, and Lunar Module Pilot Rusty Schweickart tested systems and procedures critical to landing on the Moon. A spacewalk tested the extravehicular life support backpack. McDivitt and Schweickart, entering the lunar module through the docking tunnel, became the first humans to pass between spacecraft without going outside them, two months after Soviet cosmonauts spacewalked to transfer between Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5. Apollo 9, a complete success, was followed by Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal for Apollo 11. This photograph, taken by Schweickart, shows Scott performing a stand-up extravehicular activity from the Command Module Gumdrop, seen from docked LM Spider.

Photograph credit: Rusty Schweickart / NASA

SpaceX CRS-20, also known as SpX-20, was a Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station launched on March 7 2020 and was the final flight of Dragon 1. The mission was contracted by NASA and was flown by SpaceX. The CRS-20 was the final flight before the first use of Dragon 2 and was the end of the phase 1 missions. CRS-20 used Dragon capsule C112, which previously flew to the ISS on CRS-10 and CRS-16 and was launched aboard Falcon 9 from the Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40. CRS-20 arrived at the ISS on March 9 2020 and was captured by the station's robotic arm, the last capture of the Dragon spacecraft. The CRS-20 mission carried 1977 kg (4358 lbs) of cargo to the ISS.

credit: NASA Johnson Space Center

Jules Barbier

Jules Barbier (8 March 1825 – 16 January 1901) was a French poet, writer and opera librettist.

Photograph credit: Nadar; restored by Jebulon

Mauritius kestrel is a bird of prey from the family Falconidae endemic to the forests of Mauritius, where it is restricted to the southwestern plateau's forests, cliffs, and ravines. It was proclaimed the national bird of Mauritius in 2022 to mark the anniversary of the Republic, which is celebrated on 12 March.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp.

"The Strike in the Coal Mines — Meeting of Molly M'Guire Men", an 1874 illustration from Harper's Weekly depicting Molly Maguires — members of an Irish 19th-century secret society — meeting to discuss strikes in the Pennsylvania coal mines. After a series of often violent conflicts, twenty suspected members of the Molly Maguires were convicted of murder and other crimes and were executed by hanging in 1877–78. This history remains part of local Pennsylvania lore and the actual facts are much debated among historians.

Image: Paul Frenzeny and Jules Tavernier, restored by Adam Cuerden

The Kefermarkt altarpiece is a richly decorated wooden altarpiece in the Late Gothic style in the parish church of Kefermarkt in Upper Austria. Commissioned by the knight Christoph von Zelking, it was completed around 1497. Saints Peter, Wolfgang and Christopher are depicted in the central section. The wing panels depict scenes from the life of Mary, and the altarpiece also has an intricate superstructure and two side figures of Saints George and Florian. The identity of its maker, known by the notname Master of the Kefermarkt Altarpiece, is unknown, but at least two skilled sculptors appear to have created the main statuary. Throughout the centuries, it has been altered and lost its original paint and gilding; a major restoration was undertaken in the 19th century under the direction of Adalbert Stifter. The altarpiece has been described as "one of the greatest achievements in late-medieval sculpture in the German-speaking area". This image shows the upper-right wing panel of the Kefermarkt altarpiece, depicting the Annunciation. Mary is portrayed kneeling in a praying stool inside a half-open structure, supported by unusually carved pillars, crowned above their capitals with figures which are probably intended to be prophets from the Old Testament. The archangel Gabriel is entering the structure, and holds a speech scroll where parts of his greeting, the Ave Maria, is visible. In the upper-left corner is a depiction of God the Father among clouds and flanked by two angels. The panel originally also contained a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, but it has been lost.

Sculpture credit: Master of the Kefermarkt Altarpiece; photographed by Uoaei1

The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse was a bridge collapse that happened on March 26, 2024, at 1:28 a.m. Eastern Time, the main spans and the three nearest northeast approach spans of the Francis Scott Key Bridge across the Patapsco River in the Baltimore metropolitan area of Maryland, United States, collapsed after the container ship Dali struck one of its piers. Six members of a maintenance crew working on the roadway were killed, while two more were rescued from the river. The collapse blocked most shipping to and from the Port of Baltimore for 11 weeks. Maryland Governor Wes Moore called the event a "global crisis" that had affected more than 8,000 jobs. The economic impact of the closure of the waterway has been estimated at $15 million per day.

This photograph shows the MV Dali under one of the collapsed segments of the bridge.

Photograph: David Adams (US Army Corps of Engineers)