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Today's featured article Takato Dam, a gravity dam in Japan A dam is a structure that impounds water or restricts its flow. The four types are gravity dams (example pictured), embankment dams, buttress dams, and arch dams. Dams provide irrigation, hydropower, water supply, flood management, recreation, inland navigation, and fish farming. An early dam was the Jawa Dam in modern Jordan, built around 3000 BCE. From the late 18th century, the process of designing dams changed from an informal practice to an engineering discipline. In the 20th century, the widespread availability of concrete led to the creation of many large dams worldwide. Dams may include locks, fish ladders, spillways, and power stations. Dams occasionally fail, resulting in flooding and loss of life. Organized opposition to dam projects emerged in the modern era, focused on environmental and social impacts such as the loss of plant and animal habitats, reduced water and sediment flow, degraded landscape aesthetics, the submergence of cultural sites, and forced relocations of people. (Full article...) Recently featured: "The Long and Winding Road" Genshin Impact Valley Parade  Today's featured media Stongdey is a village in the Zanskar valley in Ladakh, India, situated on the right bank of the Zanskar River, about 18 km (11 mi) northeast of Padum. Stongdey and the neighbouring village of Kumik had a combined population of 914 in the 2011 census. The local economy is largely agrarian, with snowmelt-fed irrigation compensating for the region's low precipitation. The villages have schools, electricity and mobile-phone service. Stongdey Monastery, founded in 1052, overlooks the village and is Zanskar's second-largest monastic institution. This photograph shows Stongdey from the northeast, with the Zanskar Range in the background. Photograph credit: Timothy A. Gonsalves Recently featured: Enrico Fermi – Cinnamon flycatcher – Pin tumbler lock Archive – More featured media...  Did you know Shayok Misha Chowdhury ... that Shayok Misha Chowdhury (pictured) staged his own mother's death in a play they wrote and performed together at The Bushwick Starr? ... that sandbags help salmon traverse Springbrook Creek? ... that Romanian literary historian Alexandru George once gifted a cooking pot and a saucepan to a poet whom he was courting? ... that the publication of a register of Egyptian dyke workers in 1788 marked the beginning of papyrology? ... that Rolf Lyssy's 1978 film The Swissmakers was still the most popular Swiss film of all time in 2025? ... that a graduation fashion show for a local arts school was held in a rapid transit station that had yet to open? ... that future Macau international footballer Alberto Carvalhal was involved in repatriating the remains of Pedro I to Brazil? ... that an asteroid collision in the Nysa–Polana complex might have caused an impact shower on the Moon 800 million years ago? ... that, despite Samuel Quincy's alignment with the British, he was fondly remembered in exile by U.S. president John Adams?

In the news Bangkok floods Flooding (pictured) in Bangkok and the surrounding area leaves at least 23 people dead. The Chess Olympiad concludes with Uzbekistan winning the Open event and China winning the Women's event. In Australian rules football, the Brisbane Lions win their third premiership in a row, defeating Fremantle in the AFL Grand Final. An attack on a police complex in Kohat, Pakistan, leaves 31 people dead. Ongoing: Iran war (Lebanon war) Russo-Ukrainian war timeline Recent deaths: Maureen Jones Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali Lawrence Tanter Bryan Kelly Don Cooper Oscar Wambrauw  This day in history September 30: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada; Martyrs' Day in China A building damaged by the 2009 Sumatra earthquake 1342 – An Anglo-Breton army defeated a far larger Franco-Breton force in the first land battle of the Hundred Years' War. 1551 – Sue Takafusa, a retainer of the Ōuchi clan in western Japan, led a coup against the daimyō Ōuchi Yoshitaka, leading to the latter's forced suicide. 1863 – Georges Bizet's opera Les pêcheurs de perles premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris. 1982 – Cheers, an American television sitcom, debuted with its pilot episode on NBC. 2009 – A 7.6 MW earthquake struck off the southern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia (damage pictured), killing 1,115 and impacting an estimated 1.2 million people. Fan Yanguang (d. 940) Adelaide of Vianden (d. 1376) John Thirtle (b. 1839) Catie Ball (b. 1951) More anniversaries: September 29 September 30 October 1

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