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From today's featured article
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![Kyle Busch in 2010](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Kyle_Busch_April_19%2C_2010_%28square_crop%29.jpg/120px-Kyle_Busch_April_19%2C_2010_%28square_crop%29.jpg) Kyle Busch
The 2012 Budweiser Shootout was the first exhibition stock car race of the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was held on February 18, 2012, before a crowd of 82,000 in Daytona Beach, Florida, at the Daytona International Speedway, one of six superspeedways to hold NASCAR races. The 82-lap race was won by Kyle Busch (pictured) of the Joe Gibbs Racing team. It was Busch's first victory in the event; Tony Stewart finished second and Marcos Ambrose came in third. The race saw twenty-six lead changes, shared among thirteen drivers. Before the first turn, pole position driver Martin Truex, Jr. was passed by Jeff Gordon, and at the end of the first lap, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. led. On the ninth lap, a multiple-car accident prompted the first caution flag. Sixteen laps later the second caution was issued, with Jamie McMurray leading. During the caution period, all teams made pit stops. On lap 62 Gordon reclaimed the lead and held it until his car hit the wall and rolled over, prompting the fifth and final caution. Stewart took the lead, but in the final lap, Busch passed him to win. The race attracted 7.46 million television viewers. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
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![Rob Roy in 1924](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/Rob_Roy_%28dog%29.jpg/108px-Rob_Roy_%28dog%29.jpg) Rob Roy in 1924
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In the news
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![Alejandro G. Iñárritu in 2008](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Alejandro_Gonz%C3%A1lez_I%C3%B1%C3%A1rritu_with_a_camera_in_production_cropped.jpg/120px-Alejandro_Gonz%C3%A1lez_I%C3%B1%C3%A1rritu_with_a_camera_in_production_cropped.jpg) Alejandro G. Iñárritu
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On this day...
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February 18: Independence Day in the Gambia (1965)
![Enterprise on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Enterprise_on_plane.jpg/120px-Enterprise_on_plane.jpg) Enterprise on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
- 1766 – A mutiny by captive Malagasy began at sea on the slave ship Meermin, leading to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present-day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators.
- 1878 – Competition between two merchants in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, US, turned into a range war when a member of one faction was murdered by the other.
- 1943 – Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, delivered the "total war speech" to motivate the German people when the tide of World War II was turning against Germany.
- 1977 – NASA's first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, made its first "flight" atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (pictured).
- 2010 – Rebels attacked the presidential palace in Niamey, Niger, and replaced President Mamadou Tandja with a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
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