Wikipedia:Main Page queue

For the queues for the "Did you know" section, see Template:Did you know/Queue.

Today (June 20)

See also: Main Page

Featured article

---

June 20

Hiyō (Flying Hawk) was the name ship of her class of two aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Begun as the ocean liner Izumo Maru in 1939, she was purchased by the Navy Ministry in 1941 for conversion to an aircraft carrier. Completed shortly after the Battle of Midway in June 1942, she participated in the Guadalcanal campaign, but missed the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October because of an electrical generator fire. The carrier's aircraft were disembarked several times and used from land bases in battles in the South West Pacific. Hiyō was torpedoed in mid-1943 and spent three months under repair. She spent most of the next six months training and ferrying aircraft before returning to combat. She was sunk by a gasoline-vapour explosion caused by an American torpedo hit during the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 20 June 1944 with the loss of 247 officers and ratings, about a fifth of her complement. (This article is part of a featured topic: Hiyō class aircraft carrier.)

Recently featured:

• 1964 European Nations' Cup final
• Planet
• Icelandic horse

On this day

---

June 20: World Refugee Day

Queen Victoria

• 1837 – Queen Victoria (pictured) acceded to the British throne, beginning a 63-year reign.
• 1921 – British Army officer Thomas Stanton Lambert was assassinated by the Irish Republican Army near Moydrum, Ireland.
• 1959 – The extratropical remnants of an Atlantic hurricane reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada, causing 22 fishing boats to capsize and killing 35 people.
• 1979 – Bill Stewart, an American journalist, was executed by Nicaraguan Guardia forces.
• 1982 – The International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, the first major conference in genocide studies, opened despite Turkish attempts to cancel it due to the inclusion of presentations on the Armenian genocide.

• John of Lancaster (b. 1389)
• Fritz Koenig (b. 1924)
• Edith Windsor (b. 1929)
• Ulf Merbold (b. 1941)

More anniversaries:

• June 19
• June 20
• June 21

Picture of the day

---

June 20

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, stealth multirole combat aircraft designed for air superiority and strike missions; it also has electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. The aircraft descends from the Lockheed Martin X-35, with development funded principally by the United States, with additional funding from program partner countries from NATO. Its first flight took place in 2006 and it entered service with the United States Air Force in 2015. Its first combat operation was in the 2018 Operation House of Cards by the Israeli Air Force. The F-35 Lightning II has three main variants: the conventional takeoff and landing F-35A, the short take-off and vertical-landing F-35B, and the carrier-based F-35C. This photograph shows an F-35C conducting a test flight over Chesapeake Bay in 2011.

Photograph credit: Andy Wolfe

Recently featured:

• Six-spot burnet
• Copper sunbird
• Sugarloaf Mountain

Tomorrow (June 21)

See also: Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow

Featured article

---

June 21

Masai giraffe

The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus Giraffa. It is known for its extremely long neck and legs, its horn-like ossicones, and its spotted coat patterns. Traditionally, giraffes have been thought of as one species, but more recent evidence has proposed dividing them into multiple species. Giraffes usually inhabit savannahs and woodlands. Their food source is leaves, fruits, and flowers of woody plants, primarily acacia species, which they browse at heights most other herbivores cannot reach. Giraffes live in herds of related females and their offspring or bachelor herds of unrelated adult males, but are gregarious and may gather in large aggregations. Females bear sole responsibility for rearing the young. Giraffes have been featured in paintings, books, and cartoons. Giraffes are assessed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They are found in numerous national parks and game reserves. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

• Japanese aircraft carrier Hiyō
• 1964 European Nations' Cup final
• Planet

On this day

---

June 21: Fête de la Musique; International Day of Yoga; National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada; Xiazhi in China (2024)

Replica of the Manchester Baby

• 217 BC – Second Punic War: The Carthaginians under Hannibal ambushed a Roman army at the Battle of Lake Trasimene, capturing or killing 25,000 men.
• 1848 – In the Wallachian Revolution, Ion Heliade Rădulescu and Christian Tell proclaimed a new republican government in present-day Romania.
• 1898 – In a bloodless event during the Spanish–American War, the United States captured Guam from Spain.
• 1919 – During a general strike in Winnipeg, Canada, members of the Royal North-West Mounted Police attacked a crowd of strikers, armed with clubs and revolvers.
• 1948 – The Manchester Baby (replica pictured), the world's first stored-program computer, ran its first program.

• Claude Auchinleck (b. 1884)
• Maureen Connolly (d. 1969)
• William, Prince of Wales (b. 1982)
• Wong Ho Leng (d. 2014)

More anniversaries:

• June 20
• June 21
• June 22

Featured list

---

June 21

Ralph Macchio

The American TV series Cobra Kai has released fifty episodes over the course of five seasons, with an upcoming sixth and final season. The first season of the martial-arts comedy-drama series premiered on the streaming service YouTube Red on May 2, 2018. YouTube Premium then released an additional season in 2019. Following a content shift on YouTube, subsequent seasons moved to Netflix. The third season and the fourth season were released in 2021 followed by a fifth season in 2022. Originally expected to be released by December 2023, the sixth season was delayed due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike and the SAG-AFTRA strike. Netflix later announced the final season would consist of 15 episodes and would release in three parts beginning in 2024 and ending in 2025. Cobra Kai is a spin-off and sequel to the first four films in the Karate Kid franchise. The first season takes place 30 years after the 1984 film The Karate Kid. Ralph Macchio (pictured) and William Zabka, among other actors, return from the film series in prominent roles. Cobra Kai has received critical acclaim, multiple award nominations, and large viewing figures. (Full list...)

Recently featured:

• Accolades received by Toy Story 3
• Grade I listed buildings in England completed in the 20th century
• SZA discography

Picture of the day

---

June 21

Venus Anadyomene is an oil-on-canvas painting by Titian, dating to around 1520. It depicts the Greek goddess Venus rising from the sea and wringing her hair, with a shell visible at the bottom left, taken from a description of Venus by the Greek poet Hesiod in which she was born fully-grown from a shell. The wringing of her hair is a direct imitation of Apelles's lost masterwork, also called Venus Anadyomene. The painting is in good condition and achieved public ownership in 2003 when it was purchased from Francis Egerton, 7th Duke of Sutherland. It is now in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Painting credit: Titian

Recently featured:

• Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
• Six-spot burnet
• Copper sunbird

In two days (June 22)

See also: Wikipedia:Main Page/Day after tomorrow

Featured article

---

June 22

Capri-Sun is a brand of juice concentrate–based drinks manufactured by the German company Wild and regional licensees. Rudolf Wild invented the drink in 1969 and introduced it in West Germany as Capri-Sonne. It is now sold in more than 100 countries, with licensees including Kraft Foods in the United States and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners in parts of Europe. It is one of the most popular juice brands in the world, with orange its best-known flavor. As of 2023, roughly 6 billion pouches are sold per year globally, packaged in laminated foil vacuum Doy-N-Pack pouches, with which the brand has become strongly associated. Capri-Sun's main products are high in sugar, although lower than many competitors. Marketing to children and use of the term "all-natural" have led to conflict in several countries. It is one of the most favorably rated brands among Generation Z Americans; in France, it figures prominently in rap music. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

• Giraffe
• Japanese aircraft carrier Hiyō
• 1964 European Nations' Cup final

On this day

---

June 22

King George V and Queen Mary

• 1593 – Habsburg troops defeated a larger Ottoman force at the Battle of Sisak in the Kingdom of Croatia, triggering the Long Turkish War.
• 1911 – King George V and Queen Mary of Teck (both pictured) were crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.
• 1941 – World War II: As Axis troops began their invasion of the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian Activist Front started an uprising to liberate Lithuania from Soviet occupation.
• 1979 – Former British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott, who had accused Thorpe of having a relationship with him.
• 2002 – An earthquake registering 6.5 M_w struck northwestern Iran, killing at least 230 people and injuring 1,300 others, and later causing widespread public anger at the slow official response.

• Howard Staunton (d. 1874)
• Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo (d. 1937)
• Elizabeth Warren (b. 1949)
• Meryl Streep (b. 1949)

More anniversaries:

• June 21
• June 22
• June 23

Picture of the day

---

June 22

Pinguicula vulgaris, the common butterwort, is a perennial carnivorous plant in the Lentibulariaceae family. It has a generally circumboreal distribution, being native to almost every country in Europe as well as Russia, Canada and the United States. Growing to a height of 3–16 cm, it is topped with a purple, and occasionally white, flower that is 15 mm or longer, and shaped like a funnel. Pinguicula vulgaris grows in damp environments such as bogs and swamps, in low or subalpine elevations. It is an insectivorous plant. Its leaves have glands that excrete a sticky fluid that traps insects to its leaves; its glands also produce digestive enzymes that work to consume the insects externally. This P. vulgaris flower was photographed in Keila, Estonia.

Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus

Recently featured:

• Venus Anadyomene
• Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
• Six-spot burnet

In three days (June 23)

Featured article

---

June 23

Cyclone Taylor (June 23, 1884 – June 9, 1979) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and civil servant. Born and raised in Southern Ontario, Taylor moved to Houghton, Michigan, and played in the International Hockey League for two years. He then joined the Ottawa Senators, winning the Stanley Cup with the team in his second year. While in Ottawa he began working as an immigration clerk. Two years later he signed with the Renfrew Creamery Kings, becoming the highest-paid athlete in the world on a per-game basis. He then played for the Vancouver Millionaires until 1922, where he won five scoring championships and his second Stanley Cup victory with the team. In 1914 Taylor was the first Canadian official to board the Komagata Maru, a major incident relating to Canadian immigration. In 1946 he was named a member of the Order of the British Empire for his services as an immigration officer and inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1947. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

• Capri-Sun
• Giraffe
• Japanese aircraft carrier Hiyō

On this day

---

June 23: Grand Duke's Official Birthday in Luxembourg

Pierre de Coubertin

• 1594 – Anglo-Spanish War: During the Action of Faial, an English attempt to capture a Portuguese carrack, reputedly one of the richest ever to set sail from the Indies, caused it to explode with all the treasure lost.
• 1894 – Led by French historian Pierre de Coubertin (pictured), an international congress at the Sorbonne in Paris formed the International Olympic Committee to revive the ancient Olympic Games.
• 1944 – After a closely supervised visit by the Red Cross to Theresienstadt Ghetto in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, Maurice Rossel reported that conditions there were "almost normal".
• 1991 – The first installment of the video-game series Sonic the Hedgehog was released.
• 2014 – Under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 2118, the last of Syria's declared chemical weapons were shipped out for destruction.

• Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (d. 1324)
• Len Hutton (b. 1916)
• Bill Torrey (b. 1934)
• Joss Whedon (b. 1964)

More anniversaries:

• June 22
• June 23
• June 24

Picture of the day

---

June 23

Long Tack Sam (1884–1961), real name Lung Te Shan, was a Chinese-born American magician, acrobat, and vaudeville performer. Little is known about his early years, although he is known to have joined a group of acrobats in around 1900 called the Tian-Kwai, with whom he toured the world. Several years later, amid unrest in China, he brought his troupe of entertainers to the United States, where he performed extensively for several decades. This 1919 colour lithograph poster was printed in Hamburg, Germany.

Poster credit: Studio of Adolph Friedlander; restored by Adam Cuerden

Recently featured:

• Pinguicula vulgaris
• Venus Anadyomene
• Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II

In four days (June 24)

Featured article

---

June 24

Desmond Daniel Amofah (1990–2019), known as Etika, was an American YouTuber and live streamer, known online for his enthusiastic reactions to Super Smash Bros. character trailers and Nintendo Direct presentations. The son of Ghanaian politician Owuraku Amofah, he resided in Brooklyn. Starting his online career in 2007, Amofah created his main YouTube channel, "EWNetwork" (Etika World Network), in 2012. He garnered popularity following the release of Super Smash Bros. 4, primarily stemming from his reaction videos of news surrounding the game. Beginning in October 2018, Amofah showed signs of mental distress, and was reported missing on June 20, 2019. Officials confirmed his death on June 25, finding that he committed suicide by drowning. His death was met with shock and grief by fans and fellow YouTubers, with many commenting that Amofah's mental deterioration had been dismissed or ignored. Numerous commemorations were held to honor Amofah, including fan-made memorials and murals. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

• Cyclone Taylor
• Capri-Sun
• Giraffe

On this day

---

June 24

Julia Gillard

• 1717 – The first Grand Lodge of Freemasonry, the Premier Grand Lodge of England, was founded in London.
• 1724 – On the Feast of St. John the Baptist, Bach led the first performance of Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7, the third cantata of his chorale cantata cycle.
• 1880 – "O Canada", the present-day national anthem of Canada, was first performed in Quebec City during a Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day banquet.
• 1943 – Amid racial tensions, U.S. Army military police shot and killed a black serviceman after a confrontation at a pub in Bamber Bridge, England.
• 2010 – Julia Gillard (pictured) was sworn in as the first female prime minister of Australia after incumbent Kevin Rudd declined to contest a leadership spill in the Labor Party.

• William Arnold (b. 1587)
• Matthew Thornton (d. 1803)
• John Lloyd Cruz (b. 1983)
• Rodrigo (d. 2000)

More anniversaries:

• June 23
• June 24
• June 25

Featured list

---

June 24

Line of Duty title card

The British police procedural television series Line of Duty has been nominated for a total of 115 awards, winning 27 of them. The programme was created and written by Jed Mercurio and aired for six series on BBC One and BBC Two from 2017 to 2021. Starring Adrian Dunbar, Martin Compston, and Vicky McClure, Line of Duty revolves around the fictional Anti-Corruption Unit 12 who investigate police wrongdoing. Most of the nominations resulted from British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Royal Television Society-related awards. A third of the series' successful awards were won at the TV Choice and Broadcasting Press Guild Awards. Dunbar and McClure tie for the most nominations received by cast members while McClure and Keely Hawes have the most wins by a cast member. Individual series secured a total of 46 nominations, winning 15. Four awards out of 12 nominations were given to Mercurio for his writing on the series. (Full list...)

Recently featured:

• Cobra Kai episodes
• Accolades received by Toy Story 3
• Grade I listed buildings in England completed in the 20th century

Picture of the day

---

June 24

The sedge warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus) is a passerine bird in the Acrocephalidae family, the reed warblers. It is a medium-sized warbler with a brown, streaked back and wings and a distinct pale supercilium. Sedge warblers are migratory, crossing the Sahara to get from their European and Asian breeding grounds to spend winter in Africa. The male's song is composed of chattering phrases and can include mimicry of other species. The species is mostly insectivorous. This sedge warbler was photographed in Otmoor RSPB reserve in Oxfordshire, England.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

Recently featured:

• Long Tack Sam
• Pinguicula vulgaris
• Venus Anadyomene

In five days (June 25)

Featured article

---

June 25

Grace in 2023

Mckenna Grace (born June 25, 2006) is an American actress. She began her career at the age of five, making her onscreen debut in the sitcom Crash & Bernstein (2012–2014). In 2017, she starred as a child prodigy in the drama film Gifted, a breakthrough for which she received a nomination for a Critics' Choice Movie Awards. Grace subsequently appeared in the films I, Tonya (2017), Troop Zero (2019), and Captain Marvel (2019). During this time, she appeared in several horror projects, including The Bad Seed (2018), The Haunting of Hill House (2018), and Annabelle Comes Home (2019). For playing an abused teenager in The Handmaid's Tale (2021–2022), Grace was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. She garnered further recognition for her appearances in the supernatural comedy films Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), and portrayed Jan Broberg in the miniseries A Friend of the Family (2022). (Full article...)

Recently featured:

• Etika
• Cyclone Taylor
• Capri-Sun

On this day

---

June 25

Michael Jackson in 1993

• 1658 – Anglo-Spanish War: The largest battle ever fought on Jamaica, the three-day Battle of Rio Nuevo, began.
• 1910 – The United States Congress passed the Mann Act, which prohibited the interstate transport of females for "immoral purposes".
• 1944 – World War II: U.S. Navy and Royal Navy ships bombarded Cherbourg, France, to support U.S. Army units engaged in the Battle of Cherbourg.
• 1950 – The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 82 condemning the North Korean invasion of South Korea.
• 2009 – Singer Michael Jackson (pictured) died as a result of the combination of drugs in his body.

• Giovanni Battista Riccioli (d. 1671)
• Eloísa Díaz (b. 1866)
• George Michael (b. 1963)
• Farrah Fawcett (d. 2009)

More anniversaries:

• June 24
• June 25
• June 26

Picture of the day

---

June 25

The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 American silent film made by Edwin S. Porter for the Edison Manufacturing Company. It follows a gang of outlaws who hold up and rob a steam locomotive at a station in the American West, flee across mountainous terrain, and are finally defeated by a posse of locals. The short film draws on many sources, including a robust existing tradition of Western films, recent European innovations in film technique, the play of the same name by Scott Marble, the popularity of train-themed films, and possibly real-life incidents involving outlaws such as Butch Cassidy.

Film credit: Edwin S. Porter

Recently featured:

• Sedge warbler
• Long Tack Sam
• Pinguicula vulgaris

In six days (June 26)

Featured article

---

June 26

Electroshock weapons are a popular instrument of non-scarring torture

Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for various reasons, including punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts carried out by the state, but others include non-state organizations. A variety of methods of torture are used, including psychological methods to provide deniability. Beating is the most common form of physical torture. Most victims of torture are poor and marginalized people suspected of crimes, although torture against political prisoners or during armed conflict has received disproportionate attention. Torture is prohibited under international law for all states under all circumstances and is explicitly forbidden by several treaties. Opposition to torture stimulated the formation of the human rights movement after World War II, and torture continues to be an important human rights issue. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

• Mckenna Grace
• Etika
• Cyclone Taylor

On this day

---

June 26

Julia Gardiner Tyler

• 1409 – The Council of Pisa elected Peter of Candia as Pope Alexander V, becoming the third simultaneous claimant of the title of leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1844 – Julia Gardiner Tyler (pictured) married John Tyler at the Church of the Ascension in New York City and became the First Lady of the United States.
• 1889 – Bangui, the capital and largest city of the present-day Central African Republic, was founded in French Congo.
• 1907 – Organized by Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, among others, Bolshevik revolutionaries robbed a bank stagecoach in Tiflis, present-day Georgia.
• 1997 – J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first book in the Harry Potter fantasy novel series, was released.

• Marie Thérèse Geoffrin (b. 1699)
• Mary van Kleeck (b. 1883)
• Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1899)
• Olive Morris (b. 1952)

More anniversaries:

• June 25
• June 26
• June 27

Picture of the day

---

June 26

Lord Kelvin (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907) was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. He was the Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, where he undertook significant research including electricity and the formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. He was also the first determine the correct value of absolute zero, and the Kelvin scale of temperature is named in his honour. Kelvin received the Copley Medal in 1883, served as president of the Royal Society from 1890 to 1895, and in 1892 became the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords. This photograph shows Kelvin resting on a binnacle (the stand for a marine compass) of his invention, and holding a marine azimuth mirror.

Photograph credit: T. & R. Annan & Sons; restored by Adam Cuerden

Recently featured:

• The Great Train Robbery (1903 film)
• Sedge warbler
• Long Tack Sam

In seven days (June 27)

Featured article

---

June 27

Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) was an English author who wrote 34 novels, 7 volumes of short stories and a daily journal of more than a million words. He also wrote or co-wrote 13 plays, wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the UK's Ministry of Information in the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. He was the most financially successful British author of his day. Because his books appealed to a wide public rather than to literary cliques and élites, and for his adherence to realism, Virginia Woolf and other writers and supporters of the modernist school belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. Studies of his writing since the 1970s have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work, and his finest novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

• Torture
• Mckenna Grace
• Etika

On this day

---

June 27

Jacobo Árbenz

• 1571 – Queen Elizabeth I issued a royal charter establishing Jesus College, the first Protestant college at the University of Oxford.
• 1800 – War of the Second Coalition: French forces won a victory at the Battle of Neuburg, ending Austrian control over the River Danube.
• 1869 – The military phase of the Meiji Restoration in Japan was completed with an imperial victory in the Boshin War.
• 1954 – Jacobo Árbenz (pictured) resigned as President of Guatemala following a CIA-led coup against his administration.
• 2008 – Robert Mugabe was re-elected as President of Zimbabwe with an overwhelming majority after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew, citing violence against his party's supporters.

• Conan I of Rennes (d. 992)
• Eugenia Washington (b. 1838)
• Mary McAleese (b. 1951)
• Sam Manekshaw (d. 2008)

More anniversaries:

• June 26
• June 27
• June 28

Picture of the day

---

June 27

Sabella spallanzanii is a species of marine polychaete worms in the family Sabellidae. It is native to the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and North Sea but has spread to various other parts of the world and is included on the Global Invasive Species Database. Sabella spallanzanii grows to a total length of 9 to 40 cm (4 to 16 in) and is usually larger in deep water. It features stiff, sandy tubes formed from hardened mucus secreted by the worm which protrude from the sand, and a two-layered crown of feeding tentacles which can be retracted into the tube. This S. spallanzanii individual was photographed in Arrábida Natural Park, Portugal.

Photograph credit: Diego Delso

Recently featured:

• Lord Kelvin
• The Great Train Robbery (1903 film)
• Sedge warbler