Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 January 11

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From today's featured article

John A. Macdonald (1815–1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada (1867–73, 1878–91). The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career which spanned almost half a century. His family immigrated from Scotland to Kingston in the colony of Upper Canada (today in eastern Ontario) when he was a boy. He became a lawyer, and was involved in several high-profile cases, quickly becoming prominent in Kingston. Seeking and obtaining a legislative seat in 1844, he served in the legislature of the colonial United Province of Canada and by 1857 had become premier under the colony's unstable political system. When in 1864 no party proved capable of governing for long, Macdonald agreed to a proposal from his political rival, George Brown, that the parties unite in a Great Coalition to seek federation and political reform. Macdonald was the leading figure in the subsequent discussions and conferences, which resulted in the British North America Act and the birth of Canada as a nation on 1 July 1867. Macdonald is credited with creating a Canadian Confederation despite many obstacles, and expanding what was a relatively small country to cover the northern half of North America. By the time of his death in 1891, Canada had secured most of the territory it occupies today. (Full article...)

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... that Sarah Collyer was expelled from the England women's cricket team for taking "an unauthorised holiday"?

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In the news

French police free hostages from two buildings following a shooting at the headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
Maithripala Sirisena is elected President of Sri Lanka.
Attacks by Boko Haram on the Nigerian town of Baga leave hundreds of people dead and more than 35,000 displaced.
Archaeologists announce the discovery of the tomb of Khentakawess III, a previously unknown ancient Egyptian queen.
Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain, and Venezuela take their seats on the United Nations Security Council.
Lithuania becomes the 19th member of the Eurozone.

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Recent deaths: Edward Brooke – Mario Cuomo

On this day...

January 11: Eugenio María de Hostos Day in Puerto Rico (1839); Proclamation of Independence in Morocco (1944)

1693 – An intensity XI earthquake, the most powerful in Italian history, struck the island of Sicily.
1787 – German-born British composer and astronomer William Herschel (pictured) discovered two Uranian moons, later named, by his son, after characters from the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon and Titania.
1923 – Troops from France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr Area to force the German Weimar Republic to pay its reparations in the aftermath of World War I.
1946 – Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania, declared the People's Republic of Albania with himself as head of state.
2013 – French special forces failed in an attempted rescue of a DGSE agent who had been taken hostage in July 2009 by Al-Shabaab in Bulo Marer, Somalia.

More anniversaries: January 10 – January 11 – January 12

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It is now January 11, 2015 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

A Diet Coke and Mentos eruption is a reaction between the carbonated beverage Diet Coke and Mentos mints that causes the liquid to spray out of its container. The mints cause nucleation that releases dissolved carbon dioxide so fast it pushes the liquid up and out of the bottle, in what has been described as an eruption or geyser. Though this was demonstrated on television as early as 1999, the reaction went viral in 2005, after Steve Spangler posted a video to YouTube.

Photograph: Michael Murphy

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