Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 July 19

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From today's featured article

Banksia lemanniana, the yellow lantern banksia, is a species of woody shrub of the family Proteaceae native to Western Australia. It generally grows as an open shrub or small tree up to five metres (15 ft) high with stiff serrated leaves, and unusual hanging flower clusters. Flowering occurs over summer, the greenish buds developing into oval flower spikes before turning grey and developing the characteristic large woody follicles. It occurs within and just east of the Fitzgerald River National Park on the southern coast of the state. B. lemanniana is killed by bushfire and regenerates from seed. First described by Swiss botanist Carl Meissner in 1856, it was named in honour of English botanist Charles Morgan Lemann. Unlike many Western Australian banksias, it appears to have some resistance to dieback from the soil-borne water mould Phytophthora cinnamomi, and is one of the easier Western Australian species to grow in cultivation. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Mauritz von Wiktorin (left),
Heinz Guderian (center), and
Semyon Krivoshein (right) at the
German–Soviet military parade

... that the XIX Army Corps represented Germany as it ceded Brest-Litovsk to the Soviet Union in the German–Soviet military parade (commanders pictured)?
... that Maria Magnani Noya was the first woman mayor of Turin and the second woman mayor in Italy?
... that David Cage started writing the video game The Nomad Soul because he had grown tired of being a composer?
... that Wu Ziliang developed the technology to separate uranium-235 for China's first nuclear bomb?
... that Sommen charrs are a relict population that has survived because of Lake Sommen's great depth, and its cold and oxygen-rich waters?
... that sculptor Alice King Chatham used plaster casts to design custom-fitted oxygen masks and helmets for Project Mercury astronauts?
... that Rhys Griffiths has won the Welsh Premier League Golden Boot more times than any other player, winning for seven consecutive seasons between 2006 and 2012?
... that Stephen King killed off a radio station in the Bangor area?

In the news

Kyoto Animation Studio 1 in 2015

An arson attack at an animation studio (building pictured) in Kyoto, Japan, kills at least 33 people.
The World Health Organization declares the Ebola outbreak in Congo an international public health emergency.
The European Parliament elects Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission.
The Cricket World Cup concludes with England defeating New Zealand in the final.

On this day

July 19

Remnants of the Mary Rose

AD 64 – The Great Fire of Rome started among the shops around the Circus Maximus, eventually destroying three of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaging seven others.
1545 – The English warship Mary Rose (pictured) sank just outside Portsmouth during the Battle of the Solent; it was not rediscovered until 1971.
1848 – The two-day Women's Rights Convention, the first women's rights and feminist convention held in the United States, opened in Seneca Falls, New York.
1992 – A car bomb killed anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino and five policemen in Palermo, Italy, less than two months after the murder of Borsellino's friend and colleague Giovanni Falcone.

Mangal Pandey (b. 1827) · Lizzie Borden (b. 1860) · Florence Foster Jenkins (b. 1868)

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From today's featured list

Jaya Bachchan

The 2003 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film Kal Ho Naa Ho won 35 awards from 78 nominations. Directed by Nikkhil Advani, the film features Jaya Bachchan (pictured), Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta in the lead roles. At the 51st National Film Awards, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy and Sonu Nigam won for Best Music Direction and Best Male Playback Singer, respectively. Kal Ho Naa Ho led the 49th Filmfare Awards with eleven nominations, including for Best Film (Karan Johar and Yash Johar), Best Director (Advani) and Best Actor (Shah Rukh Khan). It went on to win in eight categories, including for Best Actress (Zinta), Best Supporting Actor (Saif Ali Khan) and Best Supporting Actress (Bachchan). The film won thirteen awards out of seventeen nominations at the 5th IIFA Awards, including Best Film, Best Actress (Zinta), Best Supporting Actor (Saif Ali Khan) and Best Supporting Actress (Bachchan). (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Margaret Hamilton (born 1936) is an American computer scientist, systems engineer and business owner. She was director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo space program. In 1986, she founded Hamilton Technologies, Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was developed around Universal Systems Language, based on her paradigm of "Development Before the Fact" for systems and software design. Hamilton has published over 130 papers, proceedings and reports about sixty projects and six major programs. She is one of the people credited with coining the term "software engineering". In 2016, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama for her work leading to the development of on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo missions.

This picture, taken in 1969, shows Hamilton standing next to listings of the navigation software that she and her team at MIT produced for the Apollo project.

Photograph credit: Draper Laboratory; restored by Adam Cuerden

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