Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 November 9

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From today's featured article

Yashima was a Fuji-class pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the 1890s. Yashima (a classical name for Japan) was designed and built in the United Kingdom, as Japan lacked the necessary industrial capacity. Her main battery consisted of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns. Commanded by Captain Hajime Sakamoto at the start of the Russo-Japanese War, the ship participated in the Battle of Port Arthur on 9 February 1904 when Vice-Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō led his battleships and cruisers in an attack on Russia's Pacific Squadron. Yashima was involved in war operations until May, when she struck two mines off Port Arthur. She did not sink immediately, but capsized while under tow later that day. The Japanese were able to keep her loss a secret from the Russians for over a year; as part of the deception, surviving crewmen who were guarding Port Arthur addressed their letters as if they were still aboard the battleship. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Mural in the apse of Vä Church

... that Vä Church is decorated with some of the oldest church murals in Sweden (example pictured)?
... that Christian Flor, described in a 1740 encyclopedia as a famous organist from Lüneburg, composed settings of Bible verses for collections, and one of the earliest Passion oratorios?
... that Ingrid Bergman won Emmy and Sylvania Awards for her world television debut in John Frankenheimer's horror movie The Turn of the Screw?
... that the mayors of Prague, Bratislava, Warsaw, and Budapest signed the Pact of Free Cities in December 2019?
... that John F. McCarthy Jr. headed a group that suggested modifications to the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy that tripled the structural life of the aircraft?
... that Dua Lipa and The Blessed Madonna's remix album Club Future Nostalgia was crafted in two months during lockdown protocols associated with the COVID-19 pandemic?
... that state representative Patricia Haynes Smith worked with a gay rights group to decriminalize sodomy in Louisiana?
... that it is impossible to draw water from Robin Hood's Well?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Portal

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, (both pictured) win the United States presidential election.
Hurricane Eta makes landfall in Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane, killing more than 200 people.
In Afghanistan, a shooting at Kabul University's campus leaves 35 people dead and 50 others injured.
Typhoon Goni makes landfall in the Philippines as a super typhoon, killing at least 26 people.

On this day

November 9: Constitution Day in the Dominican Republic (2020)

People walking through Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin

1729 – Great Britain, France, and Spain signed the Treaty of Seville to end the Anglo-Spanish War, despite the underlying tensions being left unresolved.
1914 – World War I: Off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney sank SMS Emden, the last active warship of the Central Powers in the Indian Ocean.
1989 – East German official Günter Schabowski mistakenly announced the immediate opening of the inner German border, resulting in the fall of the Berlin Wall that night (border crossing pictured).
2016 – A tram derailed in Croydon, London, killing seven people.

Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani (b. 1719)
Martha Settle Putney (b. 1916)
Neville Chamberlain (d. 1940)

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From today's featured list

Lykke Li

Over its 17 years of existence, around 150 documented singles reached the number-one position in the Romanian Top 100, the first being "You Are Not Alone" by Michael Jackson in 1995. Founded in 1995, the Romanian Top 100 was the national music chart of Romania. It was compiled by broadcast monitoring services Body M Production A-V (1990s and 2000s) and by Media Forest (2010s), and measured the airplay of songs on radio stations throughout the country. Starting in 2004, the chart was announced during a two-hour radio show which initially emerged from a partnership with teen magazine Bravo. Romanian Top 100 was also featured in Billboard's Music & Media magazine until 2003, and was – apart from a weekly Kiss FM podcast in the 2010s – announced on its own website. The Magician's remix of "I Follow Rivers" (2011) by Lykke Li (pictured) spent 12 weeks at the summit, longer than any other song. The most successful artists were Madonna and Kylie Minogue with six documented number ones each. Multiple artists reached number one with several singles in a calendar year. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Arcadian or Pastoral State is the second in a series of five oil-on-canvas paintings entitled The Course of Empire, created by American artist Thomas Cole between 1833 and 1836. The series, now in the collection of the New-York Historical Society, depicts the growth and fall of an imaginary city, situated at the lower end of a river valley. In this second painting, the wilderness has given way to settled lands where agriculture and commerce take place. The man drawing a mathematical figure, the ship being built and the primitive temple on the hill are evidence that the arts and sciences have made considerable progress.

Painting credit: Thomas Cole

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