Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 October 11

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From today's featured article

The Battle of Cape Esperance took place on 11–12 October 1942 between the Imperial Japanese Navy and U.S. Navy in the Pacific campaign of World War II. The second major surface engagement of the Guadalcanal Campaign, it took place at the entrance to the strait between Savo Island and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese sent a major supply and reinforcement convoy to their forces on Guadalcanal. At the same time, five warships (under the command of Rear Admiral Aritomo Gotō) were to bombard the Allied airfield on Guadalcanal. Shortly before midnight on 11 October, the Americans surprised Gotō's force, sinking two warships and heavily damaging another (Japanese cruiser Aoba, pictured). Gotō was mortally wounded and his other warships were forced to retreat. Meanwhile, the Japanese supply convoy unloaded and began its return journey without being discovered; four of its destroyers turned back to assist Gotō's retreating warships, but U.S. aircraft sank two of them. The battle did not give either navy operational control of the waters around Guadalcanal, but it provided a significant morale boost to the U.S. Navy after its heavy losses at the earlier Battle of Savo Island. (Full article...)

Part of the Guadalcanal Campaign series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that, in their depictions of the capture of Diponegoro, Nicolaas Pieneman portrayed him as submissive (pictured), while Raden Saleh represented him as defiant?
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... that in the 2014 National League Wild Card Game, Brandon Crawford hit the first Major League Baseball postseason grand slam by a shortstop?

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In the news

Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai (pictured) are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism against the oppression of children and young people.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to French historical author and novelist Patrick Modiano.
Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William Moerner are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on stimulated emission depletion microscopy and photoactivated localization microscopy.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes used in energy-saving lights.
John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard Moser are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain.
The first human born to a recipient of a donated uterus is delivered in Sweden.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Hong Kong protests – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Recent deaths: Jean-Claude Duvalier

On this day...

October 11: National Coming Out Day (international)

1142 – The Treaty of Shaoxing, ending the Jurchen campaigns against the Song Dynasty, was formally ratified when a Jin envoy visited the Southern Song court.
1634 – A storm tide on the coast of North Frisia caused a massive flood that killed at least 8,000 people and split the island of Strand into three smaller islands.
1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: The Royal Navy captured eleven Dutch Navy ships without any losses in the Battle of Camperdown.
1941 – Armed insurgents from the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia attacked Axis-occupied zones in the city of Prilep, beginning the National Liberation War of Macedonia.
1962 – Pope John XXIII (pictured) convened the Second Vatican Council, the first Roman Catholic ecumenical council in 92 years.

More anniversaries: October 10 – October 11 – October 12

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It is now October 11, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

A family portrait of an Inupiat mother, father, and son, photographed in Noatak, Alaska, by Edward S. Curtis circa 1929. The Inupiat are an Alaska Native people whose traditional territory spans from the Norton Sound on the Bering Sea to the Canadian border. At the time this picture was taken, most were living in coastal areas, having migrated there during a period of starvation and an influenza epidemic.

Photograph: Edward S. Curtis; restoration: Keraunoscopia

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