Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 August 8

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From today's featured article

SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm ("His Majesty's Ship Elector Friedrich Wilhelm") was one of the first ocean-going battleships of the Imperial German Navy, the fourth pre-dreadnought of the Brandenburg class. She was laid down in 1890 in the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven, launched in 1891, and completed in 1893 at a cost of 11.23 million Marks. She served as the flagship of the Imperial fleet from her commissioning until 1900, seeing limited active duty during the relatively peaceful late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her career focused on training exercises and goodwill visits to foreign ports. She saw only one major overseas deployment, to China in 1900 and 1901, during the Boxer Rebellion. The ship underwent a major modernization in 1904 and 1905. In 1910, Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm was sold to the Ottoman Empire and renamed Barbaros Hayreddin. She saw heavy service during the Balkan Wars, primarily providing artillery support to ground forces in Thrace. In a state of severe disrepair, the old battleship was partially disarmed after the Ottoman Empire joined World War I's Central Powers. On 8 August 1915 the ship was torpedoed and sunk off the Dardanelles with heavy loss of life. (Full article...)

Part of the Battleships of Germany series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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In the news

The aircraft involved in Flight 370, pictured in 2011

A new 35 km (22 mi)-long bypass channel of Egypt's Suez Canal is officially opened, approximately doubling the canal's capacity.
Debris found washed ashore on Réunion is confirmed to be from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which went missing in March 2014 (aircraft pictured).
At least 31 people die when a flash flood derails two trains in Madhya Pradesh, India.
The International Olympic Committee selects Beijing as the host city of the 2022 Winter Games.
The Taliban confirms that its former leader, Mohammed Omar, died in April 2013.
Scientist and former President of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam dies at the age of 83.

Ongoing events
Recent deaths:
- Frances Oldham Kelsey
- Robert Conquest

On this day...

August 8: Father's Day in Taiwan

8th August, 1918 by Will Longstaff

1576 – The cornerstone of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe's observatory Uraniborg was laid on the island of Hven.
1918 – The Battle of Amiens (pictured) began in Amiens, France, marking the start of the Allied Powers' Hundred Days Offensive through the German front lines that ultimately led to the end of World War I.
1969 – At a zebra crossing in London, photographer Iain Macmillan took the photo that was used for the cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road, one of the most famous album covers in recording history.
1988 – A series of marches, demonstrations, protests, and riots, which became known as the 8888 Uprising, began against the one-party state of the Burma Socialist Programme Party.
2010 – A massive mudslide of 1.8 million cubic metres (2,400,000 cu yd) of mud and rocks in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China, killed 1,471 people.

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Today's featured picture

"The Taking of Lungtungpen" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on April 11, 1887. It follows four British soldiers in Burma who capture a dacoit stronghold named Lungtungpen while in the nude.

In this illustration from the 1896 edition of Soldier Tales, Private Mulvaney and a group of naked soldiers fight the dacoits; Mulvaney finds "There was a melly av a sumpshus kind for a whoile."

See another illustration

Illustration: Archibald Standish Hartrick; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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