Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 December 27

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São Paulo was a dreadnought battleship in the Brazilian Navy, the second of two ships in the Minas Geraes class. Launched in 1909 and commissioned a year later, São Paulo was soon involved in the Revolt of the Lash, in which crews on four Brazilian warships mutinied over poor pay and harsh punishments for even minor offenses. In 1922 the ship fired its guns in anger for the first time, attacking a fort that had been taken during the Tenente revolts. Two years later, mutineers took control of the ship and sailed to Montevideo where they obtained asylum. In the 1930s, São Paulo was passed over for modernization. When Brazil entered the Second World War, the ship sailed to the port of Recife and remained there as the port's main defense for the duration of the war. Stricken from the naval register in 1947, the dreadnought remained as a training vessel until 1951, when it was taken under tow to be scrapped in the United Kingdom. The tow lines broke during a strong gale in November when the ships were 150 nmi (280 km; 170 mi) north of the Azores, and São Paulo was lost. (Full article...)

Part of the Minas Geraes-class battleships series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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Shallenberger's 1888 meter

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In the news

Carles Puigdemont

Typhoon Tembin sweeps through the southern Philippines, killing more than two hundred people and leaving dozens of others missing.
In the Catalan election, pro-independence parties, spearheaded by the exiled Carles Puigdemont (pictured), secure a majority.
Sebastián Piñera is elected President of Chile for a second time.
In the United States, an Amtrak Cascades passenger train derails in DuPont, Washington, killing three people and injuring more than seventy others.
Incumbent Juan Orlando Hernández is declared the winner of the Honduran presidential election, with the Organization of American States calling for a new vote amidst widespread irregularities.

On this day...

December 27

Charles Darwin

1521 – Three men of the Radical Reformation arrived in Wittenberg, Saxony, and caused an unrest that required the release of Martin Luther from custody to quell.
1831 – Aboard HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin (pictured) left Plymouth, England, on what became a historic expedition to South America that made his name as a naturalist.
1922 – The Imperial Japanese Navy commissioned Hōshō, the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier.
1997 – Loyalist Volunteer Force leader Billy Wright was assassinated in the HM Prison Maze by members of the Irish National Liberation Army.
2007 – Riots erupted in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election—the first event in a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.

Bertha of Savoy (d. 1087) · Hayley Williams (b. 1988) · Carrie Fisher (d. 2016)

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Today's featured picture

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization. He reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax. His medical discoveries provided direct support for the germ theory of disease and its application in clinical medicine. Together with Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch, he is regarded as one of the main founders of bacteriology.

Painting: Albert Edelfelt

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