Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 February 13

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From today's featured article

Stretford (pop. 46,910) is a town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England. Lying on flat ground between the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, it is 3.8 miles (6.1 km) to the southwest of Manchester city centre. Historically in Lancashire, Stretford was an agricultural village during much of the 19th century known locally as Porkhampton, in reference to the large number of pigs produced for the nearby Manchester market. The arrival of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894, and the subsequent development of the Trafford Park industrial estate in the north of the town, accelerated the industrialisation that had begun in the late 19th century; by 2001 less than one per cent of Stretford's population was employed in agriculture. Stretford has been the home of Manchester United Football Club since 1910, and of Lancashire County Cricket Club since 1864. Residents have included the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, the painter L. S. Lowry, Morrissey, Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, Jay Kay of Jamiroquai, and Manchester's first multi-millionaire, the industrialist and philanthropist John Rylands. (Full article...)

Part of the Towns in Trafford series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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Did you know...

SS Storskär, a listed ship

... that both small pleasure boats and ships (example pictured) can be listed as historic vessels in Sweden?
... that one of the stained glass windows in the Duluth Public Library was exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition?
... that Bambang Soesatyo lost four elections before being elected to the People's Representative Council of Indonesia on his fifth attempt?
... that prototypes of the JB-3 Tiamat air-to-air missile were the first missiles to be launched at the Wallops Flight Facility by the Langley Research Center?
... that Saw Ganesan founded the Kamban Kazhagam to promote the epic poem Kamba Ramayanam, written by the medieval Tamil poet Kambar?
... that while five of the states of the US observe a variation of Disability History Month in October, it is unofficially observed in the United Kingdom from November to December?
... that Pandri is the first decentralized solar-powered village in India?
... that American historian William Chaney would pretend to shiver and look the other way whenever he walked by a statue of General Sherman?

In the news

The Antonov An-148 operated by Saratov Airlines Flight 703

Saratov Airlines Flight 703 (aircraft pictured) crashes in Russia, killing all 71 people on board.
A bus accident kills 19 people in Hong Kong.
The Winter Olympics open in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
An earthquake strikes Hualien, Taiwan, killing at least 17 people and injuring more than 280 others.
The SpaceX launch vehicle Falcon Heavy makes its maiden flight, carrying Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload.

On this day...

February 13: Shrove Tuesday (Western Christianity, 2018)

The Cambridge Union building

1692 – Nearly forty men from the Clan MacDonald of Glen Coe, Scotland, were massacred early in the morning for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new joint monarchs, William III and Mary II.
1815 – The Cambridge Union (building pictured), one of the oldest debating societies in the world, was founded at the University of Cambridge in England.
1945 – World War II: The Allies began their strategic bombing of Dresden, Saxony, Germany, resulting in a lethal firestorm that killed tens of thousands of civilians.
1960 – African American college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee, part of a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial segregation.
1978 – A bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, the site of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, killing three people and injuring eleven others.

Muhammad ibn Ra'iq (d. 942) · George Rogers Clark (d. 1818) · Faiz Ahmad Faiz (b. 1911)

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Today's featured picture

The snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) is a large, white owl of the typical owl family. Snowy owls are native to Arctic regions in North America and Eurasia. Males are almost all white (as seen here), while females have more flecks of black plumage. Juvenile snowy owls have black feathers until they turn white. The snowy owl is a ground nester that primarily hunts rodents and waterfowl and opportunistically eats carrion.

Photograph: Michael Gäbler

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