Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 January 1

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From today's featured article

Joe Warbrick (1 January 1862 – 30 August 1903) was a Māori rugby union player. The youngest person ever to play first-class rugby in New Zealand, he was selected as a 15-year-old to play fullback for Auckland Provincial Clubs. In 1884 he made the first New Zealand representative team, and appeared in seven of their eight matches on their tour of New South Wales. Four years later he conceived of, selected, and led the privately funded New Zealand Native football team, which eventually included several New Zealand-born and foreign-born Europeans. Although the team played 107 matches, including 74 in the British Isles, Warbrick took part in only 21 matches due to injury. The tour, the first from the Southern Hemisphere to visit Britain, remains the longest in rugby's history. In 2008 Warbrick and the Natives were inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame. He effectively retired from rugby after returning from the tour, except for one appearance for Auckland in 1894, and went on to work as a farmer and tourist guide in the Bay of Plenty. In 1903 he was killed along with several others by an eruption of the Waimangu Geyser. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

C. cartwrighti

... that an illustration (pictured) of the Cartwrightia scarab Cartwrightia cartwrighti was printed on the invitations for entomologist Oscar Ling Cartwright's retirement party?
... that Doo Aphane successfully challenged a law that prevented married women from owning property in their own names in Swaziland?
... that Gunday (2014) became one of the lowest-rated films on IMDb following a vote brigading social-media campaign by Bangladeshis?
... that Indian sprinter Amiya Kumar Mallick trained under Usain Bolt's coach Glen Mills in 2014 and broke the 100 metres national record in 2016?
... that Joseph Stalin asked Franklin D. Roosevelt for aluminum, implying enough of it would bring him victory in World War II?
... that the wounds of leprosy sufferer Josephine Cafrine were said to have miraculously healed after her death?
... that Herbert Howells composed the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis for Gloucester Cathedral after having organ lessons there with Herbert Brewer as a boy?
... that "feminists must have been horrified to discover" what Sylvie Vartan's song "Comme un garçon" was about?

In the news

George Weah

George Weah (pictured) is elected President of Liberia.
Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardons jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori.
Typhoon Tembin sweeps through the southern Philippines, killing more than two hundred people and leaving dozens of others missing.
HMAS AE1, a Royal Australian Navy submarine lost at sea in 1914, is located off the Duke of York Islands.
In the Catalan election, pro-independence parties, spearheaded by the exiled Carles Puigdemont, secure a majority.

On this day...

January 1

Satellite photo of Bouvet Island

1739 – Bouvet Island (pictured) in the South Atlantic Ocean, the most remote island in the world, was discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier.
1801 – Pursuant to the Acts of Union 1800, Great Britain and Ireland merged to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1914 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the U.S. state of Florida became the first scheduled airline using a winged aircraft.
1965 – The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, which later helped the country become a republic, was founded.
2007 – Adam Air Flight 574 crashed into the sea off Polewali, Indonesia, when the pilots inadvertently disconnected the autopilot. All 102 people on board were killed.

Henry of Marcy (d. 1189) · Betsy Ross (b. 1752) · Vidya Balan (b. 1979)

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From today's featured list

Insignia of INAS 550 (Flying Fish)

There are twenty-one air squadrons in the Indian Navy. Of these, ten operate fixed-wing aircraft, eight are helicopter squadrons and the remaining three are equipped with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Building on the legacy inherited from the Royal Navy prior to Indian independence, the concept of naval aviation in India started with the establishment of Directorate of Naval Aviation at Naval Headquarters (NHQ) in early 1948. In 1951, the Fleet Requirement Unit (FRU) was formed to meet the aviation requirements of the navy. On 11 March, the FRU was commissioned at Cochin with ten newly acquired Sealand aircraft. To meet the training requirements of the pilots, the indigenously developed HAL HT-2 trainer was inducted into the FRU. On 17 January 1959, the FRU was commissioned as Indian Naval Air Squadron (INAS) 550 (insignia pictured), to be the first Indian naval air squadron. Over the decades, the Navy inducted more air squadrons with aircraft including Sea Hawks, Alizés, HAL Chetaks, Sea King 42Bs, Ilyushin Il-38s, Ka-25s, Ka-28s, Ka-31s, MiG-29Ks, HAL Dhruvs, Sikorsky SH-3s, Boeing P-8I etc. and aircraft carriers INS Vikrant, INS Viraat and INS Vikramaditya. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

A scudo coin from the Papal States, dated 1689, which depicts Pope Alexander VIII on its obverse and Saints Peter and Paul on its reverse. The term scudo, derived from the Latin scutum ("shield"), was used in Italy and the Papal states since the 16th century to refer to large coins. The currency fell out of use in the 19th century.

Coin: Antonio Travani, Papal Mint for the Papal States; image: National Numismatic Collection

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