Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 July 18

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From today's featured article

Nelson Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and political leader. A Xhosa, in the 1940s he joined the African National Congress (ANC) party and campaigned against the white-only government's system of apartheid, a form of racial segregation that privileged whites. An African nationalist and socialist, in 1961 he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe, which led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government. He was arrested in 1962, convicted of conspiring to overthrow the state, and imprisoned for 27 years. Released in 1990 amid growing ethnic strife and violence, he became leader of the ANC and helped negotiate an end to apartheid with President F. W. de Klerk. In the country's first multi-racial election, in 1994, he was elected President of South Africa. His administration stressed racial reconciliation and measures to alleviate poverty. He retired in 1999 to focus on philanthropic causes. Controversial throughout much of his life, in South Africa he is widely regarded as the "Father of the Nation". (Full article...)

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Serra Cross

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In the news

France national football team

In association football, the FIFA World Cup concludes with France (team pictured) defeating Croatia in the final.
At least 154 people are killed and more than 220 others are injured in multiple bombings in Mastung and Bannu, Pakistan.
Scientists announce the discovery of stone tools dating to 2.1 million years ago in Shangchen, China, the oldest evidence of hominins outside Africa.
In Germany, the National Socialist Underground trial ends after more than five years with the sentencing of the main defendant, Beate Zschäpe, to life in prison.
Twelve boys and a man trapped in Thailand's Tham Luang Nang Non cave are rescued.

On this day

July 18

Silvio Berlusconi

1290 – Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England.
1806 – A gunpowder magazine explosion in Birgu, Malta, killed around 200 people.
1949 – Francisco Javier Arana, Chief of the Armed Forces of Guatemala, was killed in a shootout with supporters of President Juan José Arévalo.
1966 – Angered by racism and poverty, African American residents of the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, began to riot for six days.
2014 – Silvio Berlusconi (pictured), the former Prime Minister of Italy, who had previously been found guilty of paying for an underage prostitute, had his conviction overturned on appeal.

Bartolomé de las Casas (d. 1566) · Clare Stevenson (b. 1903) · Priyanka Chopra (b. 1982)

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Today's featured picture

Saint-Jacques Tower is a monument located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France, on Rue de Rivoli at Rue Nicolas Flamel. This 52-metre (171 ft) Flamboyant Gothic tower is all that remains of the former 16th-century Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, which was demolished in 1797 during the French Revolution. It is considered a national historic landmark.

Photograph: Benh Lieu Song

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