Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 October 2

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From today's featured article

North Cascades National Park is a US national park in the state of Washington, established October 2, 1968. Covering more than 500,000 acres (200,000 ha), it features the rugged mountain peaks of the North Cascades Range, the most expansive glacial system in the contiguous United States, and vast forests with the highest degree of flora biodiversity of any US national park. It is bisected by the Skagit River, which flows through Ross Lake National Recreation Area. The region was first settled by Paleo-Indian Native Americans; when white explorers and fur trappers arrived, Skagit tribes lived there. In the 1920s several dams were built in the Skagit River valley to generate hydroelectric power. The park has one of the earliest and longest-lasting research programs dedicated to studying climate change, focusing on glacial retreat. With almost all of the park protected as wilderness, there are few structures, roads or other improvements. Heavy snows and a high risk of avalanches severely limit visitation in the winter. (Full article...)

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In the news

James P. Allison

James P. Allison (pictured) and Tasuku Honjo are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on cancer immunotherapy.
In golf, the Ryder Cup concludes with Europe defeating the United States.
In cricket, the Asia Cup concludes with India defeating Bangladesh in the final.
A magnitude 7.5 earthquake hits Sulawesi, Indonesia, causing a tsunami that kills at least 1,234 people.
Ibrahim Mohamed Solih is elected President of the Maldives.

On this day

October 2: International Day of Non-Violence; Gandhi Jayanti in India

Opus Dei logo

1263 – Scottish–Norwegian War: The armies of Norway and Scotland fought the Battle of Largs, an inconclusive engagement near the present-day town of Largs in North Ayrshire, Scotland.
1835 – Mexican dragoons dispatched to disarm settlers at Gonzales, Mexican Texas, encountered stiff resistance from a Texian militia in the Battle of Gonzales, the first armed engagement of the Texas Revolution.
1928 – Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá founded Opus Dei (logo pictured), a worldwide organization of the Catholic Church.
1941 – World War II: Nazi German forces began Operation Typhoon, an all-out offensive to begin the three-month-long Battle of Moscow.
1990 – A hijacked airliner collided with two other planes while attempting to land at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in China, resulting in a total of 128 deaths.

David Teniers III (d. 1685) · Charles Lee (d. 1782) · Sting (b. 1951)

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Today's featured picture

L'Absinthe, also known as Dans un Café, was painted between 1875 and 1876 by French artist Edgar Degas. The work portrays the lethargic and lonely figures of a woman and man with a glass of absinthe at La Nouvelle Athènes in Paris. The models are Marcellin Desboutin, a painter and engraver, and Ellen Andrée, an actress who also appeared in Manet's Chez le père Lathuille and Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party. The painting was derided by critics at its first two showings in 1876 and 1892, but sparked even greater controversy in an exhibition at the Grafton Gallery in England in 1893. The people and the absinthe represented in the painting were considered by English critics to be shockingly degraded and uncouth. It hangs in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Painting: Edgar Degas

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