Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 June 12

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From today's featured article

RSPB Dearne Valley Old Moor is an 89-hectare (220-acre) wetlands nature reserve in the Dearne Valley near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). It lies on the junction of the A633 and A6195 roads and is bordered by the Trans Pennine Trail long-distance path. Old Moor is managed to benefit bitterns, breeding waders such as lapwings, redshanks and avocets, and wintering golden plovers. Passerine birds include a small colony of tree sparrows and good numbers of willow tits, thriving despite a steep decline elsewhere in the UK. The reserve, along with others nearby, forms part of a landscape-scale project to create wildlife habitat in the Dearne Valley. As of 2018, the reserve had about 100,000 visits per year. It may benefit from future habitat creation beyond the reserve and improved accessibility, although there is also a potential threat from climate change and flooding. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Tent rocks at Göreme

... that the landscape of Göreme National Park (pictured) has been formed by volcanic activity followed by erosion?
... that Walter Feurtado compiled 58 volumes of notes while researching his guide to the Official and Other Personages of Jamaica, from 1655 to 1790?
... that a disc jockey resigned from his post at KWJB in Globe, Arizona, to work with Les Paul and Mary Ford?
... that Nepalese student Sangita Magar became a human rights activist after she survived an acid attack at the age of 16?
... that Danish oxen traders brought Lutheranism to the Dutch city of Enkhuizen, including through the establishment of an Evangelical Lutheran Church there in 1605?
... that Louis B. Anderson, Chicago's second black alderman, mortally wounded a mugger?
... that Bester Bube is a card game characterised by the promotion of two jacks to topmost position, a feature paralleled in Euchre and other historical games such as Reunion and Kontraspiel?
... that "one of the biggest concentrations of Bronze Age gold known from Britain" was found in archaeological investigations during the development of Milton Keynes?
... that the fictional character Jakub Wędrowycz—an exorcist, drunkard, moonshine producer, and poacher—is one of the icons of Polish pop culture?

In the news

Hong Kong protesters

Hundreds of thousands of people in Hong Kong protest against proposed legislation regarding extradition (protesters pictured).
In the Danish general election, centre-left and left-wing parties win a majority, with Mette Frederiksen expected to become prime minister.
In association football, the UEFA Champions League concludes with Liverpool defeating Tottenham Hotspur in the final.
Brigitte Bierlein is named interim chancellor of Austria, after a parliamentary motion of no confidence dismisses the government of Sebastian Kurz.

On this day

June 12: Dia dos Namorados in Brazil; Loving Day in the United States

Anne Frank

1240 – The Disputation of Paris began in the court of King Louis IX, in which four rabbis defended the Talmud against Nicholas Donin's accusations of blasphemy.
1864 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant pulled his troops out of the Battle of Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Virginia, ending one of the bloodiest, most lopsided battles in the American Civil War.
1942 – On her thirteenth birthday, Anne Frank (pictured) began keeping her diary during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
1994 – The Boeing 777, the world's largest twinjet, made its first flight.
1999 – In the aftermath of the bombing of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo War, the NATO-led Kosovo Force entered Kosovo with a mandate of establishing a secure environment in the territory.
2016 – At least 49 people were killed in a gun shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse, in Orlando, Florida.

Samuel Cooper (b. 1798) · Egon Schiele (b. 1890) · Billy Butlin (d. 1980)

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Today's featured picture

Gillette de Narbonne is a French opéra comique in three acts, with music by Edmond Audran and libretto by Alfred Duru and Henri Chivot. It is based on a fabliau from The Decameron, the same tale on which Shakespeare based his play All's Well That Ends Well, depicting a rejected bride posing as another woman to deceive her husband into consummating their marriage. The authors wrote for a cast largely familiar from their earlier work, including mezzo-soprano Marie Montbazon, tenor Charles Lamy and baritone Louis Morlet. The first performance of the opera took place on 11 November 1882, at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris, where it ran for 122 performances, until the following March. Productions followed in London, where the piece failed to run, as well as in Berlin, where it was more successful.

This picture is a poster from the original production of Gillette de Narbonne, produced by French printmaker Paul Maurou in 1883. This copy is in the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Poster credit: Paul Maurou; restored by Adam Cuerden

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