Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 June 17

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From today's featured article

Group Captain Garing, Air Commodore Lukis and Group Captain Cobby

North-Eastern Area Command was one of several geographically based commands raised by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. It was formed in January 1942 and controlled units in central and northern Queensland, and Papua New Guinea. Headquartered at Townsville, Queensland, North-Eastern Area Command's responsibilities included air defence, aerial reconnaissance and protection of the sea lanes within its boundaries. Its flying units, equipped with fighters, reconnaissance bombers, dive bombers and transports, took part in the battles of Rabaul, Port Moresby and Milne Bay in 1942, and the landings at Hollandia and Aitape in 1944. The area command continued to operate after the war, but its assets and staffing were much reduced. Its responsibilities were subsumed in February 1954 by the RAAF's new functional commands: Home (operational), Training, and Maintenance Commands. The area headquarters was disbanded in December 1956 and re-formed as Headquarters RAAF Townsville. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Portrait of the Artist's
Wife with a Hat (1909)

... that during World War II, Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke safeguarded the paintings of her first husband, August Macke, who portrayed her more than 200 times (example pictured)?
... that the McCollom Institute, a high school in New Hampshire, closed in 1906 when the number of students had fallen to eleven?
... that when Hu Peizhao argued that capital investors receiving economic returns was a reasonable allocation of production gains, he was criticized by Marxists for justifying exploitation of labour?
... that Philip II of Spain approved funds for a convent because his illegitimate daughter was living there?
... that developmental researcher Marion Underwood found that a group of ninth-grade students sent an average of 1,321 text messages a month?
... that in 2016 the Indian Army advised replacing pellet guns with non-lethal pepper guns, sonic cannons, and chili grenades to manage violent riots in Jammu and Kashmir?
... that the Indonesian Declaration of Independence was drafted in the home of Japanese rear admiral Tadashi Maeda?
... that you need a key to get into Moseley Park?

In the news

Kawhi Leonard

In basketball, the Toronto Raptors defeat the Golden State Warriors, becoming the first Canadian team to win the NBA Finals (MVP Kawhi Leonard pictured).
Two oil tankers are attacked in the Gulf of Oman, amidst heightened tensions between Iran and the United States.
In ice hockey, the St. Louis Blues defeat the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup Finals.
Following mass protests, Hong Kong's government suspends pursuing proposed legislation regarding extradition.

On this day

June 17

Pope Martin I

653 – Pope Martin I (pictured) was arrested in the Lateran Palace before being taken to Constantinople and tried for high treason.
1631 – Mumtaz Mahal, wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, died in childbirth; Jahan spent the next seventeen years constructing her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
1876 – Great Sioux War: A band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne attacked a United States Army expedition and its Crow and Shoshone allies in the Battle of the Rosebud.
1940 – Second World War: Britain's worst maritime disaster occurred when at least 3,000 people were killed as a result of the troopship RMS Lancastria's sinking by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France.
1985 – On board Space Shuttle Discovery, Sultan bin Salman Al Saud became the first Arab, the first Muslim, and the first astronaut of royal blood to fly in outer space.

Birgitte Thott (b. 1610) · Susan La Flesche Picotte (b. 1865) · Emily Sartain (d. 1927)

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From today's featured list

Girls' Generation

In 2011, 44 albums reached number one on the weekly version of the Gaon Album Chart, a South Korean record chart that ranks the best-selling albums and EPs in South Korea. It is part of the Gaon Music Chart, which launched in February 2010. The data are compiled by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Music Content Industry Association, based upon weekly and monthly physical album sales by six major South Korean distributors. Girls' Generation (pictured), Big Bang and JYJ topped the chart with three different albums each, more than any other act. CNBLUE, Kim Hyun-joong and Super Junior each had two number one albums on the chart. The longest run at number one on the weekly chart was four weeks, by Girls' Generation's The Boys and Super Junior's Mr. Simple. On the monthly chart, TVXQ and Big Bang had the most number-one albums, with two each. Overall, Girls' Generation's The Boys was the Gaon Album Chart's best selling album of 2011. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Christ in the Desert is an 1872 oil-on-canvas painting by Russian artist Ivan Kramskoi, reflecting the temptation of Christ. This theme had attracted Kramskoi since the early 1860s, when he made the first sketch of the composition. The first version of the painting is dated 1867, but turned out to be unsuccessful. In the revised version, he opted for a horizontal rather than vertical format and introduced the pallid rocky desert in the background. Kramskoi used primarily cool colours to reflect the chill dawn in the background; the thoughtful figure of Christ, wearing a dark wrap with a red tunic underneath, is slightly shifted to the right of centre. He wrote: "To the question 'this is not Christ, how do you know he looked like that?', I permitted myself to reply 'but even the actual, living Christ has not been recognised'." The painting is in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

Painting credit: Ivan Kramskoi

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