Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 May 26

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From today's featured article

The history of Aston Villa Football Club since 1961 includes a European Cup victory in 1982 and a loss in the 2018 English Football League Championship play-off Final. After a change of ownership and management for the club and successive relegations, they returned in the 1971–72 season to the Second Division as champions with a record 70 points. In 1974 Ron Saunders was appointed manager, and by 1975 he had led the club back into the First Division and into European competition. The club won the league in the 1980–81 season, and the European Cup final in the next season. They were one of the founding members of the Premier League in 1992, and finished runners-up to Manchester United in the inaugural season. They reached the FA Cup Final for the first time since 1957 in 2000. The arrival of a new manager and Randy Lerner as owner in 2006 marked the start of sweeping changes throughout the club. After several years of narrowly avoiding the drop, Villa were relegated at the end of the 2015–16 season. (Full article...)

Part of the Aston Villa F.C. series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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Did you know...

Pew group, 1740s

... that the "rigidly posed" figures in English pottery pew groups of the 1740s (example pictured) may play musical instruments, or take snuff?
... that after Chinese General Dai Anlan died in the Burma Campaign, the United States awarded him the Legion of Merit, which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and reissued by President Reagan?
... that in 2008, Geraldine Heaney, Angela James, and Cammi Granato became the first three women ice hockey players inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame?
... that to be one of those buried in the Lazarevskoe Cemetery originally required permission from Peter the Great?
... that hundreds of houses for artisans, built by George Worrall Counsel in Clapham, Gloucester in the 1820s, were demolished a century later during slum clearance?
... that brown trout in the vicinity of Cline Falls can reach 20 in (51 cm) in length and weigh as much as 8 lb (3.6 kg)?
... that Troy is the first Turkish opera composed by a foreigner, the Romanian conductor Bujor Hoinic?
... that a pink Molly Goddard dress worn in the Killing Eve episode "I'll Deal with Him Later" inspired a trend of pink dresses worn to the 91st Academy Awards?

In the news

Theresa May

British Prime Minister Theresa May (pictured), under pressure over her handling of Brexit, announces her intention to resign.
The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies, led by Narendra Modi, win a majority in the Indian general election.
Joko Widodo is re-elected President of Indonesia, and his party, PDI-P, wins the largest share of legislative votes.
The Netherlands, represented by Duncan Laurence with the song "Arcade", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.

On this day

May 26: Independence Day in Georgia (1918)

Troops evacuated from Dunkirk on a destroyer

1644 – Portuguese Restoration War: Portuguese and Spanish forces both claimed victory in the Battle of Montijo.
1822 – The deadliest fire in Norwegian history took place at a church in Grue, Norway, with at least 113 deaths.
1865 – American Civil War: General Edmund Kirby Smith negotiated the surrender of his army, the only significant Confederate Army force remaining in the war.
1940 – Second World War: The mass evacuation of British, French and Belgian troops cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk begins (pictured).
1999 – Manchester United won the UEFA Champions League to become the only English football club to win three major championships in the same season.

Yuan Xingqin (d. 926) · Mamie Smith (b. 1891) · Mamo Wolde (d. 2002)

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Today's featured picture

An aerial view of the Field of Mars, a large park in central Saint Petersburg, Russia, pictured in 2016. It is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. The park's history goes back to the 18th century, when it was converted from bogland and named the Grand Meadow. Later, it was the setting for celebrations to mark Russia's victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War. Its next name, the Tsaritsyn Meadow, appears after the royal family commissioned Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli to build the Summer Palace for Empress Elizabeth. It became the Field of Mars during the reign of Paul I, becoming officially named such in 1805. Towards the end of the 18th century, the park became a military drill ground, where they erected monuments commemorating the victories of the Russian Army and where parades and military exercises took place regularly. After the February Revolution in 1917, the Field of Mars finally lost its significance as a military drill ground and became a memorial area, used to bury the revolution's honoured dead.

Photograph credit: Andrew Shiva

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