Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 July 2

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From today's featured article

Ichthyovenator is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaurs that lived in what is now Laos, sometime between 125 and 113 million years ago. The fossils of a single specimen were found between 2010 and 2014 and became the holotype of the new genus and species Ichthyovenator laosensis. It is estimated to have been 8.5 to 10.5 metres (28 to 34 feet) long and weighed around 2.4 tonnes (2.6 short tons). Ichthyovenator is considered a primitive member of the Spinosaurinae and would have had a long, shallow snout and robust forelimbs. It had a sail on its back that may have been used for sexual display or species recognition. The diet of Ichthyovenator (meaning "fish hunter") probably consisted mainly of aquatic prey. Spinosaurids were probably adapted for semiaquatic lifestyles, and also ate small dinosaurs and pterosaurs. The tall vertebral spines of Ichthyovenator's tail suggest that it may have aided in swimming—as in today's crocodilians. (Full article...)

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Isle of the Dead

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... that fans were asked to return their copies of The Lot, a 2013 compilation album by Queen drummer Roger Taylor, due to audio and typographical errors?
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... that every employee who remained with Mojang Studios for six months after its acquisition by Microsoft received a bonus of roughly $300,000?
... that during the Siege of Vicksburg, the former commander of the 2nd Missouri Infantry Regiment stated that the regiment "died once, and can die again"?
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... that Asa Binns was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, but died before he could take office?
... that the Pepsi Number Fever draw in May 1992 was supposed to have just two, one-million-peso winners, but 486,170 people made claims for a winning bottle cap?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Great Hall of the People

Amidst protests, China passes the Hong Kong national security law at the National People's Congress (building pictured), bypassing the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.
An attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi leaves eight people dead and seven others injured.
Lazarus Chakwera is elected President of Malawi in fresh elections ordered by the Constitutional Court after irregularities were uncovered during voting in 2019.

On this day

July 2

Battle of Marston Moor

1298 – Duke Albert I's army defeated the forces of the deposed Adolf of Germany in the Battle of Göllheim following Albert's election to replace Adolf as king.
1644 – The combined forces of Scottish Covenanters and English Parliamentarians defeated Royalist troops at the Battle of Marston Moor (depicted), one of the decisive encounters of the English Civil War.
1917 – Amidst weeks of race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois, white residents burned sections of the city and shot black inhabitants as they escaped the flames.
1976 – More than a year after the end of the Vietnam War, North and South Vietnam officially merged under communist rule to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Thomas Harriot (d. 1621)
Fumiko Hori (b. 1918)
Alicia Patterson (d. 1963)

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Today's featured picture

The Ijen volcano complex is located on East Java, Indonesia. An active vent at the edge of a crater lake is a source of elemental sulfur, and supports a labor-intensive mining operation. Escaping volcanic gases are channeled through a network of ceramic pipes, resulting in condensation of molten sulfur. The deep red condensate pours slowly from the ends of these pipes and pools on the ground, turning bright yellow as it solidifies. The miners break the cooled material into large pieces and carry it away in baskets. Miners carry loads of up to 90 kilograms (200 lb), up to the crater rim and then 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) down the mountainside for weighing. Most miners make this journey twice a day, and in 2010 could earn the equivalent of US$13 for their efforts.

Photograph credit: Candra Firmansyah

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