Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 July 3

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From today's featured article

Peter van Geersdaele (3 July 1933 – 20 July 2018) was a British conservator best known for his work on the Sutton Hoo ship-burial. Among other work he oversaw the creation of a plaster cast of the ship impression, from which a fibreglass replica of the ship was formed. From 1949 to 1951 he engaged in moulding and casting at the Victoria and Albert Museum. From 1954 to around 1976 he was a conservator at the British Museum, rising to the position of senior conservation officer in the British and Medieval department. Following that he became an assistant chief of archaeology in the conservation division of the National Historic Sites of Canada for Parks Canada, and then the deputy head of the conservation department at the National Maritime Museum in London. He retired in 1993, and during that year's Birthday Honours was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in recognition of his services to museums. (Full article...)

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Guru Ram Rai Darbar Sahib

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... that despite owning it, the city of Athens, Georgia, has to look for a legal loophole to relocate its Confederate monument?
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... that the book The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945 has been praised for bridging widely different views of the Polish resistance found in Jewish and Polish historiographies?
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In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Hong Kong protests

More than 160 people are killed in a landslide at a jade mine in Hpakant, Myanmar.
Amidst protests (pictured), China passes the Hong Kong national security law, bypassing the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.
An attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi leaves eight people dead and seven others injured.

On this day

July 3: Independence Day in Belarus (1944)

French destroyer Mogador burning after British shellfire

324 – Roman emperor Constantine the Great defeated his former colleague Licinius at the Battle of Adrianople.
1778 – American Revolutionary War: Loyalists and Iroquois killed over 300 Patriots at the Battle of Wyoming in Pennsylvania.
1940 – Second World War: The Royal Navy attacked the French fleet (ship pictured), fearing that the ships would fall into Axis hands after the French–German armistice.
1970 – The Troubles: The British Army began the Falls Curfew in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which resulted in greater Irish republican resistance.

Dong Chang (d. 896)
Jacobus Gallus (b. 1550)
Tom Cruise (b. 1962)

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From today's featured list

The World Fantasy Award—Life Achievement is given each year to individuals for their overall career in fields related to fantasy. It is one of the World Fantasy Awards, which are given each year by the World Fantasy Convention for the best fantasy fiction and fantasy art published in English during the preceding calendar year. The Life Achievement category has been awarded annually since 1975. World Fantasy Award nominees are decided by attendees and judges at the annual World Fantasy Convention. A ballot is posted in June for attendees of the current and previous two conferences to determine two of the finalists, and a panel of five judges adds three or more nominees before voting on the overall winner of each category. Unlike the other World Fantasy Award categories, the nominees for the Life Achievement award are not announced; instead, the winner is announced along with the nominees in the other categories. During the 45 nomination years, 71 people have been given the Life Achievement Award. Multiple winners have been awarded 22 times, typically two co-winners, though five were noted in 1984. (Full list...)

Part of the World Fantasy Award series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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Today's featured picture

Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He was a prolific artist, and is best known for his genre art, with scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes.

This oil-on-panel painting, dating to between 1650 and 1655, is entitled The De Goyer family and the painter; Ostade is shown standing on the right. The other people depicted are the seated Hendrick de Goyer, steward of Heemstede; his future wife Anna Questiers, in pink; and her sister, the poet Catharina Questiers, in the centre, perhaps reading one of her poems. The painting is in the collection of the Museum Bredius in The Hague.

Painting credit: Adriaen van Ostade

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