Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 June 1

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From today's featured article

SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was a German pre-dreadnought battleship of the Kaiser Friedrich III class, built as part of a program of naval expansion under Kaiser Wilhelm II. She was laid down in January 1898, launched in June 1899, and completed in May 1901, and was armed with a main battery of four 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns in two twin gun turrets. The vessel served in the Home Fleet and later the High Seas Fleet for the first seven years of her career, participating in training cruises and maneuvers. Placed in reserve in 1910, the battleship was returned to active service in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I, tasked with coastal defense in the North Sea. The ship was deployed briefly to the Baltic but saw no action. In 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was again withdrawn from service and relegated to secondary duties as a depot ship in Kiel and then a torpedo target ship. The vessel was sold for scrapping and broken up in 1920. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battleships of Germany.)

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Did you know ...

Rouen bust of Apollo, c. 1730

... that after 250 years of production, the Rouen faience industry (example pictured) was greatly reduced in the 1790s by competition from English creamware?
... that Shannon Hale gave her publisher the sequel novel Princess Academy: Palace of Stone instead of the sci-fi novel she had a contract to write?
... that in 1324, Ismail I of Granada likely directed the first use of cannons in the Iberian Peninsula?
... that an extension of the New York City Subway to Broad Street station cost three times the normal price of construction at the time, due to its location in the Financial District?
... that the members of the bands Poppin'Party and Roselia are voice actresses in the BanG Dream! anime series who can play their characters' instruments in live concerts?
... that a five-year-old boy, using paper and his mother's cigarette lighter, started a fire that consumed the transmitter of Florida radio station WEAR?
... that the origins of the modern hazmat suit can be traced to the use of PPE during the Manchurian plague of 1910–1911?
... that a Court of Minstrels, led by a King of the Minstrels, regulated the trade of travelling musicians in parts of the medieval English Midlands?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Crew Dragon launch

SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 make their first crewed launch (pictured) for NASA.
Protests and riots break out across the United States following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Costa Rica becomes the first Central American country to legalise same-sex marriage.
A Pakistan International Airlines passenger aircraft crashes in Karachi, killing ninety-seven people.

On this day

June 1: Queen's Official Birthday in New Zealand (2020); Western Australia Day (2020)

James Clark Ross

1670 – Charles II and Louis XIV signed a secret treaty, requiring that England aid France in its war against the Dutch Republic in return for Charles being paid a pension and promising to convert to Catholicism in the future.
1831 – British naval officer and explorer James Clark Ross (portrait shown) successfully led the first expedition to reach the North Magnetic Pole.
1868 – The Navajo and the U.S. government signed an agreement, allowing those interned at Fort Sumner to return to their ancestral lands.
1988 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty came into effect, banning all American and Soviet land-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 km (310 to 3,420 mi).
2015 – China's worst peacetime maritime disaster occurred when the cruise ship Dongfang zhi Xing capsized in the Yangtze, resulting in 442 deaths.

Marguerite Porete (d. 1310)
Louisa Caroline Huggins Tuthill (d. 1879)
Yarisley Silva (b. 1987)

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From today's featured list

Henry Savile

The position of Savilian Professor of Geometry was established at the University of Oxford in 1619. It was founded (at the same time as the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy) by Henry Savile (pictured), a mathematician and classical scholar who was Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and Provost of Eton College, reacting to what has been described by one 20th-century mathematician as "the wretched state of mathematical studies in England" at that time. He appointed Henry Briggs as the first professor. There have been 20 professors; Frances Kirwan, the current and first female holder of the chair, was appointed in 2017. The post has been held by a number of distinguished mathematicians. Briggs helped to develop the common logarithm, described as "one of the most useful systems for mathematics". The third professor, John Wallis, introduced the use of $\infty$ for infinity, and was regarded as "one of the leading mathematicians of his time". (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The southern plains gray langur (Semnopithecus dussumieri) is a species of Old World monkey native to the Indian subcontinent. It is about 62 cm (24 in) tall and lives in groups in various forest habitats, feeding mainly on leaves, fruit and flowers in the canopy, supplementing these with insects, gum, grasses, herbs and roots. The monkeys are considered sacred in India, and some are used by Hindu priests for religious purposes. They have adapted to living in close proximity to humans in urban settings; they are often fed by humans and accept cakes, millet, and other foods. The species is protected by law in India, but some are still persecuted for damaging crops, hunted for food and captured for pets.

This photograph of a female southern plains gray langur was taken in Kanha Tiger Reserve, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The park was created on 1 June 1955 and was designated a tiger reserve in 1973.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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