Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 June 25

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From today's featured article

The Thrill Book was an American pulp magazine published by Street & Smith in 1919. The first eight issues, edited by Harold Hersey, were a mixture of adventure and weird stories. Contributors included Greye La Spina, Charles Fulton Oursler, J. H. Coryell, and Seabury Quinn. Ronald Oliphant, Hersey's replacement, printed more science fiction and fantasy, though this included two stories Hersey had purchased from Murray Leinster. The best-known story from The Thrill Book is The Heads of Cerberus, a very early example of a novel about alternate time tracks, by Francis Stevens. Oliphant's larger budget attracted popular writers such as H. Bedford-Jones, but the magazine ran for only eight more issues, the last dated October 15, 1919. Historians regard The Thrill Book as a forerunner of Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, the first true specialized magazines in the fields of weird fiction and science fiction, respectively. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Lord Ribblesdale (1902)

... that Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale, claimed that John Singer Sargent's portrait Lord Ribblesdale (shown) "forced greatness upon me"?
... that "There is a green hill far away" was described by French composer Charles Gounod as "the most perfect hymn in the English language"?
... that Danielle Lessovitz found respite in New York's ball culture after her father's suicide, later setting her first feature film, Port Authority, within it?
... that the 1920 blind march led the British government to pass the Blind Persons Act, the first disability-specific legislation anywhere in the world?
... that the fire of Landis' Missouri Battery helped clear the way for an infantry charge at the Second Battle of Corinth?
... that rapper Big Zuu's first demos were recorded at a studio that did not allow expletives to be used?
... that Microsoft head Bill Gates giving a keynote address at the Unix Expo was likened to going "into the belly of the beast", and when a demo he was overseeing crashed, the attendees were delighted?
... that famous chefs have based their menus on recipes found in Thai funeral books?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Aleksandar Vučić

A coalition led by President Aleksandar Vučić (pictured) and his Serbian Progressive Party wins a majority in parliamentary elections boycotted by the main opposition parties.
In horse racing, Tiz the Law wins the Belmont Stakes, which serves as the initial leg of the Triple Crown for the first time.
Kenya, India, Mexico, Ireland, and Norway are elected to the United Nations Security Council as non-permanent members from 2021.

On this day

June 25: Statehood Day in Slovenia (1991)

Royal Air Force personnel being evacuated from Brest, France

1658 – Anglo-Spanish War: The largest battle ever fought on Jamaica, the three-day Battle of Rio Nuevo, began.
1910 – The United States Congress passed the Mann Act, which prohibited the interstate transport of females for "immoral purposes".
1940 – Second World War: Operation Aerial, an evacuation of nearly 200,000 Allied soldiers (pictured) from French ports, was completed.
1960 – Two cryptographers working for the U.S. National Security Agency left on vacation to Mexico, and proceeded to defect to the Soviet Union.
2006 – Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured in a cross-border raid near the Kerem Shalom crossing with the Gaza Strip, and held hostage by Hamas until 2011.

Niels, King of Denmark (d. 1134)
Henry H. Arnold (b. 1886)
Michel Foucault (d. 1984)

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Today's featured picture

Virginia is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state capital is Richmond, and Virginia Beach is the most populous city. It was the tenth state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, doing so on June 25, 1788.

This picture shows Virginia's historical coat of arms, as illustrated by American engraver Henry Mitchell in State Arms of the Union, published in 1876 by Louis Prang. The escutcheon depicts the Roman deity Virtus, standing in a pose that indicates a battle has been won. She rests on her long spear, and holds a parazonium in her other hand; both are weapons of authority rather than combat. A personification of Tyranny lies defeated at her feet, above the state motto Sic semper tyrannis (Latin for 'thus ever to tyrants'). The broken chain in Tyranny's left hand represents Virginia's freedom from Britain's restriction of colonial trade and westward expansion, and the useless whip in his right hand signifies the state's relief from the punitive laws passed by the British parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. A similar design appears on the the state's flag and seal.

Illustration credit: Henry Mitchell; restored by Andrew Shiva

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