Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 November 11

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From today's featured article

Ware with Queen Mary at the cemetery at Terlincthun

Sir Fabian Ware (1869–1949) was a British journalist and the founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. He travelled to the Transvaal Colony where he became Director of Education in 1903. Two years later he became editor of The Morning Post. He expanded the paper but was forced to retire in 1911. When the First World War started, Ware was appointed commander of a mobile ambulance unit and began marking and recording the graves of those killed. In 1916 the Department of Graves Registration and Enquiries was created with Ware at its head. On 21 May 1917 the IWGC was founded; Ware served as its vice-chairman. He ended the war as a major-general, having been mentioned in despatches twice. Post-war, Ware was heavily involved in the IWGC's function. When the Second World War broke out, he continued to serve as vice-chairman of the IWGC and was re-appointed director-general of Graves Registration and Enquiries. (Full article...)

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Larvae, pupae, and adult cactus lady beetles

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... that a Jewish girl from Jerusalem became an acclaimed performer of Indian, Javanese, Balinese, and other ethnic dance forms in the United States?
... that 100 war elephants led the Carthaginian assault on a rebel camp at the Battle of Utica?
... that four days after participating in a 12-hour-long legislative session, Joel Molina Ramírez became the first Mexican senator to die of COVID-19?
... that when it changed hands in 2019, a "mega condo" in 220 Central Park South became the most expensive residence ever sold in the United States?
... that Yemeni poet Fatima al-Suqutriyya saved the island of Socotra by writing a qasida to Imam al-Ṣalt ibn Mа̄lik requesting military help?
... that claims that Super Mario Bros. 35 was a stolen concept from fan game Super Mario Royale were denied by the developer?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Portal

Chase Elliott

Armenia and Azerbaijan sign a Russian-brokered peace treaty to end the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
In cricket, the Indian Premier League concludes with Mumbai Indians defeating Delhi Capitals in the final.
In stock car racing, Chase Elliott (pictured) wins the NASCAR Cup Series.
Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris win the United States presidential election.

On this day

November 11: Armistice Day; Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations; Veterans Day in the United States

The Cenotaph, London

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British forces and their Iroquois allies attacked a fort and the village of Cherry Valley, New York, killing 14 soldiers and 30 civilians.
1805 – War of the Third Coalition: French, Austrian and Russian units all suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Dürenstein.
1920 – In London, the Cenotaph (pictured) was unveiled and the Unknown Warrior was buried in Westminster Abbey in remembrance of the First World War.
1960 – A coup attempt by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam against President Ngo Dinh Diem was crushed after Diem falsely promised reform, allowing loyalists to rescue him.
1975 – During a constitutional crisis in Australia, Governor-General John Kerr dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's government and dissolved Parliament for a double-dissolution election.

Antony the Younger (d. 865)
Martha Annie Whiteley (b. 1866)
Abraham Sarmiento Jr. (d. 1977)

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Today's featured picture

Harold H. Piffard (1867–1938) was a British artist and illustrator. This illustration by Piffard, entitled The Thin Red Line, appeared in the 1917 edition of the magazine Canada in Khaki. It depicts a narrow belt of poppies separating a war-ravaged scene from a stretch of peaceful countryside. The scarlet poppy has come to be seen as a symbol of remembrance. Macaulay, quoting an account of a 1693 battle in Flanders, wrote that "the ground was strewn with skulls and bones of horses and men, and with fragments of hats, shoes, saddles, and holsters. The next summer the soil, fertilised by 20,000 corpses, broke forth into millions of scarlet poppies." Similarly, the opening verse of the World War I poem "In Flanders Fields" refers to poppies springing up among the graves of war victims in Belgium.

Painting credit: Harold H. Piffard; restored by Adam Cuerden

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