Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 August 3b

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From today's featured article

Memorial at Moorgate station

The Moorgate tube crash occurred on 28 February 1975 on the London Underground's Northern City Line; 43 people died and 74 were injured after a train failed to stop at the line's southern terminus, Moorgate station, and crashed into its end wall. It is the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground. The crash forced the first carriage into the roof of the tunnel; the second carriage collapsed at the front as it collided with the first, and the third rode over the rear of the second. The brakes were not applied and the dead man's handle was still depressed when the train crashed. The inquiry by the Department of the Environment found no fault with the train and concluded that the accident was caused by Leslie Newson, the 56-year-old driver. The post-mortem on Newson showed no medical reason to explain the crash, and a cause has never been established. After the crash, London Underground introduced a new safety system that automatically stops a train that is travelling too fast. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Main face of the Soiscél Molaisse

... that the medieval Irish book shrine known as the Soiscél Molaisse (pictured) was built in three phases, from the 8th to the 14th or 15th centuries?
... that bluegrass musician Carroll Best is credited for developing a melodic three-finger banjo style that influenced Tony Trischka and Béla Fleck?
... that the British South Africa Police's Black Boots support unit were dubbed "terr hungry" for apparently enjoying killing suspected terrorists in Rhodesia?
... that Eshmunazar I, the Phoenician king of Sidon, participated in the Neo-Babylonian campaigns against Egypt, where he seized stone sarcophagi belonging to members of the Egyptian elite?
... that Regine Velasquez, a Filipino singer and actress, was the first Asian artist to stage a solo concert at the Carnegie Hall in New York City?
... that Tetris Holding won an injunction in 2012 to stop sales of a video game clone of their famed Tetris game?
... that artist Roy Beddington illustrated three books with Irish author Stephen Gwynn and competed in the painting event at the 1948 Summer Olympics?
... that an inquiry from an engineering student led to the repair of a structural flaw at New York City's Citicorp Center?

In the news

Karsten Warholm

In Olympic athletics, Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas breaks a 26-year-old world record in the women's triple jump, and Norwegian Karsten Warholm (pictured) sets a world record in the men's 400 metre hurdles.
Wildfires in southern Turkey kill at least eight people and injure more than 800 others.
Flooding in western Maharashtra, India, results in more than 250 deaths.
Typhoon In-fa and resulting flash floods leave more than 300 people dead across China, Japan, and the Philippines.

On this day

August 3: Eid al-Mubahalah (Shia Islam, 2021)

Defence of the Arrah House, 1857 by William Tayler

1857 – Indian Rebellion: An eight-day siege (depicted) of a fortified outbuilding in Arrah occupied by 68 defenders against more than 10,000 men ended when a relief party dispersed the besiegers.
1903 – Macedonian rebels in Kruševo proclaimed a republic, which existed for ten days before Ottoman forces destroyed the town.
1913 – An agricultural workers' strike in Wheatland degenerated into a riot, becoming one of the first major farm labor confrontations in California.
1959 – Portuguese state police opened fire on striking dock workers in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, killing at least 25 people in a step that led to the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence four years later.
2005 – Mauritanian president Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was overthrown in a military coup while he attended the funeral of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

Christopher Anstey (d. 1805)
Martha Stewart (b. 1941)
Alexander Mair (d. 1969)

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Today's featured picture

Wheat Fields is a series of dozens of paintings by the Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh borne out of his religious studies and sermons, connection to nature, appreciation of manual laborers and desire to provide a means of offering comfort to others. This 1888 work, titled Corn Harvest in Provence, is one of many oil-on-canvas paintings he created that included them. This harvest scene was painted just outside Arles, and exemplifies Van Gogh's use of colour in full brilliance to depict the "burning brightness of the heat wave". The painting is in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh

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