Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 July 12

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From today's featured article

Manchester Cenotaph is a First World War memorial, with additions for later conflicts, designed by Edwin Lutyens for St Peter's Square in Manchester, England. Manchester was late in commissioning a war memorial compared to most British towns and cities, convening a war memorial committee in 1922. Lutyens' design is a variation of the one for his cenotaph in London. The memorial consists of a central cenotaph and a Stone of Remembrance flanked by twin obelisks, all features characteristic of Lutyens' works. The cenotaph is topped by an effigy of a fallen soldier and decorated with relief carvings of the imperial crown, Manchester's coat of arms and inscriptions commemorating the dead. The memorial was unveiled on 12 July 1924 by the Earl of Derby, assisted by a local resident whose three sons had died in the war. In 2014, Manchester City Council dismantled the memorial and reconstructed it at the northwest corner of St Peter's Square next to Manchester Town Hall. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Elizabeth L. Gardner

... that Elizabeth L. Gardner served as a WASP during World War II and was the subject of an iconic photo (pictured)?
... that the Arab Serai, a 16th-century roadside inn in Delhi, may have been built to shelter 300 Arab priests who accompanied the Mughal emperor's widow on her Hajj to Mecca?
... that Isao Kataoka is the only Japanese recipient of the Paul Loicq Award for contributions to international ice hockey?
... that de novo gene birth was once thought to be impossible but has now been observed in every species that has been systematically examined?
... that Maria Howard Weeden painted many portraits of African-American freedmen and freedwomen?
... that the Suvorov Monument, now on Suvorov Square, depicts its subject as the god Mars?
... that Bohumil Herlischka staged Schoenberg's Moses und Aron at the Hamburg State Opera, including a tour to Israel?
... that in two species of megabat, males have been observed to produce milk?

In the news

Megan Rapinoe

In association football, the FIFA Women's World Cup concludes with the United States (Golden Ball winner Megan Rapinoe pictured) defeating the Netherlands in the final.
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement becomes operational.
Iran announces an increase in uranium enrichment beyond the limit set in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
An airstrike on a migrant center outside Tripoli, Libya, kills at least 53 people and injures 130 others.

On this day

July 12

German tanks at Prokhorovka

1543 – King Henry VIII of England married Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife, at Hampton Court Palace.
1801 – French Revolutionary Wars: A squadron of British Royal Navy ships of the line defeated a larger squadron of ships from the Spanish and French navies in the Strait of Gibraltar.
1920 – The Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty was signed, with Soviet Russia agreeing to recognize an independent Lithuania.
1943 – World War II: German and Soviet forces engaged each other at the Battle of Prokhorovka, one of the largest tank battles in military history (German tanks pictured).
1979 – Rowdy fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago stormed the field during a promotional event in which a crate of disco records was blown up.

Alexander Hamilton (d. 1804) · Margherita Piazzola Beloch (b. 1879) · Mary Glen-Haig (b. 1918)

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From today's featured list

Godflesh

The English industrial metal band Godflesh have released eight studio albums and six extended plays, along with a number of singles, compilations and remix and live albums. The group formed in 1982 under the name Fall of Because, but they did not release any music (outside of a 1986 demo tape titled Extirpate) until 1988, when Justin Broadrick and G. C. Green changed the project's name to Godflesh and recorded a self-titled debut EP. That EP, released through the independent label Swordfish, was met with underground success and has since been recognised as one of the first industrial metal releases, if not the first. Their next release, their first through Earache Records, Streetcleaner (1989), garnered even more recognition for its musical importance. Godflesh recorded Pure in 1992, which has drawn retrospective recognition as a significant release in the post-metal genre. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Kombat (Russian for 'battalion commander') is a black-and-white photograph by Soviet photographer Max Alpert. It depicts a Soviet military officer, armed with a TT pistol, raising his unit for an attack during World War II. This work is regarded as one of the most iconic Soviet World War II photographs, yet neither the date nor the subject is known with certainty. According to the most widely accepted version, it depicts junior politruk Aleksei Gordeyevich Yeryomenko, minutes before his death on 12 July 1942, in Voroshilovgrad Oblast, now part of Ukraine. The photograph is in the archives of RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency.

Photograph credit: Max Alpert

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