Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 May 5

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From today's featured article

Recognition drawing of a König-class battleship

SMS Grosser Kurfürst was the second battleship of the four-ship König class of the German Imperial Navy. Her name refers to Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. Launched on 5 May 1913, she served during World War I. She was armed with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns in five twin turrets. Along with her three sister ships, König, Markgraf, and Kronprinz, Grosser Kurfürst took part in most of the fleet actions during the war, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916. The ship was subjected to heavy fire at Jutland, but was not seriously damaged. She shelled Russian positions during Operation Albion in September and October 1917. In her service career, she collided with König and Kronprinz, grounded several times, was torpedoed once, and hit a mine. After the war, Grosser Kurfürst and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow, and later scuttled by their German crews. (Full article...)

Part of the Battleships of Germany series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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Did you know...

Drawing of Katja Wulff dancing

... that Katja Wulff (drawing shown) of Hamburg, who learned expressionist dance from Rudolf von Laban, was still running her dance school in Basel at the age of 90?
... that Kardaki Temple is considered to be the only Greek temple of Doric architecture that does not have a frieze?
... that Carey Wentworth Styles founded The Atlanta Constitution, then had to surrender his interest in the newspaper when he could not pay for the purchase?
... that the Pan Inuit Trails Atlas database depicts traditional place names and routes in the Canadian Arctic used by the Inuit, showing connections between their communities from Greenland to Alaska?
... that newly-elected parliamentarian Gadeer Mreeh will be the first Druze woman to serve as a member of the Israeli Knesset?
... that Meghan Trainor's 2014 song "I'll Be Home" did not debut on the Austrian charts until January 2019?
... that Australian rules footballer Eleanor Brown was also a netballer and cross country runner in her junior career?
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In the news

Pedro Sánchez

Scientists announce that the Xiahe mandible from Baishiya Karst Cave belonged to the first known Denisovan outside Siberia and the earliest human known to have lived on the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau.
In a snap general election, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (leader Pedro Sánchez pictured) wins the most seats in both houses of the Cortes Generales.
Flooding and winds from Cyclone Kenneth kill at least 48 people, injure more than 200 others, and cause serious damage in Mozambique and the Comoro Islands.
An earthquake in Luzon, the Philippines, kills at least 18 people.

On this day

May 5: Children's Day in Japan; Cinco de Mayo (dancers pictured) in Mexico and the United States

Cinco de Mayo dancers

1654 – Cromwell's Act of Grace, which pardoned the people of Scotland for any crimes they may have committed during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, was proclaimed in Edinburgh.
1809 – Mary Dixon Kies became one of the first American women to receive a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
1936 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italian troops captured Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, unopposed.
1981 – After a sixty-six day hunger strike, Irish republican Bobby Sands died of starvation in HM Prison Maze.
1994 – American teenager Michael P. Fay was caned in Singapore for theft and vandalism, a punishment that the United States deemed to be excessive for a teenager committing a non-violent crime.

Samuel Cooper (d. 1672) · Hubert Howe Bancroft (b. 1832) · Irene Gut Opdyke (b. 1922)

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Today's featured picture

Albert Aurier (1865–1892) was a French poet, art critic and painter, associated with the Symbolist movement. The son of a notary born in Châteauroux, Aurier went to Paris in 1883 to study law, but his attention was soon drawn to art and literature; he then began to contribute to Symbolist periodicals. He reviewed the annual Salon in Le Décadent, later contributed to La Plume and, in 1889, was the managing editor of Le Moderniste Illustré. From its foundation in 1890, he contributed to the Mercure de France, which published the essays on which Aurier's fame was founded: "Les Isolés: Vincent van Gogh" and "Le Symbolisme en peinture: Paul Gauguin". After a trip to Marseille, Aurier died at the age of twenty-seven in Paris from a typhus infection. The next day, friends, writers and artists accompanied his coffin to the funeral train departing for Châteauroux, where his remains were entombed in the family grave.

This picture of Aurier was taken around 1890 and is part of the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photograph credit: Unknown; restored by Jebulon

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