Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 October 29

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From today's featured article

Tirpitz in 1943 or 1944

Operation Obviate was an unsuccessful British air raid of World War II that targeted the German battleship Tirpitz (pictured in 1943 or 1944). Conducted by Royal Air Force heavy bombers during the early hours of 29 October 1944, it sought to destroy the damaged battleship after she moved to a new anchorage near Tromsø in northern Norway. The attack followed the previous month's successful Operation Paravane, during which Tirpitz was crippled by British heavy bombers. In Operation Obviate, 38 bombers and a film aircraft departed from bases in northern Scotland. Obscured by clouds, the battleship was not directly hit, but was damaged by a bomb that exploded near her hull. A British bomber made a crash landing in Sweden after being hit by German anti-aircraft fire, and several others were damaged. The plans for the attack were reused for the next raid on the battleship, Operation Catechism, on 12 November, when Tirpitz was sunk with heavy loss of life. (Full article...)

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Castleford-type ceramic teawares with hinged or sliding lids

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... that David Bowie's first gig as lead singer was at the Green Man, Blackheath?
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... that populations of the russet rice rat have been shown to have a monogamous mating system?
... that Sunita Sharma is reportedly India's first woman cricket coach?
... that during the Siege of Eshowe, members of the Natal Native Pioneer Corps ventured out of the town under Zulu fire to retrieve maize and pumpkins to sell to the defenders?
... that in his eighties, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Whitney North Seymour Jr. co-wrote and produced a one-act play performed off-Broadway?

In the news

Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja

In motor racing, Estonians Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja (both pictured) win the World Rally Championship.
At least sixty-seven people are killed in protests and inter-ethnic clashes in Ethiopia's Oromia Region and surrounding areas.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dies during a US raid in Idlib, Syria.
The coastline of Northeast Brazil is hit by an oil spill of unknown origin.

On this day

October 29: Twin Holy Birthdays begin (Bahá'í Faith, 2019); Republic Day in Turkey (1923)

Log of the first message sent on the ARPANET

1787 – Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, based on Don Juan, the legendary fictional libertine, premiered at the Estates Theatre in Prague.
1955 – An explosion, likely caused by a World War II–era mine, capsized the Soviet ship Novorossiysk in the harbor of Sevastopol, with the loss of 608 men.
1969 – A student at UCLA sent the first message on the ARPANET (message log shown), the precursor to the Internet, to a computer at the Stanford Research Institute.
1999 – About 10,000 people died when a tropical cyclone made landfall in the Indian state of Odisha near the city of Bhubaneswar.

Dan Emmett (b. 1815) · Joseph Goebbels (b. 1897) · Jimmy Savile (d. 2011)

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Today's featured picture

The Stonemason's Yard is an early oil-on-canvas painting by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto. It depicts an informal scene in Venice, looking over a temporary stonemason's yard in the Campo San Vidal and across the Grand Canal towards the church of Santa Maria della Carità. Painted in the mid- to late 1720s, it is considered one of Canaletto's finest works. Unsigned and undated, the painting is attributed and dated by stylistic clues. It seems to combine features of Canaletto's early and mature styles, for example in the use of two undercolours, and is a very early example of the use of Prussian blue in oil painting. The informal scene is thought to have been painted for a Venetian patron, rather than a foreign visitor to Venice. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London.

Painting credit: Canaletto

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