Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 May 9

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From today's featured article

USS Oberrender (DE-344) was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort built for the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Lieutenant Commander Thomas Olin Oberrender, Jr., the engineering officer of the light cruiser USS Juneau, killed when that ship was torpedoed and sunk during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Laid down in November 1943, launched in January 1944, and commissioned almost four months later, Oberrender commenced convoy escort duty in the Pacific in late 1944, with an interlude protecting escort carriers during the early stages of the invasion of Leyte. She was heavily damaged by the explosion of the ammunition ship USS Mount Hood at Manus and was repaired there during November. Returning to service in December, Oberrender served on anti-submarine patrol during the Battle of Okinawa, during which she was irreparably damaged by a kamikaze attack in early May 1945. She was decommissioned and sunk as a target late that year. (Full article...)

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Murals in Bjäresjö Church

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In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center

A gas leak in Andhra Pradesh, India, kills thirteen people and injures over a thousand others.
Astronomers announce the discovery of the first black hole located in a star system visible to the naked eye.
In the Philippines, the leading television network ABS-CBN (headquarters pictured) is ordered to stop broadcasting by the National Telecommunications Commission.

On this day

May 9: Europe Day / Schuman Day in the European Union; Victory Day in various Eastern European countries; Liberation Day in the Channel Islands (1945)

Birth-control pills

328 – Athanasius took office as Patriarch of Alexandria.
1915 – World War I: British forces launched the Battle of Aubers Ridge, an offensive on the Western Front, as part of the larger Second Battle of Artois.
1960 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it would approve the use of Searle's Enovid, the first combined oral contraceptive pill (example pictured).
2018 – The Barisan Nasional coalition, which had governed Malaysia since independence in 1957, was voted out of power.

Maharana Pratap (b. 1540)
Ferdinand Monoyer (b. 1836)
Kate Molale (d. 1980)

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Today's featured picture

The Daurian redstart (Phoenicurus auroreus) is a small passerine bird from temperate Asia. The adult male has a grey crown and nape, a black face and chin, brownish mantle and wings and a large white wing patch; the chest, lower back and rump are orange, and the tail is black with orange sides. The female is brown above and paler brown below, with an orange rump and tail sides, and a large white wing patch similar to the male's. The species grows to a length of about 15 cm (6 in), and breeds in Manchuria, southeastern Russia, northeastern Mongolia, central China and Korea. A common migratory species, it is not considered to be a threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

This picture shows a male Daurian redstart photographed at Daisen Park in Osaka, Japan, in midwinter.

Photograph credit: Laitche

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