Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 May 20

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From today's featured article

Thomas Ellison (c. 1867 – 1904) was a New Zealand rugby union player. After being educated at Te Aute College, where he was introduced to rugby, Ellison moved to Wellington, and played for the Poneke Football Club. He was subsequently selected to represent Wellington province, and was later recruited into Joe Warbrick's privately organised 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team. Ellison scored 113 points and 43 tries on their epic 107-match tour of the British Isles, Australia and New Zealand. On his return he continued with Poneke and Wellington, and from 1892 started to refine and popularise the wing-forward system of play, which was a vital element of New Zealand rugby's style until 1932. At the first New Zealand Rugby Football Union annual general meeting in 1893, he proposed that the playing colours of the New Zealand side should be predominantly black with a silver fern—a playing strip that inspired the team’s name of All Blacks. That year he captained the New Zealand side on their tour of Australia. He retired from playing afterwards, but continued as a coach and administrator. Ellison was the author of a coaching manual, The Art of Rugby Football, published in 1902. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that the threatened sandpaper wattle (pictured) is extinct at the site it was first collected?
... that Marvin Gabrion was sentenced to death in Michigan despite the state's ban on capital punishment?
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... that the Archbishop of Arezzo, Gentile de' Becchi, was employed to teach psalms to a boy who became a cardinal at 13 and pope at 38?
... that Umeå, a 2014 European Capital of Culture, is near an arboretum that specializes in growing plants for use at northern latitudes?
... that communist parliamentarian Bhan Singh Bhaura survived the crash of Indian Airlines Flight 440?
... that Nas' "I Gave You Power" is written from the perspective of a gun?

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In the news

Narendra Damodardas Modi

In association football, Arsenal win the FA Cup and Atlético Madrid win La Liga.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Narendra Modi (pictured), wins a majority in the Indian general election.
Following an agreement between the United States and Mexico regarding water extraction, the Colorado River flows into the ocean for the first time in 16 years.
Major floods in Southeast Europe kill at least 40 people.
The ferry MV Miraj-4 capsizes in the Meghna River, Bangladesh, resulting in more than 50 deaths.
An explosion at an underground coal mine in Turkey kills 301 miners.

Ongoing: Ukrainian unrest – Chibok kidnapping
Recent deaths: Jack Brabham – Jean-Luc Dehaene – Stephen Sutton

On this day...

May 20: Day of Remembrance in Cambodia; National Day in Cameroon (1972); Independence Day in East Timor (2002); National Awakening Day in Indonesia (1908)

1217 – In the Battle of Lincoln, the last land battle of the First Barons' War, William the Marshal drove Prince Louis of France out of England.
1609 – Thomas Thorpe published the first copies of Shakespeare's sonnets, possibly without William Shakespeare's consent.
1882 – The Triple Alliance was created between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
1927 – By the Treaty of Jeddah, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud (pictured) over Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become Saudi Arabia.
1993 – "One for the Road", the series finale of American television sitcom Cheers, was watched by 42.4 million American households on its original airing.

More anniversaries: May 19 – May 20 – May 21

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It is now May 20, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

The Barrow Offshore Wind Farm, located off Walney Island in the Irish Sea, is a 30-turbine offshore wind farm of 90 MW capacity. Proposed in 2001, the wind farm was completed in 2006.

Photograph: Andy Dingley; edit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

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