Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 September 29

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From today's featured article

On 29 September 1940, a mid-air collision occurred over Brocklesby, New South Wales, Australia. Two Avro Ansons of No. 2 Service Flying Training School RAAF were on a cross-country navigational exercise and made a banking turn at an altitude of 1,000 feet (300 metres). Leading Aircraftman Leonard Fuller lost sight of the aircraft below him, and the pair collided, locking together and knocking out the upper Anson's engines. The lower Anson's turret wedged into the other's port wing root, its fin and rudder balancing the upper aircraft's port tailplane. Both navigators and the pilot of the lower Anson bailed out. Fuller found that he was able to control the interlocked aircraft using his ailerons and flaps, together with the still-functioning engines on the machine underneath. After flying for five miles (eight kilometres), he made an emergency landing in a paddock. All four crewmen survived the incident, and the upper Anson was repaired and returned to flight service. The freak accident garnered news coverage around the world and, according to the Greater Hume Shire Council, it remains Brocklesby's "main claim to fame". (Full article...)

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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that the Knockeen Portal Tomb (pictured) is one of the finest examples of a dolmen in Ireland?
... that the reliable ARQ-M communications protocol on shortwave radio allowed Telex messages to be sent internationally?
... that scheduled monuments in the ceremonial county of Somerset range in age from neolithic to World War II?
... that when his company went public in 1965, John Michael Ingram had 17 stores and was a flag-bearer for Swinging London, exporting worldwide?
... that on July 28, 1903, U.S. Civil Governor William H. Taft declared the land surrounding the lighthouse in Poro Point a protected reservation?
... that the main predator of the little desert pocket mouse is the barn owl?
... that John W. Olmsted earned his blues playing lawn tennis in 1927?

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In the news

At the Berlin Marathon, Dennis Kimetto of Kenya sets a new marathon world record with a time of 2:02:57.
In Japan, Mount Ontake erupts, and the bodies of at least 31 hikers are found.
The NASA probe MAVEN and the ISRO probe Mars Orbiter Mission, India's first interplanetary craft, both enter orbit around Mars.
The National Party, led by John Key (pictured), wins a majority in the New Zealand general election.
Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group raises US$25 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, in the largest ever initial public offering.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

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On this day...

September 29: Michaelmas

1774 – The publication of The Sorrows of Young Werther raised the 24-year-old Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pictured) to international fame.
1923 – The British Mandate for Palestine came into effect, officially creating the protectorates of Palestine (to include a Jewish homeland) under British administration and Transjordan as a separate emirate under Abdullah I.
1941 – The Holocaust: German Nazis aided by their collaborators began the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, killing over 30,000 Jewish civilians in two days and thousands more in the months that followed.
1962 – Alouette 1, Canada's first satellite, and the first satellite constructed by a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, was launched.
2006 – Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 collided in mid-air with an Embraer Legacy business jet near Peixoto de Azevedo, Mato Grosso, Brazil, killing 154 people, and triggering a Brazilian aviation crisis.

More anniversaries: September 28 – September 29 – September 30

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From today's featured list

The birds of Thailand represent nearly one thousand species. At least seven bird species previously found in Thailand have since been extirpated, and approximately fifty of the country's species are globally threatened. In 1991, it was estimated that 159 resident and 23 migratory species were endangered or vulnerable due to forest clearance, illegal logging, hunting and habitat degradation, especially in the lowlands. The birds of Thailand are mainly typical of the Indomalayan realm, with affinities to the Indian subcontinent to the west, and, particularly in Southern Thailand, with the Sundaic fauna to the southeast. The northern mountains are outliers of the Tibetan Plateau with many species of montane birds, and, in winter, the avifauna is augmented by migrants from the eastern Palearctic and Himalayas. The Java sparrow has been introduced by humans, and the cattle egret (pictured) has naturally colonised. The white-eyed river martin, known only from its single wintering site in Thailand, is probably extinct. (Full list...)

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Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, (1758–1805) was a British flag officer who served in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. Born in Norfolk, Nelson entered the navy at age 13, and in 1778 he obtained his own command. During his career he suffered from seasickness, and by the time of the Trafalgar Campaign he had already lost his right arm and sight in an eye in battles in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Corsica, respectively.

In 1805 he took over the Cádiz blockade, and on 21 October of that year Nelson's fleet engaged the Franco-Spanish one at the Battle of Trafalgar. The battle was a British victory, but during the action Nelson was fatally wounded by a French sharpshooter. Numerous monuments, such as Nelson's Column, have been created in his memory, and his signal "England expects that every man will do his duty" has been widely quoted, paraphrased and referenced.

Painting: Lemuel Francis Abbott

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